04 March 2011

Famous Minnesotans

Some obituaries this week for actress Jane Russell mentioned that she was born in Minnesota (but moved away and wasn't a classic Minnesota girl...)  Surprised by that discovery, I turned to Wikipedia to find a "List of people from Minnesota," which seems to be dominated by athletes, but also includes these famous names:
Loni Anderson, Louie Anderson, the Andrews sisters, Harry Blackmun, the Coen brothers, Gordon R. Dickson, Bob Dylan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Neil Gaiman, Judy Garland, J. Paul Getty, Terry Gilliam, Billy Graham, George Roy Hill, Hubert Humphrey, Garrison Keillor, Elizabeth Kenny, Ann Landers, Jessica Lange, Sinclair Lewis, Charles Lindbergh, Roger Maris, E. G. Marshall, Bobby McFerrin, Walter Mondale, Robert Mondavi, Gordon Parks, Prince, Charles M. Schulz, Eric Sevareid, Jesse Ventura, and of course Rocky and Bullwinkle.
I'm posting this mostly for my own amusement, but also to alert readers that Wikipedia has many hundreds of "lists of people from..."  Fill in the blank to find persons from your own neck of the woods.

Pic via James Lileks' The Bleat.

7 comments:

  1. Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Neil Gaiman was born and raised in England, and doesn't even currently live in MN!

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  2. This biograph says he lives near Mpls -

    http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/About_Neil/Biography

    but it's a few years old. I've seen other suggestions that he lives in Menominee, Wisconsin.

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  3. Jane Russell. Wow. Stone fox.

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  4. What a great photo of Russell. And what an extremely classy dress, the neckline gracefully highlighting her, um, assets without making her look cheap.

    --Swift Loris

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  5. I thought so too, Swift. Most of the other available photos were studio cheesecake shots that I didn't consider very flattering.

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  6. Not as eye opening if you live in a state like New York. And if I try a smaller area (county, town or hamlet) I get nada.

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  7. What about Vince Flynn and Sam Dei Lune? We always forget about writers. Diabolic Cody as well.

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