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"A Beautiful Mind" Genius John Nash And Wife Die In Car Accident

John Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician depicted by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, was killed in a car accident Saturday afternoon.

The crash—which also claimed the life of Nash's wife, Alicia—occurred on the New Jersey Turnpike as the two were returning from Newark Airport and a recent trip to Norway.

"The Nashes were in a taxi traveling southbound in the left lane of the New Jersey Turnpike," State Police Sgt. Gregory Williams said, according to the NJ.com. "The driver of the Ford Crown Victoria lost control as he tried to pass a Chrysler in the center lane, crashing into a guard rail."

John Nash, 86, and Alicia Nash, 82, were not wearing seat belts and were thrown from the car.

Nash was renowned for his breakthrough work in economics and game theory, but was plagued with mental illness for much of his adult life.

When Beautiful Mind was released in 2001, it received critical acclaim and four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Connelly.

But LGBT critics complained director Ron Howard had whitewashed Nash's bisexuality from the film.

Nash had intense emotional attachments and sexual liaison with men—and was arrested for public indecency in a men's rest room in Santa Monica in the 1950s, an event that cost him his security clearance and his job at the Rand Corporation.

Related: Benedict Cumberbatch Is Gay WWII Hero Alan Turing In "Imitation Game"

"It's sort of like they wiped the slate clean at the beginning," GLAAD's Scott Seomin said at the time. "You don't feel there was a creative effort made to deal with the reality of his life. They decided instead they were going to pluck the most sentimental and conventional story out of the material... and just get rid of the rest."

Biographer Sylvia Nasar, whose book formed the basis for the film, insisted Nash's sexuality "isn't that compelling or interesting compared to his genius, mental illness, and his survival and triumph over his illness."

But GLAAD maintained "the audience is cheated by the dismissal of John Nash's inner conflicts about his sexuality."

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