List of Famous people born in Massachusetts, United States of America
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his work as president concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the U.S. Congress prior to becoming president.
Chris Evans
Christopher Robert Evans is an American actor, best known for his role as Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) series of films. Evans began his career with roles in television series, such as in Opposite Sex in 2000. Following appearances in several teen films including 2001's Not Another Teen Movie, he gained attention for his portrayal of Marvel Comics character Human Torch in 2005's Fantastic Four, and its sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). Evans made further appearances in film adaptations of comic books and graphic novels: TMNT (2007), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), and Snowpiercer (2013).
John Cena
John Felix Anthony Cena Jr. is an American professional wrestler, actor, and television presenter. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he is currently signed to the WWE on a part-time deal, and has starred in various films.
Mark Wahlberg
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg is an American actor, producer, restaurateur and former rapper. He is also known by his former stage name Marky Mark from his career with the group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, with whom he released the albums Music for the People (1991) and You Gotta Believe (1992).
Brian Kelly
Brian Keith Kelly is an American football coach. He is currently the head football coach at the University of Notre Dame, a position he has held since December 2009. Kelly previously served as the head football coach at Grand Valley State University (1991–2003), Central Michigan University (2004–2006), and the University of Cincinnati (2006–2009). He led the Grand Valley State Lakers to consecutive NCAA Division II Football Championships in 2002 and 2003. Kelly's 2012 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team reached the 2013 BCS National Championship Game.
John Krasinski
John Burke Krasinski is an American actor and director. He has had four Primetime Emmy Award nominations and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush was an American politician, diplomat and businessman who served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993. A member of the Republican Party, Bush also served as the 43rd vice president from 1981 to 1989 under Ronald Reagan, in the U.S. House of Representatives, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and as Director of Central Intelligence.
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige Damon is an American actor, producer, and screenwriter. Ranked among Forbes' most bankable stars, the films in which he has appeared have collectively earned over $3.12 billion at the North American box office, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. He has received various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards.
Mike Flanagan
Mike Flanagan is an American filmmaker and partner in Intrepid Pictures. He is best known for his horror films, all of which he directed, wrote, and edited, including Absentia (2011), Oculus (2013), Hush, Before I Wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald's Game (2017), and Doctor Sleep (2019).
Jeremy Strong
Jeremy Strong is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Kendall Roy on the HBO television series Succession (2018–present), for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2020. Strong has also appeared in a number of films, including Lincoln (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Selma (2014), The Big Short (2015), Molly's Game (2017), The Gentlemen (2019), and The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020).
Hamish Linklater
Hamish Linklater is an American actor. He is known for playing Matthew Kimble in The New Adventures of Old Christine, Andrew Keanelly in The Crazy Ones, and Clark Debussy in Legion. He is the son of dramatic vocal trainer Kristin Linklater.
Kevin Systrom
Kevin Systrom is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He co‑founded Instagram, the world's largest photo sharing website, along with Mike Krieger.
Eddie Mekka
Eddie Mekka is an American actor best known for his role as Carmine Ragusa on the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley.
Kurt Russell
Kurt Vogel Russell is an American actor. He began acting on television at the age of 12 in the western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963–1964). In the late 1960s, he signed a ten-year contract with The Walt Disney Company where, according to Robert Osborne, he became the studio's top star of the 1970s.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. He is also generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
Whitey Bulger
James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. was an Irish-American organized crime boss and FBI informant who led the Winter Hill Gang in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, a city directly northwest of Boston. On December 23, 1994, Bulger fled the Boston area and went into hiding after his former FBI handler, John Connolly, tipped him off about a pending RICO indictment against him. Bulger remained at large for sixteen years. After his 2011 arrest, federal prosecutors tried Bulger for nineteen murders based on the grand jury testimony from Kevin Weeks and other former criminal associates.
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P. He was the mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president of the United States.
Steven Van Zandt
Steven Van Zandt, also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, producer, actor, and activist. He is best known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and mandolin. He is also known for his roles on television drama series, such as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos (1999–2007) and Frank Tagliano on Lilyhammer (2012–2014). Van Zandt has his own solo band called Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, active on and off since the 1980s. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band.
Matthew Perry
Matthew Langford Perry is an American-Canadian actor, comedian, executive producer, screenwriter, and playwright who most notably played the role of Chandler Bing on the NBC television sitcom Friends, which ran from 1994 to 2004. Due to the vast popularity of the sitcom, Perry and the rest of the six-member main cast ensemble were each making $1 million per episode by 2002. Along with starring in the short-lived television series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Perry has appeared in a number of films, including Fools Rush In (1997), Almost Heroes (1998), The Whole Nine Yards (2000), and 17 Again (2009). In 2010, he expanded his resume to include both video games and voice-over work when he voiced Benny in the video game Fallout: New Vegas.
Anthony Michael Hall
Michael Anthony Hall, known professionally as Anthony Michael Hall, is an American actor best known for his movies with John Hughes, which include the teen classics Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science.