Roy Kelton Orbison was born on April 23, 1936, in Vernon,
Texas. Two misconceptions about Orbison's appearance continue to
surface: that he was an albino, and that he wore his trademark dark
glasses because he was blind or nearly so. Neither is correct. From
childhood he suffered from a combination of hyperopia, severe
astigmatism, anisometropia, and strabismus. The reason for the dark
sunglasses is that he had left his regular glasses in an airplane, due
to go on stage in a few minutes and unable to see without corrective
lenses, his only other pair of glasses were dark prescription sunglasses
and he had to see to get on stage. Orbison had triple heart bypass
surgery on January 18, 1978. On December 6, 1988, at the age of 52, he
suffered a fatal heart attack while visiting his mother in the Nashville
suburb of Hendersonville, Tennesse
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