READ Famous People From Wisconsin

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List of famous people from Wisconsin, including photos when available. The people below are listed by their popularity, so the most recognizable names are at the top of the list. Some of the people below are celebrities born in Wisconsin, while others are simply notable locals. If you're from Wisconsin you might already know that these prominent figures are also from your hometown, but some of the names below may really surprise you. This list includes people who were born and raised in Wisconsin, as well as those who were born there but moved away at a young age.

Examples of people on this list include Alvin O'Konski and Lawrence Wilets.

If you want to answer the questions, "Which famous people are from Wisconsin?" or "Which celebrities were born in Wisconsin?" then this list is a great resource for you.

Mark Ruffalo age 48 Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He portrayed the Marvel Comics character, Bruce Banner / The Hulk in The Avengers, and will reprise his role in ...more

Marissa Mayer age 42 Marissa Ann Mayer is the current president and CEO of Yahoo!, a position she has held since July 2012. Previously, she was a long-time executive, usability leader, and key spokesperson for ...more

Skylar Grey age 32 Holly Brook Hafermann, who goes by the stage name Skylar Grey, is an American singer and songwriter from Mazomanie, Wisconsin. In 2004, under the moniker Holly Brook, at the age of 17, she ...more

Spencer Tracy Died at 67 (1900-1967) Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American actor, noted for his natural style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was nominated for nine Academy Awards for ...more

Georgia O'Keeffe Died at 99 (1887-1986) Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist. Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916. She is best known for her paintings ...more

Frankie Rayder age 43 Francesca "Frankie" Rayder is an American model who appeared in the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show four times and in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue twice. She has an ...more

Ed Gein Died at 78 (1906-1984) Edward Theodore "Ed" Gein was an American murderer and body snatcher. His crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety after ...more

Bob Uecker age 84 Robert George "Bob" Uecker is a retired American Major League Baseball player, later a sportscaster, comedian and actor. Uecker was given the title of "Mr. Baseball" by TV ...more

David Zucker age 70 David S. Zucker is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter.

Alan Kulwicki Died at 39 (1954-1993) Alan Dennis Kulwicki, nicknamed "Special K" and the "Polish Prince", was an American NASCAR Winston Cup Series racecar driver. He started racing at local short tracks in ...more

Allen Ludden Died at 64 (1917-1981) Allen Ellsworth Ludden was an American television personality, emcee and game show host, perhaps most well known for having hosted various incarnations of the game show Password between 1961 and

Greg Graffin age 53 Gregory Walter Graffin is an American punk rock singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, college lecturer, and author. He is most recognized as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and only constant ...more

Tank age 42 Durrell Babbs is a songwriter.

Don Ameche Died at 85 (1908-1993) Don Ameche was an American actor, voice artist, and comedian, with a career spanning almost 60 years. After touring in vaudeville, he featured in many biographical films, including The Story of ...more

Thornton Wilder Died at 78 (1897-1975) Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the two plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth—and ...more

Charlotte Rae age 91 Charlotte Rae is an American character actress of stage, comedienne, singer and dancer, who in her six decades of television is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the ...more

John P. Morgridge age 84 John P. Morgridge is an American businessman who was the chairman of the board of Cisco Systems.

Phil Katz Died at 38 (1962-2000) Phillip Walter Katz was a computer programmer best known as the co-creator of the Zip file format for data compression, and the author of PKZIP, a program for creating zip files that ran under ...more

Robert Peters Died at 90 (1924-2014) Robert Louis Peters is a 1966 Guggenheim Fellow in Humanities.

Bradley Whitford age 58 Bradley Whitford is an American film and television actor. He has played White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on the NBC television drama The West Wing, Danny Tripp on Studio 60 on the ...more

John G. Schmitz Died at 71 (1930-2001) John George Schmitz was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives and California State Senate from Orange County, California. He was also a member of the John Birch ...more

William Nordeen Died at 52 (1936-1988) William Edward Nordeen was an American diplomat. Born in Amery, Wisconsin and raised in nearby Centuria, he was the United States defense and naval attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Athens, ...more

Nicholas Ray Died at 68 (1911-1979) Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause. Ray is also appreciated by a smaller audience of cinephiles for a large number of narrative features ...more

Mary Lasker Died at 94 (1900-1994) Mary Woodard Lasker was an American health activist and philanthropist. She worked to raise funds for medical research, and founded the Lasker Foundation.

