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The Unlikely Celebrity: Bill Sackter's Triumph Over Disability
Contributor(s): Walz, Thomas H. (Author), Morrow, Barry (Foreword by)
ISBN: 0809322137     ISBN-13: 9780809322138
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
OUR PRICE:   $21.78  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: February 1999
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Annotation: Thomas Walz tells the story of Bill Sackter, a man who spent nearly half a century in a Minnesota mental institution and emerged to blossom into a most unlikely celebrity. Bill Sackter was committed to the Faribault State Hospital at the age of seven, there to remain until he was in his fifties. At the time of his commitment, Bill's father had recently died; thus his sole contact with his family came through rare letters from his mother.


Some years after his discharge from Faribault as a result of the movement to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill in the 1960s, Bill enjoyed a serendipitous encounter with a young college student and part-time musician, Barry Morrow. Bill became part of the Morrow family and a regular in Morrow's music group. When Morrow accepted a job at the School of Social Work at the University of Iowa, Bill followed him to Iowa City and was put in charge of a small coffee service.


Bill became an important part of the University of Iowa community, and Wild Bill's Coffeeshop developed into an institution. A cheerful man of great good will who was a harmonica virtuoso, Bill began to inspire affectionate legends, and his life as a celebrity began in earnest. He was named Iowa's Handicapped Person of the Year in 1977, and two television movies were made about his life"--Bill," which earned Emmy awards for cowriter Barry Morrow and Mickey Rooney (as Bill) in 1981, and "Bill on His Own "in 1983. Years later, Morrow would earn an Oscar for his script of "Rain Man.
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Through vignettes ranging from hilarious to near tragic. Walz reveals a remarkable human being. An account of Bill's life in an institution is necessarily part of the story, but there ismuch more: Bill's role in helping a young child recover from a coma, his menagerie of friends, his love for a pet parakeet, his late-life Bar Mitzvah, his failure as a woodworker, his success as Santa, and his dignified death at the age of seventy.

Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Business
Dewey: B
LCCN: 98-06260
Physical Information: 0.46" H x 5.99" W x 8.97" (0.56 lbs) 144 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Heartland
- Cultural Region - Midwest
- Geographic Orientation - Iowa
- Sex & Gender - Masculine
- Topical - Mentally Challenged
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
The story of Bill Sackter, a man who spent nearly 50 years in a mental institution and emerged to blossom into an unlikely celebrity. Walz provides an account of Sackter's life, exploring how he was committed at the age of seven, later becoming Handicapped Person of the Year when in his 70s.