Kip Thorne was sort of hippie physicist in the 1970s. But CalTech recognized his brillance in hiring him.
Generality Relativity was sort of a graveyard from 1920s to 1960s because there were too few doable experiments and specialized solutions of the core equation was intractable.
Then several thing gelled then. Clever physicists like Thorne and Hawking started developing specialized GR solutions. Computer numerical methods could find other solutions. Atomic clocks became sensitive to measure GR in Earth’s gravity. GR is now a routinely observed effect observed billions of times a day in computing GPS positions.
Should be a household name. He has written several books and was consulted by Christopher Nolan for the movie Interstellar:
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Interstellar-Kip-Thorne/dp/03...