Kim Peek Tribute Video from the 2014 Peek Award

About the Peek Award Screenwriter and filmmaker, Barry Morrow, first met Salt Lake City native and mega-savant, Kim Peek, in 1984 at a conference in Arlington, Texas. Barry was so taken with Kim, that when Kim asked Barry to write a story about him, what emerged was the Academy Award winning film, Rain Man. Thanks to the widespread acclaim of Rain Man, and the incredible support of his father, Fancis Peek, Kim came out of his shell by traveling the world with Barry's Oscar statuette in tow to increase awareness of disabilities through the media and improve education for children with special needs. In 2011, after the Oscar statuette had been held by over 425,000 people, covered in scratches and dents, and with the gold nearly rubbed off, Barry wanted to honor Kim's legacy by permanently loaning his Oscar to the City of Salt Lake as a living memorial and testament to the character of Kim and Francis. That year, Mayor Ralph Becker declared November 3rd Kim Peek Day, and the Utah Film Center established the Peek Award for Disability in Film to continue honoring the visionary filmmakers and artists who celebrate the dignity and compassion of the human spirit, and whose work raises awareness about disability issues that affect many of the loved ones around us. The Peek Award for Disability in Film celebrates the legacy of Kim Peek, which honors a subject, director, or actor in a film who embodies the dynamism of Rain Man and Kim Peek. _______________________ About Kim Peek Laurence Kim Peek (November 11, 1951 -- December 19, 2009) was an American savant. Known as a "megasavant", he had an exceptional memory, but he also experienced social difficulties, possibly resulting from a developmental disability related to congenital brain abnormalities. He was the inspiration for the character of Raymond Babbitt, played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie Rain Man. Unlike Babbitt, who had savant syndrome, Peek probably also had FG syndrome. Peek was born in Salt Lake City, Utah with macrocephaly, damage to the cerebellum, and agenesis of the corpus callosum, a condition in which the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is missing; in Peek's case, secondary connectors such as the anterior commissure were also missing. There is speculation that his neurons made unusual connections due to the absence of a corpus callosum, which resulted in an increased memory capacity. According to Peek's father, Fran Peek, Kim was able to memorize things from the age of 16--20 months. He read books, memorized them, and then placed them upside down on the shelf to show that he had finished reading them, a practice he maintained. He could speed through a book in about an hour and remember almost everything he had read, memorizing vast amounts of information in subjects ranging from history and literature, geography and numbers to sports, music and dates. He could read two pages at once, one with each eye. According to an article in The Times newspaper, he could accurately recall the contents of at least 12,000 books. Peek lived in Murray, Utah and spent a considerable amount of his time reading at the Salt Lake City Library and demonstrating his capabilities at schools, with great help from his father. Peek did not walk until the age of four and then in a sidelong manner. He could not button up his shirt and had difficulty with other ordinary motor skills, presumably due to his damaged cerebellum, which normally coordinates motor activities. In psychological testing, Peek scored below average (87) on general IQ tests. In 1984, screenwriter Barry Morrow met Peek in Arlington, Texas; the result of the meeting was the 1988 movie Rain Man. The character of Raymond Babbitt, although inspired by Peek, was portrayed as having autism. Dustin Hoffman, who played Babbitt, met Peek and other savants to get an understanding of their nature and to play the role accurately and methodically. The movie caused a number of requests for appearances, which increased Peek's self-confidence. In 2004, scientists at the Center for Bioinformatics Space Life Sciences at the NASA Ames Research Center examined Peek with a series of tests including computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. The intent was to create a three-dimensional view of his brain structure and to compare the images to MRI scans done in 1988. These were the first tentative approaches in using non-invasive technology to further investigate Kim's savant abilities. A 2008 study concluded that Peek probably had FG syndrome, a rare genetic syndrome linked to the X chromosome which causes physical anomalies such as hypotonia (low muscle tone) and macrocephaly (abnormally large head). Kim Peek died of a heart attack on December 19, 2009 at age 58.