This is a list of notable people who have been described as recluses, individuals who live in voluntary seclusion from the public and society. Excluded are religious hermits, as well as people who live otherwise normal lives but value their privacy.
Name | Year of birth | Year of death | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Syd Barrett [1] [2] | 1946 | 2006 | English singer-songwriter, former leader of the band Pink Floyd |
Marlon Brando [3] [4] | 1924 | 2004 | American actor |
Maria Callas [5] [6] | 1923 | 1977 | Greek opera singer |
Huguette Clark [7] [8] | 1906 | 2011 | American heiress and philanthropist |
John Deacon [9] | 1951 | English musician, songwriter and former member of the band Queen | |
Emily Dickinson [10] [11] | 1830 | 1886 | American poet |
Eliza Emily Donnithorne [12] [13] | 1826 | 1886 | Australian eccentric, rumored model for Miss Havisham in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens |
Enya [14] [15] | 1961 | Irish singer and musician | |
Rod Evans [16] | 1947 | English singer who was the original lead singer of the band Deep Purple | |
Bobby Fischer [17] [18] | 1943 | 2008 | American former world chess champion |
Greta Garbo [19] [20] [21] [22] | 1905 | 1990 | Swedish-American actress |
Glenn Gould [23] | 1932 | 1982 | Canadian pianist |
Alexander Grothendieck [24] [25] [26] | 1928 | 2014 | German-French mathematician |
Mark Hollis [27] | 1955 | 2019 | British singer, instrumentalist and songwriter who was the lead vocalist of the band Talk Talk |
Howard Hughes [19] [28] | 1905 | 1976 | American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film director, and philanthropist |
Ted Kaczynski [29] [30] | 1942 | 2023 | American domestic terrorist known as the Unabomber |
Harper Lee [31] | 1926 | 2016 | American author, wrote To Kill a Mockingbird |
Lee Mavers [32] | 1962 | English singer-songwriter and the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of The La's | |
Pordenone Montanari [33] [34] | 1937 | Italian painter, sculptor and philosopher | |
William Onyeabor [35] [36] | 1946 | 2017 | Nigerian funk musician |
Marcel Proust [37] [38] | 1871 | 1922 | French novelist of In Search of Lost Time |
Thomas Pynchon [31] | 1937 | American novelist | |
Tommy Quickly [39] | 1945 | British singer, known for hit song "Tip of My Tongue" | |
J. D. Salinger [19] [31] | 1919 | 2010 | American author who wrote The Catcher in the Rye |
Phil Spector [40] | 1940 | 2021 | American record producer, songwriter and convicted murderer |
Layne Staley [41] [42] | 1967 | 2002 | American singer and songwriter who was the original lead vocalist of the band Alice in Chains |
Sly Stone [43] [44] | 1943 | American musician, songwriter and record producer | |
Patrick Süskind [45] | 1949 | German writer and screenwriter | |
John Swartzwelder [46] [47] | 1949 | American comedy writer best known for his work on The Simpsons | |
Akira Toriyama [48] [49] [50] | 1955 | 2024 | Japanese manga artist and character designer, best known for creating Dragon Ball |
Bill Watterson [51] [52] | 1958 | American cartoonist and the creator of Calvin and Hobbes | |
Brian Wilson [53] [54] | 1942 | American musician, songwriter and record producer who led the Beach Boys | |
Ida Wood [55] | 1838 | 1932 | American socialite who remained in seclusion in a New York City hotel suite with two relatives for decades. |
Jocky Wilson [56] | 1950 | 2012 | Scottish former world darts champion |
Name | Work | Author | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Miss Havisham [57] | Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | |
Lestat de Lioncourt [58] | The Vampire Chronicles | Anne Rice | A recluse for extended periods throughout the series. |
Boo Radley [59] | To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | A recluse created by a famous recluse. |
The Grinch [60] | How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and its adaptations | Dr. Seuss | |
Shrek [60] | Shrek and its adaptations | William Steig |
Akira Toriyama was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the popular manga series Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon. Toriyama came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga with his works highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin known mononymously as Enya, is an Irish composer and singer-songwriter. Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist, with an estimated 80 million albums sold worldwide, and the second-best-selling music act from Ireland overall, after the rock band U2. Her music has been widely recognised for featuring multi-layers of her own vocals and instrumentation, lengthened reverb, and interwoven elements of Celtic music. She has been composing her own repertoire for over four decades.
Catherine Bush is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. Bush began writing songs at age 11. She was signed to EMI Records after Pink Floyd's David Gilmour helped produce a demo tape. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights", becoming the first female artist to achieve a UK number one with a solely self-written song. Her debut album, The Kick Inside, was released that same year.
