Bruce Willis (Aphasia)
The most recent and high-profile case of an actor who must abandon his career for health reasons involved Bruce Willis last month. The Die Hard and Pulp Fiction actor announced that he was retiring from acting due to aphasia, a language disorder characterized by "the inability or difficulty to communicate through speech, writing or mimicry" and that responds to a series of brain injuries. It is not a disease, but a symptom caused by previous damage, which can be, for example, triggered by a stroke.
Michael J. Fox (Parkinson)
Another of the best-known cases involved Michael J. Fox in the 1990s. The star of Back to the Future, one of the most powerful youth profiles in Hollywood in the eighties, saw practically his entire professional future squandered after being diagnosed with Parkinson's. Fox was filming the movie Doc Hollywood (1991) when he began to show the first symptoms. The doctors told him that he would be lucky if ten years later he could still be in front of the spotlight. Since then he has maintained a very low profile and practically only participates in documentaries or interviews.
Jamie-Lynn Sigler (multiple sclerosis)
One of the great stars of the series The Sopranos, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who played Meadow Soprano, Tony Soprano's daughter, throughout the six seasons, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She was in her early twenties and was filming the fourth season of the HBO fiction. Since then she has been living with a degenerative disease of the nervous system that can affect speech, the brain and cause damage to the spinal cord, with its consequent effects on mobility. Fortunately, advances in medicine have meant that people diagnosed with MS have a life expectancy similar to that of the rest of the population, although with significant alterations of the nervous system. In Sigler's case, she confessed in an interview that she cannot walk more than 10 minutes without getting tired and that she cannot even run.
Rock Hudson (HIV)
One of Hollywood's greatest heartthrobs also starred in one of the most high-profile sc-ndals of all time. Rock Hudson, prototype of the tall, handsome, seductive, desired man, revealed to the media that he suffered from HIV. A day earlier he had already been the talk of the tabloids, who revealed that the Hollywood heartthrob, a master of courtship in Douglas Sirk's melodramas, was actually homos---al. A little more than three months after revealing that he had AIDS, Rock Hudson died. He was the most famous star to die from this virus, about which very little was known at the time. The last five years of Hudson's life were spent away from the spotlight, filming small roles in irrelevant productions.
Liza Minnelli (encephalitis)
The great star of Cabaret, winner of an Oscar in 1973 for her masterful portrayal of Sally Bowles in Bob Fosse's musical, suffered serious encephalitis in 2000. This disease, usually caused by a virus, causes inflammation of the brain. which in the most serious cases, like Minnelli's, can cause serious neurological consequences. Minnelli recovered, but doctors told her that she probably would never be able to walk well again. Years later she showed that she was not like that, since she was seen parading at various social events. However, the possible irreversible damage generated by encephalitis would have taken its toll over time, and Minnelli recently appeared at the Oscars in a wheelchair, a situation probably caused by the disease that caused her death in the 2000. Since then his collaborations in film and television have been limited, with the notable exception of his role in Arrested Development.
Jack Nicholson (senile dementia)
Another of the great stars retired from the spotlight is Jack Nicholson. The actor from Chinatown, The Shining and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest suffers from senile dementia, which prevents him from fully devoting himself to cinema. In fact, the last film he shot dates back to 2010, How do you know if...? Since then he has been seen at very few social events, and in those that he allowed himself to be captured by photographers he appeared very unimpaired and distracted. According to data published by the World Health Organization (WHO), between 5% and 8% of the population aged 60 or over suffers from dementia at some point in their lives, especially during old age.
