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

Edward Albert Heimberger was an American actor and activist. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; the first nomination came in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and the second in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid. Other well-known screen roles of his include Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films, traveling salesman Ali Hakim in the musical Oklahoma!, and the sadistic prison warden in 1974's The Longest Yard. He starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television sitcom Green Acres and as Frank MacBride in the 1970s crime drama Switch. He also had a recurring role as Carlton Travis on Falcon Crest, opposite Jane Wyman.

Jim Fergus is an American author. He has a degree in English from Colorado College and has worked as a tennis teacher and full-time freelance writer. His first novel was One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, which won the 1999 Fiction of the Year Award from the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association and sold over 250,000 copies in the United States. The French translation was on the French bestseller list for 57 weeks and has sold over 400,000 copies in that country.

Frank James Sensenbrenner Jr. is an American politician who represented Wisconsin's 5th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 2021. He is a Republican. Wisconsin's 5th district, the most Republican-leaning in the state, includes many of Milwaukee's northern and western suburbs, and extends into rural Jefferson County. It was numbered as the 9th District until 2003.

Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty is an American business executive who served as executive chairman of IBM after stepping down as CEO on April 1, 2020. She previously served as chairman, president and CEO of IBM, becoming the first woman to head the company. She retired from IBM on December 31, 2020 after a near-40 year career at IBM. Prior to becoming president and CEO in January 2012, she first joined IBM as a systems engineer in 1981 and subsequently headed global sales, marketing, and strategy. While general manager of IBM's global services division, in 2002 she helped negotiate IBM's purchase of PricewaterhouseCoopers IT consulting business, becoming known for her work integrating the two companies. As CEO, she focused IBM on analytics, cloud computing, and cognitive computing systems.

Richard Schaal was an American film and television actor.

Jeffrey Fowler is an American filmmaker, director, screenwriter, animator, and visual effects artist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film as writer and director of the short animated film Gopher Broke (2004). He made his theatrical directorial debut with the Sonic the Hedgehog film, released in 2020.

Anthony Thomas Podesta is an American lobbyist best known for founding the Podesta Group. He was formerly one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists and fundraisers.

Prince Rostislav Rostislavovich Romanov is an American-born Russian prince living in the UK as an artist. He is a member of the Romanov family. The House of Romanov was the former ruling Russian Imperial dynasty. He is also known by the names "Rosti" and "Misha". Given that none of the sons of Prince Andrew Romanov has male offspring, one day Rostislav is very likely to succeed to the claim of this branch of the family.

Wilton Daniel Gregory is a prelate of the Catholic Church who is the archbishop of Washington. Pope Francis elevated him to the rank of cardinal on November 28, 2020. He is the first African-American cardinal.

Lynn-Holly Johnson is an American retired figure skater and actress. After achieving some success as a figure skater in the mid-1970s, she began an acting career, including a Golden Globe-nominated role in 1978's Ice Castles and her role as Bibi Dahl in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only.