Steven Spielberg

Legendary film director Steven Spielberg was diagnosed with dyslexia in his 60s. School administrators thought he was lazy. He was bullied by classmates, and his troubles in school played a part in his career.

Making movies gave him a place to channel his energies. Feeling like an outsider helped him co-write the hit movie, The Goonies, about a group of quirky friends who didn’t quite fit in. Finding out as an adult that he has dyslexia was like “the last puzzle piece to a great mystery that I’ve kept to myself.”

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is the physicist mega-genius who developed the laws of relativity and shaped the ways we think of the world today, even with the complications of dyslexia. He is looked at as one of the smartest people in the history of humankind.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”

Tim Tebow

Former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow has dyslexia. His father and brother do, too. He was diagnosed in elementary school and found ways to work around his reading difficulties. Tebow is among many NFL players who’ve been open about their learning and attention issues.

“It has to do with finding out how you learn,” he said. “I’m not somebody that opens a playbook and just turns and reads and reads. So, I just made flashcards. I take each one, and then boom, when I’m traveling, I just flip through it. That really helped me. Writing it down, flipping through and quizzing myself, that was a great way for me to do it.”

Octavia Spencer

Octavia Spencer has won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her acting. She’s also a children’s author who knows what a challenge reading can be for some kids. That’s because Spencer has dyslexia. She vividly recalls how scared

she was as a child when she had to read aloud in class. “I was paralyzed with fear because I kept inverting words and dropping words,” she has said. However, she stresses that dyslexia shouldn’t prevent kids from pursuing their dreams. “[It] doesn’t mean that you’re not intelligent—it just means that your brain functions differently,” she has said.

Henry Winkler

Henry Winkler is an actor, director, and author who has dyslexia and difficulty with math. On Happy Days, he played “The Fonz,” a role so iconic that his character’s jacket now hangs in the Smithsonian. But a new generation of fans may know him better for coauthoring the best-selling Hank Zipzer children’s series. Like Winkler, Hank struggles with learning issues but doesn’t let them get in the way of his dreams. Winkler also visits schools to talk about learning

issues. To honor his educational work, the Queen of England made him an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2011.

Jamie Oliver

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has built an empire with his best-selling cookbooks, prime-time TV shows, restaurants and cookware. He also has dyslexia and said he didn’t finish reading

his first book until he was 38. “I get bored easily,” he said. The chef calls those with dyslexia ‘lucky’ – and the long list of famous people with the condition proves his point.

“I genuinely think that when someone says to you, ‘Johnny’s got dyslexia’, you should get down on your knees, shake the child’s hand and say: ‘Well done, you lucky, lucky boy.”

Jessica Watson

Jessica Watson is the youngest to sail solo and unassisted around the world. The 16-year-old was a preschooler when she was diagnosed with severe dyslexia – the lone child in

the class unable to count to 10 or recite the alphabet. But after enduring the stigma of illiteracy, Jessica’s fate changed at age 11 when mom Julie read her Lionheart, the story of Jesse Martin’s solo world voyage.

“What people don’t realize is that I was reading to her because she couldn’t read,” says Watson’s mom, describing her private pain battling dyslexia in her daughter. “I was helping her access a world she couldn’t reach.”

Jennifer Aniston

Actress Jennifer Aniston revealed that she doesn’t read all that often because of dyslexia, which hurt her self-esteem during some of her formative years. She found out she had the

learning disability in her 20’s.

“I thought I wasn’t smart. I just couldn’t retain anything….now I had this great discovery. I felt like all of my childhood trauma-dies, tragedies, dramas were explained.”

Jay Leno

Jay Leno is a hilarious comedian, actor, writer, producer, and television host with dyslexia. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's The Tonight
Show with Jay Leno

from 1992 to 2009. He has been inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and hosted Jay Leno's Garage since 2014. “I discovered that being a little bit different actually sets you aside in show business; it makes you special. You always try to turn your negative into a positive.”

Richard Branson

Billionaire Richard Branson struggled in school and dropped out at age 16 - a decision that ultimately lead to the creation of Virgin Records.

His entrepreneurial projects

started in the music industry and expanded into other sectors. Branson is also known for his adventurous spirit and sporting achievements, including crossing oceans in a hot air balloon. Says Branson, “Being dyslexic can actually help in the outside world. I see some things clearer than other people do because I have to simplify things to help me, and that has helped others.”

Keira Knightly

Keira Knightley struggled with reading in school and was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 6. Her parents took quick notice and used an incentive to improve her reading. The incentive was that if she was able to learn to read,
her parents would hire an agent

for her. “I am a slow reader. I always loved words, which is a strange thing given that I couldn’t actually read them.”

Erin Brockovich

Erin Brockovich is a famous lawyer and environmental activist who despite her dyslexia won a $333 million class-action lawsuit — the largest of its kind in U.S. history. For her, the

toughest adversary wasn’t the multi-billion dollar corporation she was against, nor the thousands of pages of medical records and legal briefs; it was reading at school. It was also the fact that due to her inabilities in the classroom, she endured a lot of teasing from other kids.

Like most dyslexics, Brockovich never had a name for her difficulties. That was until much later in life when she was diagnosed with dyslexia.

Steve Jobs

If you are reading this on an iPad, iPhone, iMac, or other Apple device, you have Steve Jobs to thank. As the occasional CEO of the company, he has spearheaded some of its

most famous creations. His dyslexia didn’t stop him from attending college where he met Steve Wozniak. They built a computer in the dorm and founded Apple Computers in 1976 with $1,300 in startup money. The rest is history.

A lot of dyslexics, like Apple founder Steve Jobs, are highly intelligent, even gifted. "We're learning that individuals with dyslexia tend to have strengths in other areas, in creativity and imagination. They think outside the box.”

John Lennon

John Lennon was part of the phenomenon group that would change music forever: The Beatles.

Their first hit was “Love Me Do” and they would soon top the charts across the world.

John Lennon's innovative and beautiful music with the Beatles would not have existed without his perseverance through dyslexia. Lennon excelled at art and music while attending high school, but his grades were poor and he had trouble spelling. He was rowdy in the classroom and was called a troublemaker.

Tom Cruise

Famous Hollywood actor
Tom Cruise started off in such notable films as “Risky Business” and “Top Gun.” Other award-garnering performances have included “Jerry Maguire,”

“A Few Good Men”, and the “Mission: Impossible” film series. Cruise spent his childhood trying to hide his dyslexia from his peers. Diagnosed at the age of seven, Cruise describes his younger self as a "functional illiterate". He could barely read in high school or through his earliest roles.

Whoopi Goldberg

Academy Award-winning actress, comedian, and television host
Whoopi Goldberg remembers growing up under a number of false labels. “When I was a kid they didn’t call it

dyslexia. They called it… being slow, or you were retarded…” Her mother knew that those labels were false, and that in fact she was dealing with something else.

“I’m dyslexic, so there weren’t a whole lot of books in my early life. But I did love stories. I love fairy tales and I love spooky stories. Anything with a good 25 to 30-minute brain trip for me to go on. I still like to be read to.”

Cher

Grammy-winning singer Cher was NOT diagnosed with dyslexia at school, yet she was unable to read and she dropped out of high school at 16. She went untested in school and her dyslexia was unrecognized— many teachers thought

she wasn't trying. She was finally diagnosed at age 30 when looking for solutions to her own dyslexic child.

Cher’s dyslexia lead her to became an avid listener and she was able to retain information most others missed.