Great one-armed ones (31 photos)

Do you know why some people don't like to use umbrellas? Because for this they lack the third front limb, that is, the upper limb. There’s a cigarette in one hand, a mobile phone in the other, there’s nothing to take rain protection with. For a non-umbrella fan, being deprived of his right or left hand is the same as being buried alive. And even the loss of a little finger will become the tragedy of an entire unhappy life.

An example of phenomenal will and optimism, the American Kitty Smith, who was left without both arms as a child, learned to do with her feet what billions of full-fledged earthlings and earthlings “cannot reach.” And she also made a fortune. An unusual site has already written about the fate of Kitty, the “dynamo woman,” here. This time we will meet the luminaries of the human spirit, who were a little less fortunate, and still had one functional hand in place. Meet the great one-armed people and compare their modest talents with your enormous but unrealized potential, ladies and gentlemen.

1. Admiral Horatio Nelson

One funny story from English and, let’s say, English-speaking life is connected with the great naval commander Nelson. Before the monetary reform in the country, before the monetary reform in the country, the admiral's surname was used by accountants, bank tellers and others who connected their lives with banknotes to any of the three currency units - penny, shilling, pound - that fell into profit or loss in the singular. “One Nelson” was the name for the sum “111”. "Two Nelsons" - "212". When it came to the score in a game of cricket, then the values of 111 and 222, for some reason, were considered the most unlucky by the Australians.

And all because there is an idea in the memory of peoples that Admiral Horatio Nelson was supposedly one-armed, one-legged and one-eyed. In fact, the hero of the war for British naval supremacy lost his right arm in 1797 while trying to capture the capital of the Canaries, the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The sailor’s eye, also his right one, was wounded, but it worked, although not at full strength, and the protagonist of the Battle of Trafalgar, won “with one left,” always had two legs.

It is very possible that the three units mentioned above are not connected with the alleged injuries of the vice admiral, but with his three great victories - at Copenhagen, on the Nile and at Trafalgar. In the last battle, Nelson was mortally wounded by a French sniper, and his body was brought home in a barrel of brandy. And they installed it in stone on the famous square in the center of famous London.

2. Photographer Josef Sudek

The great Czech landscape photographer Josef Sudek studied to be a bookbinder in his youth. In 1915, at the age of 19, Sudek went to war, where a year later on the Italian front he was wounded in his right arm, which had to be amputated in the field.

There, during the war, a one-armed disabled soldier was given a camera instead of a gun - to film, they say, how we beat the Entente. Josef liked photography, discovered his talent, and after the war in Prague he enrolled in photography courses. A military pension allowed Sudek to create for the sake of creating.

In 1924 Sudek founded the progressive Czech Photographic Society. Assistants from among his students and admirers of his talent helped him carry heavy plate cameras from place to place, and Joseph Sudek created most of the famous pictorialist works without leaving the workshop. Now it is a museum.

Famed as the "Poet of Prague", Sudek was a very delicate, shy person. Perhaps this was the effect of the injury on his psyche. The photographer was never married and never appeared at the opening days of his personal exhibitions. But during his modest, solitary life, he published 16 books devoted to the poetics, practice and theory of photography. On the cover of one of them you can see a one-armed mannequin lying in a thicket of wild flowers. We don’t have this photo, but we do have several other reproductions of pictorial photographs created with the help of two eyes and just one left hand.

Perhaps the day will come when everyone who played Bezrukov will be invited to the movies to play someone without arms. A violinist missing one arm, or a sculptor, or a guitarist. Or they won’t invite you - it doesn’t matter to us. After all, we must first find out who we will be talking about in this supposed film adaptation of life - the unusual life of unusual people, whose skills and talents were no worse, or even better, than those of those others who were not hindered by the extra 5 fingers.

3. Violinist Angel Tavira

The legend of Mexican music, Professor Angel Tavira Maldonado was born in 1924 in the town of Corral Falso into a musical family, where the head was his grandfather, composer and performer Juan Bartolo Tavira. At the age of six, Angel was already playing the saxophone, double bass, guitar and violin. Then I went to music school. One day, at a festival in honor of the city's patron saint, Tavira's right hand was torn off by fireworks. It seemed that this was the end of his music studies, but his relatives encouraged the shocked boy and insisted that he continue playing and composing. Of all the instruments of the Mexican son calentano, the violin remained accessible for mastery: a bow was attached to Angel’s non-functional prosthetic right hand and he was sent to study at the National Conservatory of Mexico. The one-armed violinist Tavira became an outstanding composer of traditional Mexican music, a keeper of folk culture. With his left hand, he transcribed many songs and plays from his region onto sheet music. The energetic man did not focus on musical creativity; he was a farmer, a goldsmith, and a teacher.

The one-armed violinist Tavira became an outstanding composer of traditional Mexican music and a guardian of folk culture. With his left hand, he transcribed many songs and plays from his region onto sheet music. The energetic man did not focus on musical creativity; he was a farmer, a goldsmith, and a teacher.

In 2005, Tavira was offered to play the main role in the film “The Violin” directed by Francisco Vargas Quevedo. For his belated film debut, Angel, a colorful, touching old man, was awarded the “Best Actor” prize at the Cannes Film Festival. And in Sao Paulo - a special certificate from the jury of the local film forum. The whole world learned and started talking about the one-armed violinist.

In 2008, Angel Tavira Maldonado died of kidney disease at the age of 84.

4. Actor Jamel Debbouze

In medium and long shots in films, the famous French actor of Moroccan origin Jamel Debbouze does not look like a disabled person - rather, a person whose main habit is to keep his right hand in the pocket of his coat, jacket or trousers.

