Kim ‘Rain Man’ Peek fact sheet

Kim Peek was the inspiration for screen writer Barry Morrow’s 1988 Oscar-winning movie Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman as a savant.
Kim Peek was born November 11, 1951. He had an enlarged head with a brain abnormality. An MRI shows an absent corpus callosum — the connecting tissue between the left and right hemispheres.
Although developmentally disabled, Kim’s encyclopedic memory feats include facts about British Monarchs, the Bible, baseball, football, basketball, horse racing, dates, times, places, composers, melodies, movies, geography, authors and literature. Known as “Kimputer” to many, Peek’s knowledge includes world and American history, people and leaders, the space program, actors and actresses, calendar calculations (including a person’s day of birth, present year’s birthday, and the year and the date the person will turn 65).
Kim has read and can recall more than 9,000 books.
With respect to early development, Kim’s father indicates that at age 16-20 months, Kim was able to memorize every book that was read to him.
Fran Peek describes his son this way: “Kim is not behaviorally autistic. He has a warm, loving personality. He truly cares for people and enjoys sharing his unique skills and knowledge capacity.”
Life has changed dramatically for Kim since Rain Main—the movie he inspired—became so popular and well accepted. Kim, according to his father, developed a newfound confidence to meet people and to address audiences. Prior to the movie, his father says Kim seldom looked into the face of another person.
Due to the numerous requests for appearances, Kim now travels across the country with his father. They estimate they have interacted with over 900,000 audience members.

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