Oliver Sacks, Neurologist and 'Awakenings' Author, Dies at 82
Robin Williams (left) and Robert De Niro in ‘Awakenings,’ based on Oliver Sacks’s memoir.
Oliver Sacks, the neurologist whose memoir Awakenings was the basis for the 1990 Oscar-nominated film, died Sunday at his New York City home. He was 82.
His personal assistant, Kate Edgar, told the New York Times that Sacks died of cancer. Sacks had written an essay for the Times in February, discussing that he was in the late stages of terminal cancer following a melanoma in his eye spreading to his liver.
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A medical doctor, Sacks wrote several books, many of which centered on people with neurological disorders. His 1973 nonfiction book about his work aiding post-encephalitic patients was adapted into the film of the same name, which starred Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. It earned three Academy Award nominations, including best picture and best screenplay.
Sacks was a frequent contributor for publications including The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. His essay The Last Hippie, which appeared in the Review of Books in 1992, was adapted into the 2011 film The Music Never Stopped, starring J.K. Simmons as a father whose brain tumor prevents him from storing new memories.
Born in London, Sacks moved to New York City in 1965, where he practiced neurology ever since. He was an instructor and then clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 1966 to 2007, followed by an appointed professor at the New York University School of Medicine from 1992 to 2007 and a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University from 2007 to 2012.
Sacks, who never married, earned honorary doctorates from numerous institutions, including the University of Oxford, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2008.
