View full size image. For most people, the name Stephen Hawking calls to mind the brilliant, wheel chair-bound physicist and his renowned theories about space-time and black holes. But a new film depicts a different side of Hawking: his relationship with his first wife, and his battle with a brutal disease. The Theory of Everything tells the story of Stephen Hawking 's life with Jane Hawking, and his struggle with motor neuron disease, or ALS. The movie reveals how the couple's bond allowed Hawking to persist in the face of increasing disability, and develop the theories that made him so famous.