List of Famous people born in Michigan, United States of America
Yante Maten
Yante Khaaliq Daiyann Maten is an American professional basketball player for the Maine Red Claws of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the University of Georgia. A 6’7” power forward from Pontiac, Michigan, Maten won SEC Player of the Year by the Associated Press as a senior.
Mark Waters
Mark Stephen Waters is an American screenwriter, director, and film producer. He is best known for directing comedy films such as Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Mr. Popper's Penguins, and Vampire Academy.
Maureen Anderman
Maureen Anderman is an American actress best known for her work on the stage. She has appeared in eighteen Broadway shows over the last four decades earning several Drama Desk Award and Tony Award nominations.
William Weatherspoon
William Henry Weatherspoon was an American songwriter and record producer, best known for his work for Motown Records in the 1960s. He co-wrote "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted", an international hit for Jimmy Ruffin, and many other hit songs.
John Robert Beyster
John Robert Beyster, often styled J. Robert Beyster, was an American scientist and entrepreneur, and the founder of Science Applications International Corporation. He was Chairman of the Board until his retirement in July 2004, and served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) until November 2003. Beyster's primary areas of interest were national security and nuclear reactor physics. Beyster also founded two nonprofit organizations to assist organizations considering employee ownership: the Beyster Institute and the Foundation for Enterprise Development.
Ruth Nelson
Ruth Gloria Nelson was an American stage and film actress. She is known for her roles in films such as Wilson, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Humoresque, 3 Women, The Late Show and Awakenings. She was the wife of John Cromwell, whom she acted alongside on multiple occasions.
Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was known as one of the rare bebop jazz musicians who successfully explored funk and soul while remaining a jazz artist. As a bandleader, Byrd was an influence on the early career of Herbie Hancock.
Natalie Zemon Davis
Natalie Zemon Davis, is a Canadian and American historian of the early modern period. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of History and Anthropology and Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her work originally focused on France, but has since broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. For example, Trickster Travels (2006) views Italy, Spain, Morocco and other parts of North Africa and West Africa through the lens of Leo Africanus's pioneering geography. It has appeared in four translations, with three more on the way. Davis' books have all been translated into other languages: twenty-two for The Return of Martin Guerre. She is a hero to many historians and academics, as "one of the greatest living historians", constantly asking new questions and taking on new challenges, the second female president of the American Historical Association and someone who "has not lost the integrity and commitment to radical thought which marked her early career".
Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane, also known by her adopted Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, was an American jazz musician and composer, and in her later years a swamini. An accomplished pianist and one of the few harpists in the history of jazz, she recorded many albums as a bandleader, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s for Impulse! and other major record labels. She was married to jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, with whom she performed in 1966–67.
Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic. He is best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies (1994), which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture." In 2006 he published a revised edition with new introduction and afterword, reflecting on the endurance of reading.