Word: merricks
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...bisexual chic. In his 1976 film debut, he played Thomas Jerome Newton, the cat-eyed extraterrestrial of The Man Who Fell to Earth. Now, British-born David Bowie, onetime idol of the glitter set, has come in for a landing on the legitimate stage. His typically freakish role; John Merrick, the deformed central figure in that Broadway hit The Elephant Man, which opens in Denver this week. Says Bowie of his assorted personas: "It looks like I'm always going to have a physical or psychological limp...
...Frank B. Merrick, Reporter by Laurence I. Barrett and Walter Isaacson/Detroit
...milder forms of the disease than Merrick's, physicians are now able to deal with much of the deformity of neurofibromatosis by surgery. Some of these operations are for purely cosmetic reasons. In one recent case, for example, plastic surgery was used to treat a girl of eleven who had a fold of fibrotic skin hanging from her genital area. Said Dr. P. Bela Fodor, who performed the operation at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan:"There's a good chance she will never have a recurrence and that she will go on to live a normal...
...Manhattan, has spent 18 years undergoing surgery on her face and body; the tumors are removed as soon as they appear. For Courtemanche, president of the National Neurofibromatosis Foundation, the continuing ordeal is preferable to no treatment at all. She recalls seeing, at 17. a picture of John Merrick. Says she: "I thought, 'This is what I'll look like in a couple of years.' I didn't really know if I wanted to live that long...
...still poorly understood, medical researchers have recently been focusing on a blood protein that is unusually high in some victims of the disease. But a cure seems far off, and Courtemanche and the foundation are concentrating their efforts on showing victims how to live with the disorder. Says Courtemanche: "Merrick bore up with tremendous dignity and grace. You have to develop an inner peace with yourself - otherwise you're just condemned to a living hell...