List of famous left-handed people

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List of left-handed people

Definition and Guide

  • A left-hander is a person who is more skillful with the left hand than with the right: a left-hander will probably (but not limited to) use the left hand for tasks such as personal care, cooking, and so on.
  • Writing with right hand alone does not necessarily indicate one's right-handedness. Since the world is right-handed-dominant and many natural born left-handers were (mistakenly) taught to write with their right hand. Consequently, a lot of born left-handers may write with their right hand but use their left hand for every else.
  • However, if a person writes with left hand, then he/she is most likely left-handed.
  • People who are forced to use their left-hand because their right hand is not available for use (for example, due to injury or disease) should not be included on this list.
  • If new subject needs to be added, please provide citation/reference. Do not add a subject merely because another websites list him/her as a left-handed people. Make sure you validate the subject with facts supported by sources like biography, photograph or painting.
  • If source is not accessible, add a brief description after the name to indicate what task does the subjects use their left hand.


Contents

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Royalty and nobility

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Political and governmental leaders

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American

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Other nationalities

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Criminals

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Artists


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Authors

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Musicians and composers

Chris Rea - Writes left-handed, plays guitar right-handed.

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Actors

Honorable Mention: Right-handed actor Gary Cooper played left-handed athlete Lou Gehrig in the film The Pride of the Yankees. For scenes requiring him to bat left-handed, Cooper wore a Yankee uniform with Gehrig's number 4 mirror-reversed on his back. Cooper batted the ball right-handed, then ran to third base (not first). The film was then optically reversed, turning Cooper into a southpaw.

In 1953, while starring in a live television drama, right-handed actor Jack Lemmon decided to play his character left-handed, purely as an actor's exercise. Two years later, when Lemmon met James Cagney for the first time, Cagney's first words to Lemmon were "Are you still pretending you're left-handed?"

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Film directors

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Athletes

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Sportspeople

Left-handedness is highly prized in baseball, among both hitters and pitchers. For hitters, the natural motion of swinging at a pitch gives a left-handed batter momentum running down the line to first. Left-handed batters typically also have a better view of the pitch thrown by a right-handed pitcher. Also, left-handers may have more room to hit if the first baseman is watching a runner on first, and some ball parks have short right-field fences, making it easier for left-handers to hit home runs. A left-handed batter runs a shorter distance to first base than a rightie, because he takes his stance in the batting box on the right side of home plate. Likewise, left-handed pitchers are valuable, in part because many left-handed sluggers have severe trouble hitting against left-handed pitchers. See left-handed specialist.

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Position players

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Pitchers

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Basketball

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Billiards and snooker

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Bowling

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Boxing


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Cricket

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Fencing

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Figure-skating

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Football (soccer)

Nigzy Gregory (the wirral footballer)
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American Football

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Golf

  • Jerry Barber - Converted to right-handedness in childhood.
  • Bonny Bryant
  • Sir Bob Charles
  • Russ Cochran
  • Connie Decker
  • Ben Hogan - Played right-handed, but was actually left-handed. When Hogan began his career, he was told that he should golf right-handed, with his left hand leading the swing; supposedly, this would enable him to benefit from the greater strength in his leading hand. If this were true, then all right-handed golfers should play left-handed! In his later years, Hogan remarked that his greatest regret about his career was that he had allowed himself to be talked into playing right-handed.
  • Phil Mickelson - Plays left-handed, but is actually right-handed.
  • Johnny Miller - Left-handed, but played right-handed.
  • Nick Price - Left-handed, but plays right-handed
  • Mike Weir - Plays left-handed, but is actually right-handed.
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Ice Hockey

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Motor sport

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Rugby Union

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Tennis

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Wrestling and professional wrestling

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Other sports

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Philosophers

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Miscellaneous

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Disputed left-handed people / Ambidextrous

The following list includes person’s handedness remains controversial/unknown and person who are ambidextrous. ( If you want to move the following people to other section in this list, please first consult the discussion page and provide appropreate source and reference. (e.g. biography, photograph, paintings, etc))


  • Alexander the Great - disputed.
  • Melissa Sue Anderson - (Possibly ambidextrous)
  • Roscoe Arbuckle - (Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle) Ambidextrous. Could throw two custard pies simultaneously, one with each hand, with unerring accuracy.
  • Lord Baden-Powell - Ambidextrous
  • Billy the Kid - Often cited as left-handed, and is identified as such in "The Left-Handed Gun", a teleplay (and later a screenplay) by Gore Vidal. The evidence usually cited for this is a well-known photograph, in which Billy is holding his pistol in his left hand (the hand on the right, as seen by the viewer). However, the photograph is a "tintype", which mirror-reverses its image, thus Billy is actually holding the pistol in his right hand.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte – claimed by some individuals and websites to be left-handed, but primary sources (e.g. biography, photograph, paintings) supports such claim is still yet to be found.
  • Charlemagne[1] Template:Fact claimed by some individuals and websites to be left-handed, but primary sources (e.g. biography, photograph, paintings) supports such claim is still yet to be found.
  • Dick Van Dyke - Ambidextrous, uses his left hand to draw caricatures and cartoons.
  • Albert Einstein –claimed by some individuals and websites to be left-handed, but photos show him writing on a blackboard with his right arm; and also, playing violin with his right arm ( Refer to discussion page )
  • James A. Garfield - Was able to write Latin and Greek simultaneously, with one pen in each hand, but was left-handed by preference.
  • Joan of Arc – She has been described as left-handed on very slim evidence. The only known surviving portrait of her which dates from her lifetime depicts her raising a sword in her left hand. However, this portrait is a crude sketch, and there is no reason to believe that the (unknown) artist ever actually saw her in person. We have no real evidence for Joan of Arc's left-handedness, and some circumstantial evidence against it. During the weeks of her imprisonment preceding her trial for witchcraft, she was watched intensively. If she had shown a preference for her left hand (the so-called "devil's hand"), this fact would almost certainly have been mentioned in the prosecution's testimony against her.
  • Jack the Ripper - Some doctors originally thought the wounds inflicted by this serial killer indicated a left-handed killer, though they were basing this idea on a frontal attack when he could have, as most authorities now believe, attacked from behind or from the side when the woman was already on the ground.
  • Pablo Picasso – see discussion page.
  • Nas (rapper) - Has been seen using both (probably ambidextrous).
  • Mark Twain – some believe that he is left-handed, but some other believe that he was not ; and it is also an exaggeration to say that he could write with his left when he got tired with his right hand.
  • James Woods - (Ambidextrous)
  • William McHugh
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Referencing

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See also

de:Liste berühmter Linkshänder sv:Lista över vänsterhänta personer

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