Jerry Dunphy Died at 81 (1921-2002) Jerry Dunphy was an American television news anchor in the Los Angeles/Southern California media market. He was best known for his intro "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern ...more

David Filo age 51 David Filo is an American businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang. His Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side software used to ...more

George Safford Parker Died at 74 (1863-1937) George Safford Parker was an American inventor and industrialist. Parker was a telegraphy instructor in Janesville, Wisconsin and had a sideline repairing and selling fountain pens. Dismayed by ...more

King C. Gillette Died at 77 (1855-1932) King Camp Gillette was an American businessman. He invented a best selling version of the safety razor. Several models were in existence before Gillette's design. Gillette's innovation was the ...more

Butch Vig age 62 Bryan David "Butch" Vig is an American musician and record producer, best known as the drummer and co-producer of the alternative rock band Garbage and the producer of diamond-selling ...more

Don Weis Died at 78 (1922-2000) Don Weis was an American film and television director. Weis was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Southern California where he studied film. During World War II, ...more

Ed Lewis Died at 75 (1891-1966) Robert Herman Julius Friedrich, was an American professional wrestler and 6-time World Heavyweight Champion best known by his ring name Ed "Strangler" Lewis, whose career spanned four

Ford Sterling Died at 57 (1882-1939) Ford Sterling was an American comedian and actor best known for his work with Keystone Studios. One of the 'Big 4' he was the original chief of the Keystone Cops.

Michael Burks Died at 55 (1957-2012) Michael Burks was an American electric blues and soul blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is best known for his tracks, "I Smell Smoke" and "Hard Come, Easy Go", and ...more

David Koepp age 54 David Koepp is an American screenwriter and director. Koepp is the fifth most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of domestic box office receipts with totals at just over $2 billion.

Chester Biscardi age 69 Chester Biscardi is an Italian American composer and educator. He received a B.A. degree in English literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison; he studied during 1969-1970 at the ...more

Fredric March Died at 78 (1897-1975) Fredric March was a "distinguished stage actor and one of Hollywood's most celebrated, versatile stars of the 1930s and 40s." He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. ...more

Woody Herman Died at 74 (1913-1987) Woodrow Charles "Woody" Herman was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd", Herman ...more

Bernard B. Brown Died at 83 (1898-1981) Norman Spencer is a film score composer.

Jerry Zucker age 68 Jerry G. Zucker is an American film director known for his role in directing comedy spoof films like Airplane!, and the drama film Ghost.

Russel Nye Died at 80 (1913-1993) Russel Blaine Nye was an American professor of English who pioneered in popular culture studies. He is the author of a dozen books, and his book George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel won the 1945 ...more

Helene Madison Died at 57 (1913-1970) Helene Emma Madison was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder. Madison won three gold medals in freestyle event at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los ...more

Addie Joss Died at 31 (1880-1911) Adrian "Addie" Joss, nicknamed "The Human Hairpin," was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball. He pitched for the Cleveland Bronchos, later known as the Naps, between ...more

Daron Hagen age 56 Daron Aric Hagen, is an American composer, conductor, pianist, educator, librettist, and stage director of contemporary classical music and opera.

David J. Lesar age 64 David John Lesar is Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Energy Services. Trained as a Certified Public Accountant, Lesar spent 16 years at Arthur Andersen. He had ...more

Brad Rheingans age 64 Brad Rheingans is an American former Greco-Roman and professional wrestler.

F. S. C. Northrop Died at 99 (1893-1992) Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop was an American philosopher. After receiving a B.A. from Beloit College in 1915, and an MA from Yale University in 1919, he went on to Harvard University where he ...more

George Liberace Died at 72 (1911-1983) George Liberace was an American musician and television performer. Born in Menasha, Wisconsin, he was the elder brother and business partner of famed U.S. entertainer Liberace. He appeared ...more

Ralph Shinners Died at 67 (1895-1962) Ralph Peter Shinners was a centerfielder in Major League Baseball who played from 1922 through 1925 for the New York Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. Listed at 6 ft 0 in, 180 lb, Shinners batted ...more

Robert M. La Follette, Sr. Died at 70 (1855-1925) Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr. was an American Republican politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was the Governor of Wisconsin, and was ...more

Kid Nichols Died at 84 (1869-1953) Charles Augustus "Kid" Nichols was a Major League Baseball pitcher who played for the Boston Beaneaters, St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies from 1890 to 1906. A switch ...more