List of Famous people who born in 1921

Alain Mimoun, born Ali Mimoun Ould Kacha was an Algerian-born French long-distance runner who competed in track events, cross-country running and the marathon. He was the 1956 Olympic champion in the marathon. He is the most bemedalled French athletics sportsperson in history. In 1999, readers of the French athletics magazine Athlétisme Magazine voted him as the “French Athlete of the 20th Century”.

Kitty Kallen was an American popular singer whose career spanned from the 1930s to the 1960s, to include the Swing era of the Big Band years, the post-WWII pop scene and the early years of rock 'n roll. Kallen performed with popular big band leaders of the 1940s, including Jimmy Dorsey and Harry James, before establishing a solo career.

Gil Parrondo Rico OAXS was a Spanish art director, set decorator and production designer. He won two Academy Awards and was nominated for another in the category Best Art Direction.

Horst-Gregorio Canellas was a German entrepreneur and football official. Canellas is best known for his role in breaking the 1971 Bundesliga scandal. He was also a hostage on the hijacked German Lufthansa Flight 181 in 1977.

Sergey Nikolayevich Kolosov was a Soviet film director, writer, and teacher. People's Artist of the USSR (1988), laureate of the Vasilyev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR (1976), Lenin Komsomol Prize (1968).

Frédéric Dard was a French crime writer. He wrote more than three hundred novels, plays and screenplays, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms, including the San-Antonio book series.

John Carl Hendricks, known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists, such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. Jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the "Poet Laureate of Jazz", while Time dubbed him the "James Joyce of Jive". Al Jarreau called him "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that's ever been".

María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat was an Argentine executive and philanthropist.

Sergey Pavlovich Nepobedimy was a Soviet designer of rocket weaponry. He was the Head and Chief Designer of the Kolomna Mechanical Engineering Design Bureau (1965-1989). Born in Ryazan, USSR, he graduated from Bauman Moscow State Technical University in 1945 and was directed to the work at SKB-101 of Boris Shavyrin.

Joseph Albert Walker was an American World War II pilot, experimental physicist, NASA test pilot, and astronaut. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA.