List of people from Ridgefield, Connecticut

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Notable people, past and present who have lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut or are closely associated with the town, listed by area in which they are best known:

Contents

[edit] Authors, writers, playwrights, screenwriters

  • Jessica Auerbach, novelist (current resident)
  • Silvio A. Bedini, retired Smithsonian Institution curator, was born (1917) and grew up in Ridgefield. He has written more than 33 books of history, many featuring scientific instruments.
  • Robert Daley, author ("Prince of the City," "Night Falls on Manhattan") resident 1984-89)
  • Howard Fast, novelist (lived on Florida Hill Road in the 1960s and early 1970s)[1]
  • Ira Joe Fisher, poet and CBS weatherman.[2] He frequently lectures on poetry and Some Holy Weight in the Village Air, a collection of his poems, was published in 2006.
  • Tom Gilroy, a screenwriter, is also an actor and film producer. He graduated from Ridgefield High School in 1978 and later worked for The Ridgefield Press.
  • Max Gunther, author (d. 1978)
  • Roger Kahn, author including "The Boys of Summer," 1972 (past resident)
  • Irene Kampen (1923-1998), novelist and journalist whose "Life without George" inspired The Lucy Show, lived in Ridgefield for many years.
  • Richard Kluger, author whose works include 1997 Pullitzer winner, "Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris" (resident,1969 -1976)
  • Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987), playwright, ambassador, politician, and wife of Henry Luce, lived on Great Hill Road in the 1950s and 1060s.
  • John Ames Mitchell (1844-1918), novelist, founder of the original Life magazine.
  • Allan Nevins, the only writer to win two Pulitzer prizes for historical biography, lived in and loved Ridgefield in the 1920s. won Pulitzers for his biographies of Grover Cleveland (1933) and Hamilton Fish (1937). He died in 1971 at the age of 80.
  • Eugene O'Neill, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, owned "Brook Farm" on North Salem Road from 1922 to 1927.
  • Cornelius J. Ryan, author of "A Bridge Too Far" (died 1974). At his funeral at St. Mary's Church in Ridgefield, he was eulogized by CBS Network Anchor Walter Cronkite.
  • Mark Salzman, author and actor who wrote about the town in his novel, "Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia," (past resident)
  • Richard Scarry, children's author (past resident)
  • Maurice Sendak, author and artist best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are (current resident) [3]
  • Robert Lewis Taylor, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist (for "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters," 1959)
  • Alvin Toffler, futurist, author (past resident, 1967-74)
  • Thomas Walsh, mystery writer resident 1949 -1965; died, 1984)
  • Max Wilk, author (resident, 1951-66)
  • Howard Roughan, author of The Up and Comer and The Promise of a Lie (current resident)
  • Bari Wood, author of horror books, including two that have been made into movies (current resident)

[edit] Actors, others in the dramatic arts

(See above for playwrights and screen writers. For composers for films and the stage, see "Singers, musicians, composers" below.)

  • David Cassidy, actor (The Partridge Family) and singer (past resident)
  • Ralph Edwards, producer and erstwhile host of television show "Truth or Consequences" (past resident)
  • Chris Elliott, actor, comedian, author (son of old-time radio comedian Bob Elliott), started as a writer of Late Night with David Letterman (current resident)
  • Harvey Fierstein, queer actor and playwright (current resident)[3]
  • Walter Hampden, late actor
  • Carolyn Kepcher, who appeared on the NBC show The Apprentice and ran Donald Trump's golf course in Briarcliff, N.Y. until she was fired in August 2006 (current resident)
  • Cyril Ritchard, actor; played Captain Hook alongside Mary Martin in "Peter Pan," staged live for television (March 7, 1955) making TV history. His funeral Mass in Ridgefield was celebrated by his longtime friend and TV celebrity, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
  • Erland Van Lidth de Jeude, actor, wrestler; ranked third in his class for Greco-Roman wrestling in 1978, also acted in "Terror," "The Wanderers," and (using the name "Erland Van Lidth") "Stir Crazy." Grew up in town; died in 1987 in his mid-30s.
  • Robert Vaughn, actor (current resident) Most famous for role in Man From U.N.C.L.E. Currently in BBC hit The Hustler.

[edit] Singers, musicians, composers

  • Larry Adler, harmonica virtuoso,lived on Pumping Station Road when the House Un-American Activities Committee was investigating him.
  • Judy Collins, Grammy-award wining folk singer (current resident)
  • Aaron Copland lived on Limestone Road just after World War II and wrote a good portion of his Third Symphony, which includes the "Fanfare for the Common Man" movement, while there.[4]
  • Fanny Crosby (1820-1915), who, despite being blind, wrote more than 8,000 hymns, including "Blessed Assurance" and "Safe in the Arms of Jesus," lived as a child at the corner of Main Street and Branchville Road.
  • Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967), Metropolitan Opera soprano in the early 20th Century, lived on West Lane and later, New Street, where she died.
  • Andrew Gold is a singer, songwriter, and musician who lived on St. Johns Road.
  • Jim Lowe sang the 1956 top hit song, The Green Door, and went on to be a popular disc jockey and radio host. He lived at Twin Ridge in the 1970s.
  • Vaclav Nelhybel (1919-1996), prolific composer of symphonies, ballets, and band music, lived on Lake Road from 1968 to 1973.
  • Alex North (1910-1991), film composer and 12-time Academy Award nominee whose scores include "A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), "Death of a Salesman" (1951), "Viva Zapata!" (1952), "Spartacus" (1960), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1968), and "Good Morning, Vietnam" (1987). Won an Emmy for the score to "Rich Man, Poor Man" in 1976. He lived on Great Hill Road from 1950 until the early 1960s.
  • Noel Regney, pianist, who wrote the popular Christmas song, "Do Your Hear What I Hear." His wife, Gloria Shayne, wrote the music.
  • Jay David Saks, music producer who has won at least seven Grammys and two Emmys (current resident).
  • Stephen Schwartz, composer and lyricist ("Godspell," "Pippin," "Wicked")(current resident)
  • Maxim Shostakovich, conductor (past resident)

[edit] Artists, architects, cartoonists

  • Peggy Bacon (1895-1987) author and artist with works in the National Gallery of Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Harry Bennett, who grew up in Ridgefield and lived there most of his life, painted the covers for more than 800 paperback novels between 1965 and 1982.
  • Wayne Boring (1915-1982), an artist of Superman comic strips that appeared in hundred of newspapers from 1940s until the 1960s, lived on Lincoln Lane.
  • Orlando Busino, an award-winning cartoonist whose work has appeared in many major American magazines, and who has published two books, has lived in Ridgefield for many years.
  • Roz Chast, New Yorker cartoonist and book author (current resident)[3]
  • Cass Gilbert, architect (past resident)
  • Alexander Julian, designer (current resident)
  • Nicholas Krushenick, abstract artist, a dozen of whose works are in the National Gallery of Art (d. 1999)
  • Jerry Marcus (1924-2005), magazine and newspaper cartoonist whose syndicated strip, "Trudy," was carried by more than 200 newspapers, lived here 40 years.
  • Frederick Remington, an American painter, illustrator, and sculptor who specialized in depictions of the American West (past resident). He died in Ridgefield in 1909, less than six months after moving to the town.
  • Julian Alden Weir, impressionist painter, bought Nod Hill farm in 1882, now a National Historic Site (died in 1919)
  • Mahonri Young, (1877–1957), grandson of Brigham Young and the artist who sculpted "This is the Place Monument" and "Seagull Monument" in Salt Lake City, sometimes lived at home of J. Alden Weir, his father-in-law, he died in Norwalk.

