The Real Story Behind “A Beautiful Mind”

A Mind Ruined, A Relationship Shattered

A year after his second committal, the pressure was too much for Alicia to bear and rather than standing beside him (the picture of an ever-doting wife like the fabrication played by Jennifer Connolly) Alicia couldn’t take it. She divorced John in 1962. With nowhere else to go, the genius mathematician returned to Eleanor Stein and the son he had abandoned, John. Despite this, Alicia tried to remain involved and in 1970 gave him a home as a boarder at her house. For a period of time, he went about his business, haunting the maths department at Princeton. Students called him ‘The Phantom’.