List of Famous people born in California, United States of America

Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987), The Big Nowhere (1988), L.A. Confidential (1990), White Jazz (1992), American Tabloid (1995), The Cold Six Thousand (2001), and Blood's a Rover (2009).

De'Anthony Melton is an American professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was selected by the Houston Rockets in the second round of the 2018 NBA draft with the 46th pick, but was traded to Phoenix before his rookie season began. He played college basketball for the USC Trojans of the Pac-12 Conference, but did not play in the 2017–18 season due to the events relating to the 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball corruption scandal.

Jeffrey Weissman is an American actor. He has appeared in dozens of motion pictures and TV shows, most notably as George McFly in Back to the Future Part II and III and as Teddy Conway in Pale Rider. He has guest starred spots on Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Max Headroom, Dallas, The Man Show, and with Dick Van Dyke on Diagnosis: Murder and as Screech's Guru on Saved by the Bell.

Gregory Neale Harrison is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Chandler in the 1987 film North Shore, as Dr. George Alonzo "Gonzo" Gates, the young surgeon assistant of Dr. Trapper John MacIntyre on the CBS series Trapper John, M.D.(1979–86), and as ruthless business tycoon Michael Sharpe in the CBS series Falcon Crest (1989–1990). Since 2015, he has played Joe O'Toole, father of Oliver, in the Hallmark Channel expansion films of Signed, Sealed and Delivered.

Gary Walker is an American musician, who was the drummer and vocalist with both the Standells and the Walker Brothers.

Scott Gavin Erickson is a former Major League Baseball pitcher.

Iwao Takamoto was an American animator, television producer, and film director. He began his career as a production and character designer for Walt Disney Animation Studios films such as Cinderella (1950), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and Sleeping Beauty (1959). Later, he moved to Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he designed a great majority of the characters, including Scooby-Doo and Astro, and eventually became a director and producer.

Francesca Sundsten was an American contemporary artist. She applied traditional techniques while exploring elements of composition, palette, and minor abstractions of space and paint to create paintings and illustrations which were described by The Seattle Times as "calling to mind the Old Masters" with a "distinctly surrealist sensibility."

Stanley Lawrence Crouch was an American poet, music and cultural critic, syndicated columnist, novelist, and biographer. He was known for his jazz criticism and his 2000 novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome?

Tony K. Thurmond is an American politician and former social worker who is the 28th and current California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Thurmond was narrowly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2018 over his opponent, Marshall Tuck. He was the endorsed candidate of the California Democratic Party and all five 2018 California Teachers of the Year. A Democrat, he represented the 15th Assembly district from 2014 to 2018. The district encompasses the northern East Bay. The district includes the East Bay communities that stretch along the I-80 corridor from Hercules to Oakland, including Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont, El Cerrito, Pinole, Richmond, San Pablo, El Sobrante and Kensington.