Why was Roy Orbison wearing sunglasses? Was it because he was blind. Bionic Rooster

Roy Orbison was blind.

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Roy Orbison was not blind. He had very bad eyesight.

He started wearing the sunglasses because he misplaced his regular glasses and the sunglasses were prescription. It became part of his trademark.

Roy Orbison - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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After leaving his thick eyeglasses on an airplane in 1962 or 1963, Orbison was forced to wear his Ray-Ban Wayfarer prescription sunglasses on stage

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Roy Orbison - Biography

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His identification with Wayfarer sunglasses began when he went on tour to England in the early 1960s, and forgot his regular specs. His lenses were prescription, but some fans mistook Orbison for being blind.

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Top 10 Oldies Myths and Urban Legends

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2. Roy Orbison was blind.
The singer's odd, pasty look and huge dark glasses led many to speculate, then and now, that Roy Orbison was blind. His trademark shades never left him, but they were no stranger (or stronger) than Grandma's reading glasses.
Roy did have eyeglasses to correct his vision, but they were quite normal; en route to an Alabama concert, however, he accidentally left them on the plane. The only other pair he had were prescription sunglasses, so he wore those instead. The very next day Roy was scheduled to open up a European Beatles tour, and there was no time to go find his old pair, so the dark shades stayed on him throughout the tour. The resultant frenzy of Beatlemania ensured that the singer would be seen throughout the world in that pair; by the time he returned home, it was a trademark. Proof that Roy wasn't blind can be found in the early television performance footage that shows him wearing no glasses at all.

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