16 Celebrities Who You May Not have Known are Deaf in One Ear

Given that Sheikh Hasina has been in politics for four decades, mostly at the head of her party - also taking into consideration that she's survived assassination attempts, military coups, arrest and ill-health, AND that she is one of the world's few female leaders, a democratic feat achieved in predominantly Islamic Bangladesh - I'm going to assume that Sheikh Hasina is very resourceful.

Not the sort to let a little one-sided hearing define her anyway, nor become an obstacle to achieving anything.

The Premier undoubtedly has a close circle of clued-in officials, with perfect understanding of when and where she can hear, the power to ensure favorable aural environments, and the ability to act as her ears when nothing else could be helped.

Thus the most powerful single-sided deaf person in the world can get on with running her country.

We are used to seeing Maggie Q in all action roles. Yet this actress paid for her fame with right side hearing loss.

While filming a stunt scene, an explosion was triggered so close to her, that Maggie's ear-drum was completely blown out.

Her left ear was also temporarily damaged, but she managed to regain the hearing in that one.

She's never publicly said which movie was to blame. It could have been any of them!

The majority of her films and television shows involve things exploding left, right and center. Just think of Live Free or Die Hard, Mission Impossible III, Nikita, Naked Weapon or any other that you care to mention, then tell me that I'm right.

More infamous than famous, John Gotti was one of America's most notorious Mafia dons, before the law finally caught up with him in 1992. He died a decade later in prison.

What's rarely mentioned, in the gruesome retelling of his crime career, is the fact that Godfather John Gotti was deaf in one ear.

Apparently it's an occupational hazard.  Gotti's own capo Dominick 'Skinny Dom' Pizzonia had single-sided deafness. He used that in his trial, as an excuse to change his guilty plea, stating that he'd misheard the judge's question.

Another unilaterally hearing associate was mobster-turned-FBI-informant John Bologna.

Mafia informer Ralph Natale also revealed that he was partially deaf in one ear. His hearing was lost when a shotgun accidentally went off, right next to him, within the enclosed confines of a car.

For a while there, The Who held the Guinness World Record for the loudest live concerts on Earth.

In 1976, 120 decibels were registered 50 meters away from the speakers at their Charlton gig.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. But John Entwhistle is now profoundly deaf, and Pete Townshend still suffers tinnitus as a result.

The latter qualifies here because he was already deaf in his right ear by then.

During the early '60s, Keith Moon used explosives on his drum kit. Pete Townshend was standing close by at the time, and the impact destroyed his ear drum on that side.

Hearing loss issues are why The Who rarely play live anymore (reputedly to Roger Daltrey's extreme frustration). John can't hear well enough to keep time with the rest of the band, and Pete has been warned that he risks what little hearing remains for himself.

Oscar-winning actress Holly Hunter's performances are always passionate. Words like 'intense' and 'edgy' abound, when critics describe her work or film-makers recall working with her.

Nancy Miller - executive producer on Saving Grace - recalled twelve hour meetings with the actress analyzing every scene in the movie, admitting that such scrutiny 'made me a better writer'.

'I think that my intensity comes from being profoundly deaf,' Holly Hunter once told a Daily Telegraph reporter. 'I have no hearing at all in my left ear.'

She went down with mumps when she was nine years old. It caused her single-sided hearing. Afterwards, Holly became so paranoid about missing social nuances that she fell into the habit of paying acute attention to everything.

When I was growing up, my parents were big Beach Boys fans. I was listening to them in the cradle. So when I went deaf in one ear aged nine, Brian Wilson was already there.

The first things I ever learned - about what was happening to me - were gleaned from Beach Boys biographies and interviews with the great man himself.

These tidbits included secret information that I've harbored ever since, like single-sided deaf people hear musical harmonies much better. Why else would folksie types stick fingers in one ear? And how else could Brian Wilson so exquisitely orchestrate his band?

For all that, I wish Brian hadn't been unilaterally deaf, because of the way that it reputedly occurred.

Murry Wilson - their mentally and physically abusive father - made the Wilson brothers' childhoods a living Hell. He was actually recorded verbally attacking Brian, captured on studio out-takes from the earliest albums of The Beach Boys.

"We had a sh*tty childhood," Dennis Wilson told the press, but only three years after his father was safely dead. "Our Dad used to whale on us."

Back in the 1960s, though Brian never publicly commented upon his deafness, his friends lined up to tell biographers what he said in private - parental violence had been the culprit, when he was only six years old. 

The most commonly reported story is that Murry smacked his eldest son over the side of his head, either with a 2 x 4 plank or with his fist, until Brian Wilson was deaf in his right ear.

More recently, Brian told an interviewer that he was born partially deaf. However, a decade before, he'd written that his hearing loss followed a beating from a neighborhood bully. Around the same time, he also had this to say:

"(My Dad) scared me so much I actually got scared into making good records."

American comedian and political satirist Stephen Colbert has been deaf on one side since childhood.

By the very nature of his profession, he tends to joke about this a lot. Hence the stories surrounding it can be quite confused and contradictory. Piecing it together reveals the true horror behind the humor.

When Stephen was ten years old, his doctor identified a small tumor growing behind his right ear-drum. He was taken in for treatment, but the surgeon managed to perforate said ear-drum. Then decided to remove it along with the tumor.

The sharp-witted host of The Colbert Report is deaf in his right ear, because ear-drums are quite fundamental for hearing.

Movie and television actor Rob Lowe has been deaf in his right ear since infancy.

Nobody actually knows for certain what caused it. He was ill with a virus aged about eight or nine months. There has been some speculation since that it was undiagnosed mumps, but that's only guesswork.

It's certainly never held him back! Rob Lowe became internationally famous while he was still in his teens. He was a founding member of the Hollywood Brat Pack in the 1980s, and has never really dropped out of the limelight since.

These days, he's recognized mainly for his starring roles in The West Wing and Brothers & Sisters.

Growing up half deaf never really bothered Rob, because he didn't know any differently. Though his patience with background noise is now seriously waning.

'It's funny as I get older, it's harder and harder to be in, like, really loud restaurants drive me ballistic. That's really tough for me.' Rob told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 'Other than that, it's something I don't really think about.'

British actress Stephanie Beacham has found fame on both sides of the Atlantic, in television and movies alike.

She's probably best known for her role Sable Colby, in the 1980s show The Colbys, which was later reprised in the last season of Dynasty.

Stephanie's mother Joan suffered a bout of chicken pox, while pregnant with her. The actress was born with no nerve endings - nor hearing - in her right ear.

She was badly bullied for it at school. Other pupils cruelly called her 'Deaf Steph'. (She still winces if anyone shortens her name to Steph.) Their assumption that deafness equated stupidity pushed her to really excel intellectually.

Known for her wit and the sharpness of her quick retorts, Stephanie credits that need to prove herself as the reason why.