[edit] Business people

  • George Doubleday, Ingersoll-Rand President [1913-1935] (past resident)
  • E.P. Dutton, publisher (1831-1923)
  • Joseph M. Juran, expert on "management for quality" and founder of the Juran Institute, lived on Old Branchville Road for many years.
  • Robert P. Scripps, president of Scripps-Howard Newspapers (past resident)
  • Jay Walker, Priceline founder (current resident)

[edit] Journalists

[edit] Government

  • Joel Abbott, (1776-1826), United States Congressman [5]
  • John H. Frey, Assistant Minority Leader, Connecticut House of Representatives
  • George Lounsbury, past Connecticut governor, brother of Phineas (died, 1909)
  • Phineas Lounsbury, past Connecticut governor, brother of George
  • Clare Boothe Luce, playwright, ambassador, politician, wife of Henry Luce (past resident)
  • Theodore Sorenson, JFK advisor (past resident, now lives in Bedford, N.Y.)
  • Norman Thomas, six-time Socialist candidate for president, spent summers in Ridgefield until the early 1920s
  • Kurt Waldheim, U.N. secretary-general (1972-1981), frequently stayed at the estate of a friend in town

[edit] Other

Alice Paul, 1901
Enlarge
Alice Paul, 1901
  • Jolie Gabor (1900-1997), jewelry store-owing mother of the famous Gabor sisters -- Eva, Magda, and Zsa Zsa -- had a home on Oscaleta Road from 1966 to 1970. [6]
  • Janel Jorgensen, first Ridgefielder to win Olympic medal (on 1988 U.S. women’s 4x100 medley relay team, Silver Medal, Seoul)
  • "Typhoid Mary" Mallon, who became famous for infecting people with typhoid, spent some time as a cook in town, where she infected some. (according to brief, front-page story in the July 22, 1909 Ridgefield Press)
  • Elmer Q. Oliphant, established nation's first college intramurals program while a cadet at West Point, played with NFL's Buffalo All-Americans (1920s); 1955 inductee, National Football Hall of Fame. (resident from 1940s to 1952)
  • Alice Paul, author of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, author and suffragist, part-time resident (1885-1977).
  • George Scalise, who owned a mansion on Lake Mamanasco, was in 1940 the “swaggering president of the building Service Employees International Union,” whom columnist and soon-to-be Ridgefielder Westbrook Pegler exposed as a criminal, helping earn Pegler a Pulitzer Prize.[7]

[edit] Did NOT live in town

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ [1]"Notable Ridgefielders" A-F page, at Jack Sanders' Web site about Ridgefield history
  2. ^ [2]Internet Movie DataBase Web site, Web page titled "Biography for Ira Joe Fisher" accessed August 20, 2006
  3. ^ a b c [3]"Where Americana and Aesthetics Mingle," article by Lisa Prevost, part of series "If You're Thinking of Living In" in the Real Estate section of The New York Times, March 14, 2004, accessed August 29, 2006 "Current residents include Maurice Sendak, the children's book author and illustrator; Harvey Fierstein, the actor and playwright; and Roz Chast, the New Yorker cartoonist."
  4. ^ A Library of Congress biography of Copland includes a photograph of him raking leaves at his Ridgefield home in 1946. See Library of Congress
  5. ^ (1967) Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Marquis Who's Who.
  6. ^ [4]"Notable Ridgefielders" G-L page, at Jack Sanders' Web site about Ridgefield history. Actor George Sanders, married to both Magda and Zsa Zsa, was also fond of Jolie. "You know, Jolie," he once wrote her, "I think marriage is for very simple people, not great artists like us." Zsa Zsa, on the other hand, observed of Sanders: "When I was married to George Sanders, we were both in love with him. I fell out of love with him, but he didn't."
  7. ^ Scalise was an associate of mobster Dutch Schultz. He was arrested in 1940 by the crusading district attorney Thomas E. Dewey, later governor of New York and almost-president, and was charged with extorting $100,000 from hotels and contracting firms. But the arrest came only after Pegler exposed Scalise as part of a series of anti-racketeering columns that won him the Pulitzer. In a 1940 piece, Pegler described how Scalise had acquired the 27-room mansion on Tackora Trail in Ridgefield, apparently with union funds. “A remarkable proportion of Mr. Scalise’s fellow officers of the union have criminal records, and he reached the presidency by private arrangement with the officers and without any vote, direct or indirect, of the rank and file chambermaids, charwomen, window cleaners, janitors and other toilers,” wrote Pegler, who moved to Ridgefield a year later. He also noted that just across North Salem Road in Ridgefield was the town poor house. “Villa Scalise” was later acquired by the Society of Jesus, who used it as a retreat house, and is now the St. Ignatius Retreat House, owned by the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.

[edit] External links

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