The October issue of Discover, not a magazine where one would expect to find low gossip about literary figures, is devoted to creativity. Oh, and Eugene O'Neill, Michelangelo, Gericault, Edvard Munch, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Mark Rothko, and Georgia O'Keefe. To my knowledge, he never faxed exorbitant divorce demands from Connecticut to a Manhattan townhouse, more's the pity. It seems to me that most of these people were more of a problem to themselves than others. But then most of them weren't covered by the media.
Insane behavior is cool.
It all goes back to the Marquis de Sade, you might say. But he spent most of his life in prison or asylums. Led Zepper John Bonham did everything Sade did, maybe more, and not only got away scot-free, he was rewarded for it, until he fell over dead. Philip Roth, of course, is much more sophisticated than, say, Robert Plant. In the same issue of Discover, there's an essay by Stephen Jay Gould about creativity and evolution.