1. Kim Peek was the inspiration for the character Raymond Babbitt in the 1988 movie Rain Man.
12 Facts About Kim Peek
1. 2.
Laurence Kim Peek was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Francis "Fran" Peek and Jeanne W Buchi.
3.
When he was 9 months old, Kim Peek was designated "retarded" who should be institutionalized and forgotten; his parents refused this suggestion and raised him at home.
4.
Kim Peek read by scanning the left page with his left eye, while reading the right page with his right eye.
5.
Kim Peek resided in Murray, Utah, and spent a considerable amount of his time reading at the Salt Lake City Library.
6.
At age 7, Kim Peek attended school, but he was tutored privately; by age 14 he had completed a high school curriculum, but the local school system would not recognize his achievement.
7.
Fran Kim Peek did not fully appreciate his son's talents until 1979, when Kim Peek accurately predicted that the plummeting Skylab space station would land near Perth, Western Australia.
8.
The character of Raymond Babbitt, although inspired by Kim Peek, was depicted as being an individual with autism.
9.
Kim Peek enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news items were on the front page of major newspapers that day.
10.
Kim Peek's parents had divorced in 1975, resulting in Fran being Kim Peek's sole caregiver.
11.
Kim Peek died of a heart attack at his home on December 19,2009, aged 58.
12.
Barry Morrow put his own Oscar statuette on permanent loan to Salt Lake City in memory of Kim Peek and put forward the money for the Peek Award, which "pays tribute to artists, media makers, and film subjects who are positively impacting our society's perception of people with disabilities" and is given out by the Utah Film Center.