Sir Michael Philip Jagger is an English musician. He is best known as the lead singer and one of the founder members of the Rolling Stones. Jagger has co-written most of the band's songs with lead guitarist Keith Richards; their songwriting partnership is one of the most successful in rock music history. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has been widely described as one of the most popular and influential front men in the history of rock music. His distinctive voice and energetic live performances, along with Richards' guitar style, have been the Rolling Stones' trademark throughout the band's career. Early in his career, Jagger gained notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and has often been portrayed as a countercultural figure.
Clannad were an Irish band formed in 1970 in Gweedore, County Donegal, by siblings Ciarán, Pól and Moya Ui Bhraonáin and their twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Ó Dúgáin (Duggan). They have adopted various musical styles throughout their history. Beginning as an acoustic folk group mainly performing rearranged traditional Irish songs in Irish, they expanded their sound with original songs in English, vocal harmonies, electronic keyboards, and elements of rock, Celtic, new age, smooth jazz, and Gregorian chant.
Miss Havisham is a character in Charles Dickens' 1861 novel Great Expectations. She is a wealthy spinster, once jilted at the altar, who insists on wearing her wedding dress for the rest of her life. She lives in a ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place". In the novel, she schemes to have the young orphan, Pip, fall in love with Estella, so that Estella can "break his heart".
Megan Martha White is an American retired musician who served as the drummer and occasional singer of the rock duo the White Stripes. A key artist of the 2000s garage rock revival, White is noted for her "primal" style of playing and elusive media image. Though she typically performed backing vocals for the band, she occasionally sang lead for one song on each album, including "In the Cold, Cold Night" and "Passive Manipulation".
Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya is the first greatest hits album by Irish singer-songwriter Enya, released on 3 November 1997 by WEA. Following her worldwide promotional tour in support of her previous album The Memory of Trees (1995), Enya began selecting tracks for a compilation album in early 1997, as her recording contract with WEA permitted her to do so. The album contains songs from her debut album Enya (1987) to The Memory of Trees (1995) and two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...".
John Joseph Swartzwelder Jr. is an American comedy writer and novelist, best known for his work on the animated television series The Simpsons. Born in Seattle, Washington, Swartzwelder began his career working in advertising. He was later hired to work on comedy series Saturday Night Live in the mid-1980s as a writer. He later contributed to fellow writer George Meyer's short-lived Army Man magazine, which led him to join the original writing team of The Simpsons, beginning in 1989.
William Andrews Clark Sr. was an American entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads, as well as a politician.
Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting and artistic reinventions, Swift is a leading figure in popular culture and the subject of widespread public interest.
"Ready or Not" is a song by American hip-hop group Fugees, from their second studio album, The Score (1996). The song contains a sample of "Boadicea" (1987) by Irish singer Enya, and its chorus is based on "Ready or Not Here I Come " by the Delfonics.
Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. He was a mathematics prodigy, but abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a primitive lifestyle.
Evelyn Juers is an Australian writer and publisher.
Penske Media Corporation is an American mass media, publishing, and information services company based in Los Angeles and New York City. It publishes more than 20 digital and print brands, including Variety, Rolling Stone, Women's Wear Daily, Deadline Hollywood, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Boy Genius Report, Robb Report, Artforum, ARTNews, and others. PMC's Chairman and CEO since founding is Jay Penske.
William Ezechukwu Onyeabor was a Nigerian funk musician and businessman. His music was widely heard in Nigeria in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Despite his success, he remained an enigmatic, private, and reclusive figure.
Huguette Marcelle Clark was an American painter, heiress, and philanthropist, who became well known again late in life as a recluse, living in hospitals for more than 20 years while her various mansions remained unoccupied.
Who is William Onyeabor? is a 2013 compilation album by William Onyeabor released by Luaka Bop. The music was compiled by Uchenna Ikonne and was the first official re-issue of his music. Metacritic described the album as receiving "Universal acclaim" with Pitchfork citing it as one of the "best reissues" and NPR listing it as one of the best albums of 2013.
Industrial Society and Its Future, also known as the Unabomber Manifesto, is a 1995 anti-technology essay by Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber". The manifesto contends that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of natural destruction brought about by technology, while forcing humans to adapt to machinery, creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human freedom and potential. The 35,000-word manifesto formed the ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society. The manifesto states that the public largely accepts individual technological advancements as purely positive without accounting for their overall effect, including the erosion of local and individual freedom and autonomy.
The reclusive genius kept the behind-the-scenes aspects of his life tightly under wraps and was even rumoured to have fired a cleaning lady for her loose tongue.
he lived like a hermit in his home, which was open to a few privileged friends