Debbuza cannot be called literally one-armed. In January 1990, when Jamel was 14 years old, he was hit by a train traveling at 150 km/h at Trapp station. As a result of the accident, the future artist’s right arm atrophied and stopped developing, hanging from his shoulder like a whip.

After the injury, the young guy could no longer do any physical work, and Zhamel had no ability for physics or programming. But he loved and knew how to make people laugh, often putting on a one-man show for friends, teachers and neighbors out of the blue, defusing stressful situations. The hungry, self-taught cripple was accepted into the improvisation theater out of pity. Debbuz received his first monetary income in his life in the form of a fee for a funny performance in a play. And in 1992 he played his first film role.

At the peak of his success, the actor and showman, who in 2004 was entrusted with carrying the Olympic flame across Paris (with one left hand, of course), feels great. He is happy in his family life, he named his son Leon - in honor of Leo Tolstoy, in 2012 four new films with his participation will be released.

5. Pianist Paul Wittgenstein

The elder brother of the outstanding philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul, lost his arm in the First World War, fighting for Austria-Hungary, in a battle with the Russians. Before going to the front, Paul was already an accomplished pianist. What’s interesting is that he knew the poor young artist Adolf Hitler. The wealthy Viennese Wittgenstein family was often visited by such great composers as Brahms and Mahler, and the growing maestro loved to play four hands with Richard Strauss himself.

Returning from the war as an invalid, Wittgenstein decided to continue his musical career. With his surviving left hand, he learned to play absolutely incredible chords on the piano keyboard, and actively used foot pedals. Popular composers wrote unusual pieces for the master’s only hand, including Maurice Ravel, Benjamin Britten and, of course, old Richard Strauss. During the Second World War, Paul, who, as a Jew, was exposed to a concentration camp, managed to escape to the United States, where he lived in New York until his death in 1961. Wittgenstein is the author of the textbook “School for the Left Hand,” published in 1957 in London. Writer John Barchilon wrote a biographical novel, The Crown Prince, about the unique musician.

We conclude an unusual, perhaps touching, story about two great human forces - the strength of spirit and the strength of talent. In the final chapter, the story will be about our contemporaries - active people with whom, if desired, you can communicate on the Internet or in real life. Heroes, as they say, live nearby.
First parts: 1 + 2

6. Biker Sergei Fesenko

A fanatical motorcyclist from the Ukrainian Zaporozhye, Sergei Fesenko, has a paralyzed right arm. She does not feel any mosquito bites or strong pinches. Indirect (and only indirect) blame for the disability of the 27-year-old biker lies with the sellers of the heavy motorcycle and the difficult employees of the Ukrainian traffic police.

In 2008, Fesenko saw an advertisement for the sale of a Yamaha R6 supermotorcycle. I went to Kirovograd. The powerful, iconic machine, which reaches a speed of 100 km/h in 3 seconds, scared Sergei at first - he had never driven such a zealous car before. The sellers offered to transfer the purchase to Zaporozhye by train, but Fesenko got behind the wheel, convincing the sellers that everything would work out without problems.

Sergei returned to Zaporozhye at night and entered the city at five in the morning. A kilometer from the garage, Fesenko tried to stop a traffic police patrol. The biker did not yet have all the documents required by the bureaucracy for a motorcycle, so he drifted off and tried to get away. The chase ended with the inexperienced Yamaha driver crashing into a pole. The motorcycle “survived”, but Sergei’s right arm was paralyzed due to a traumatic brain injury and subsequent coma. Friends and relatives categorically did not advise getting on a dangerous motorcycle again, but Fesenko tried. The gas and brake handles, as well as the clutch, were moved to the left side of the steering wheel. The motorcyclist quickly learned to squeeze the gas and clutch with his left hand. He taped his paralyzed hand to the steering wheel with tape. I learned how to pull on gloves with my teeth. The fulcrum became the legs.

Sergei Fesenko, with his enthusiasm and love for a full-blooded life, fiercely violates the law - traffic cops insist that you cannot ride a converted motorcycle on the roads of Ukraine. However, thanks to the joyful emotions of riding, sensitivity is gradually returning to the biker’s paralyzed hand. I would like to believe that the heavy, super-powerful Yamaha will take pity on the rider and will not let the guy down again.

7. Guitarist Keith Xander

The amazing guy Xander from Liverpool, singer, composer and guitarist, who has no hand on his right hand, amazed the great Jon Bon Jovi this summer. The American rock legend, having heard the one-armed Keith and his band “The Peace Pirates” play, took the British guys to warm up his show, which gathered 50 thousand spectators at the stadium in Manchester.

Keith Xander was born with a malformed stump below his elbow instead of his normal right arm. The music teacher admitted that the boy was certainly gifted, but would never be able to master the guitar. Stubborn Keith did not listen to the teacher, found another one - more optimistic and... achieved his finest hour. Instead of fingers, Xander has a special movable hook that can be used to play the strings both by strumming and plucking.

The immediate plans of the amazing guitarist and his band are to record their debut album. With his creativity, Keith Xander calls on disabled people around the world not to become limp, not to stomp on the porch, but to study music and... not to listen to their first teachers.

8. Drummer Rick Allen

A master drummer with a rock 'n' roll surname, Allen is perhaps the most famous one-armed musician of our time. From 1978 to this day, Rick has been drumming in the famous English hard rock band Def Leppard.

Richard lost his left arm on December 31, 1984 in a car accident when, while overtaking in a left-hand drive car, he lost control and crashed into a wall. Allen was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the car, his left arm being severed. Despite several operations, the limb could not be implanted.

And then, for Rick Allen, the miracle mechanics created the world’s coolest hybrid drum set, to play which the musician had to additionally train his legs. Today Allen heads the Raven Drum Foundation, a charitable foundation that helps disabled war veterans and people in critical situations.