Celebrities w/Kidney Disease

[MomoMcSleepy]

Famous Kidney DONORS:

Name                  Occupation          Birth          Death              Known for

LeVar Burton          Actor               16-Feb-1957                            La Forge on Star Trek: TNG
Jake Garn              Politician          12-Oct-1932                             US Senator from Utah, 1974-93
Oscar Robertson     Basketball          24-Nov-1938                         NBA's Most Valuable Player 1964
Franz Vranitzky       Head of State     4-Oct-1937                          Chancellor of Austria, 1986–97


Famous Kidney RECIPIENTS:

Name                 Occupation         Birth           Death               Known for

Erma Bombeck       Columnist            21-Feb-1927    22-Apr-1996    The Grass is Always Greener
John Brockington   Football               7-Sep-1948                          Green Bay Packers running back
Steven Cojocaru     Critic                   5-Jan-1965                         Entertainment Tonight fashion critic
Freddy Fender         Musician              4-Jun-1937       14-Oct-2006         Before the Next Teardrop Falls
James Holshouser   Politician              8-Oct-1934                            Governor of North Carolina, 1973-77
Ken Howard        Actor                    28-Mar-1944                        The White Shadow
Bruno Kreisky         Head of State         22-Jan-1911      29-Jul-1990         Chancellor of Austria, 1970-83
George Lopez        Comic                   23-Apr-1961                      Stand-up comic, George Lopez Show
Jay Miner           Engineer                31-May-1932   20-Jun-1994       Father of the Amiga Computer
Kerry Packer          Business                17-Dec-1937    26-Dec-2005      Richest man in Australia
Billy Preston          Musician                9-Sep-1946      6-Jun-2006        Wrote You Are So Beautiful
Zulu                    Actor                     17-Oct-1937      3-May-2004        Kono on Hawaii 5-O

Found on: http://www.nndb.com/event/578/000091305/

Lavar Burton donated a kidney?  I love him!  Reading Rainbow and Star Trek TNG....he's now even cooler...

[deniferfer]

This is such a neat thread!! I didn't know so many celebrities had kidney problems. I have been kinda following about Nick Cannon a little bit. I thought about sending the link for IHD on twitter. Cuz everyone need support,  In case he ever does end up

Lavar Burton donated a kidney?  I love him!  Reading Rainbow and Star Trek TNG....he's now even cooler...

on D.

I love him too!! I was really amazed to find out he donated. He really is awesome!

[MooseMom]

Sean Elliot and Alonzo Mourning are both ex-NBA stars who had fsgs and required transplantation.  Both returned to the NBA with Sean Elliot being the first ever to do so.  Since the playoffs are in full swing, it would be great if these two could team up and do a PSA about organ donation.

[dialysisadvocate]

It's too bad that some of these celebrities don't fight for improved care in dialysis units... Of course, I have been told that when you know someone, are connected in some way to the dialysis industry, etc that you receive better care, more attention--

Perhaps some of these celebrities should take a look at some inspection reports

opinions of roberta mikles

[MaryD]

I'll put in a vote for Jimmy Little, an Australian aborigine who died about a month ago, aged in his 70's.  There was a very big memorial service for him yesterday (I think at the Sydney Opera House).

He was a country and western type singer whose best song in the '60's was something about a direct telephone line to God - made it to no 1.

My particular interest in him was that in about 2005 I read about him travelling around the outback doing peritoneal dialysis in between his concerts.  I knew I was heading for dialysis and the idea of not being attached to a hospital was amazing.

He is also remembered for the work he did for aboriginal renal patients.  He spent a lot of time working with them and there are many more dialysis units scattered around the outback thanks to his efforts.

From all reports he was a really thoughtful, gentle, generous person

RIP Jimmy

[MooseMom]

That's a great story, MaryD.  I have read about how difficult it is for indigenous people in Australia to get dialysis if they do not happen to live near an urban center.

[galvo]

Yeah! R.I.P. Jimmy, a top bloke. The tune was The Royal Telephone. Check it out on YouTube.

[okarol]

August 8, 2012 | From extratv.com
Composer/conductor Marvin Hamlisch, who died Monday in Los Angeles after a brief, undisclosed illness, recently had a kidney transplant.
 
