List of Famous people born in United States of America

Ray L. Birdwhistell was an American anthropologist who founded kinesics as a field of inquiry and research. Birdwhistell coined the term kinesics, meaning "facial expression, gestures, posture and gait, and visible arm and body movements". He estimated that "no more than 30 to 35 percent of the social meaning of a conversation or an interaction is carried by the words." Stated more broadly, he argued that "words are not the only containers of social knowledge." He proposed other technical terms, including kineme, and many others less frequently used today. Birdwhistell had at least as much impact on the study of language and social interaction generally as just nonverbal communication because he was interested in the study of communication more broadly than is often recognized. Birdwhistell understood body movements to be culturally patterned rather than universal. His students were required to read widely, sources not only in communication but also anthropology and linguistics. Collaborations with others, including initially Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and later, Erving Goffman and Dell Hymes had huge influence on his work. For example, the book he is best known for, Kinesics and Context, "would not have appeared if it had not been envisaged by Erving Goffman" and he explicitly stated "the paramount and sustaining influence upon my work has been that of anthropological linguistics", a tradition most directly represented at the University of Pennsylvania by Hymes.

Marc John Jefferies is an American actor known for his roles in Losing Isaiah, Get Rich or Die Tryin', Power, The Haunted Mansion, Nerve, Stuart Little 2 and Notorious.

John Herzfeld is an American film and television director, screenwriter, actor and producer. His feature film directing credits include Two of a Kind (1983), 2 Days in the Valley (1996), 15 Minutes (2001) and The Death and Life of Bobby Z (2007). He has also directed numerous made-for-television movies, including The Ryan White Story (1989), The Preppie Murder (1989), Casualties of Love: The "Long Island Lolita" Story (1993), and Don King: Only in America (1997) for which he was nominated for an Emmy and won the DGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Specials. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for directing the 1980 ABC Afterschool Special titled "Stoned".

Marc Ferrari is an American musician, author, entrepreneur and investor. He is best known for his work as a guitar player in the 1980s and 1990s rock bands Keel, Cold Sweat, and Medicine Wheel.

Marc Behm was an American novelist, actor, and screenwriter, who lived as an expatriate in France. Behm wrote the script for The Beatles' Help! (1965) and the film Charade (1963). His best and most well-known literary work is the surreal love story cum hard-boiled crime novel Eye of the Beholder (1980).

William Leon Goldenberg was an American composer and songwriter, best known for his work on television and film.

Griffith Conrad Evans was a mathematician working for much of his career at the University of California, Berkeley. He is largely credited with elevating Berkeley's mathematics department to a top-tier research department, having recruited many notable mathematicians in the 1930s and 1940s.

Patricia Quinn is an American actress.

Mann Rubin was an American film and television screenwriter, whose credits included The Best of Everything in 1959, Brainstorm in 1965, Warning Shot in 1967, The First Deadly Sin in 1980, and The Human Shield in 1991. He also taught screenwriting within the cinema and TV department at the University of Southern California for more than ten years.