Thomas Edison

The great scientist remarked that he slept less than 5 hours a night.
"Most people overeat 100 percent, and oversleep 100 percent, because they like it. That extra 100 percent makes them unhealthy and inefficient. The person who sleeps eight or ten hours a night is never fully asleep and never fully awake - they have only different degrees of doze through the twenty-four hours."

~ Thomas Edison

"Edison's contempt for sleep is well documented. Yet it can only be attributed to his ignorance. Little was known about the biological role of sleep at his time. He believed wrongly that, as with food, humans will always sleep more than necessary given a opportunity. As a natural short sleeper, he believed long sleep is a sign of laziness. His co-workers noted that Edison actually slept far more than he would like to admit. Clearly, he would carry sleeping little as a badge of honor. He catnapped a lot, and his nap cots have been preserved to this day in Edison museums."

~ Polyphasic Sleep: Facts and Myths

While working in his lab, he allowed himself almost no sleep for days. He kept a small cot in one corner and grabbed only a few minutes here and there to sustain him. A famous picture shows him stretched out fast asleep on the top of a workbench. Edison never discouraged this type of representation of himself, and newspaper photographers happily took the bait. Edison was known to sleep for an entire day, waking only to take a light meal, and then it was back to bed.
Lifetime: 84 years