FOX News reporter Cal Thomas wrote, “Recently he had a kidney transplant, which was known only to a few people. He told his wife, Terre Blair, he would rather die than be ahead of someone on a waiting list. He didn’t have to worry. A close friend donated one of his own kidneys. Terre said the new kidney was functioning well, but complications from an unrelated condition drove him into a coma from which he never recovered.”
It is unknown exactly when the transplant took place, or what the additional condition was.
In his nearly 50-year career, Hamlisch won three Academy Awards, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globes and even a Pulitzer (for “A Chorus Line”). He is one of just 11 artists to win all four major awards, an achievement known as the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony).
 Hamlisch served as principal pops conductor for symphony orchestras in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Dallas, Pasadena, Seattle and San Diego.
 

[jeannea]

My mom told me recently she had read an article that Bobby Rydell had a kidney and liver transplant. (Although many might not know who he is any more.)

[raidym]

Really Cool thread and it didn't stray too much..

[Fatkidney]

Sarah Hyland, who plays the oldest daughter on Modern Family, had a kidney transplant earlier this year.  Her dad was her donor.  She has kidney dysplasia.

[okarol]

Some of these are not kidney related, but transplant related:
29 Celebrities Who Have Received Organ Transplants http://www.ranker.com/list/celebrities-who-have-received-organ-transplants/ranker-celebrities?page=1

[CalamityEC]

Walter Matthau recently died of kidney failure.  He had a long and excruciating discussion about his disease with Larry King on television, which demonstrated how little most healthy people are able to understand about the disease.  John Ehrlichman, a former Nixon aide during the Watergate scandal, and one of the Justices of the Canadian Supreme Court also recently developed renal failure, and both of them refused to go on dialysis and preferred death instead.

Stauffenberg, once again you twist the truth.  Walter Matthau did not die of kidney disease or "prefer death" as you claim above.  ESRD was a contributing factor but not the actual cause of death.

From Wikipedia the cause of Walter Matthau's death:

Walter Matthau died of full cardiac arrest on July 1, 2000, in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 79. After heart surgery, doctors discovered that he had colon cancer, which had spread to his liver, lungs and brain. However, on his death certificate the causes of death are listed as cardiac arrest and atherosclerotic heart disease, with ESRD and atrial fibrillation added as "other significant conditions contributing to death but not related to [primary] cause..." (see [1]) with no mention of the cancer.

See Stauffenberg...he had a heart attack...now unless you are claiming he willed the heart attack on himself he hardly "preferred death".  If you can't get your facts right please don't post at all.

I don't completely believe everything on Wikipedia. Anybody, from a professor to your 10 year old cousin can log on and edit the information. While doing research for a paper last year, I found a lot of info on that site was factually incorrect based on other research from encyclopedias, researchers and the government. Every professor I've had to write a paper for in the last year or so, have all said that they do not accept research from Wikipedia.

I dislike using Wikipedia.  I mean, it's great if you need to find a celebrity's birthday, but for the most part, it's just a starting point. 

Another celebrity is Sarah Hyland.  She plays Haley Dunphy on Modern Family.  "At age of 9, she was diagnosed with multicystic dysplastic kidney and on April 13, 2012 had a kidney transplant. She received her father's kidney."

[MooseMom]

I don't know if anyone here is a Formula 1 fan, but if you are (or even if you aren't), perhaps you caught the newest Ron Howard film, Rush.  It's about the famous rivalry between British driver James Hunt and Austrian driver Niki Lauda.  Lauda crashed during the German Grand Prix in 1976 and suffered terrible facial and body burns yet returned to racing after only six weeks of recovery.  Anyway, I had heard this story before seeing the movie but did not know much about either driver, so after doing a bit of research, I discovered that Lauda has had two kidney transplants.  What struck me as odd is as I was learning more about him, the transplants were treated as mere asterisks in the story of his life.  I guess to us kidney patients, transplants are a much bigger deal than they are to posters to Wikipedia! 

Lauda is still alive and is still involved in Formula 1.  He founded his own airline (anyone remember Lauda Air?) and is still a respected entrepreneur.  Not bad for someone who has required TWO transplants (by what I can tell, he had two living donors, his brother and this his girlfriend to whom he is now married.  I cannot find out if he ever needed dialysis.).