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

Frederick Martin MacMurray was an American actor and singer who appeared in more than 100 films and a successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s.

Adam Daniel Kinzinger is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 16th congressional district. He is a member of the Republican Party. He was first elected to Congress in 2010, winning election to represent Illinois's 11th congressional district. Since 2011, he has represented Illinois's 16th congressional district, which covers eastern Rockford, most of Rockford's suburbs, and a swath of exurban territory around Chicago.

Jack Wayne Sikma is an American former professional basketball center. He was a seven-time NBA All-Star with the Seattle SuperSonics, who drafted him in the first round with the eighth overall pick of the 1977 NBA draft. In 1979, he won an NBA championship with Seattle. Sikma finished his playing career with the Milwaukee Bucks. He was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019.

Vernon Willard Hughes was an American physicist specializing in research of subatomic particles. Hughes was born in Kankakee, Illinois. During World War II, he worked at the M.I.T. Radiation Lab. He earned his PhD under I. I. Rabi at Columbia University in 1950. Hughes was notable for his research of muons which showed the existence of previously undetected matter. He was also noted for research that showed that protons have gluons and quarks. Hughes was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Sterling Professor at Yale University, and a recipient of Rumford Prize, and a recipient of Davisson-Germer Prize in Atomic Physics and the Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics, both from the American Physical Society.

Merna Kennedy was an American actress of the late silent era and the transitional period into talkies.

David Bruce was an American film actor, known for his chilling performance as Ted Allison in The Mad Ghoul. He was a company member of Peninsula Players Theatre in Fish Creek, Wisconsin in 1939.

Kristin Dattilo is an American television actress, known for playing manager Yola Gaylen on The Chris Isaak Show from 2001 to 2004 and detective Barbara Gianna in season 3 of Dexter.