Literature · 1925–2013
Elmore Leonardnovelist, screenwriterCrime novelist nicknamed 'the Dickens of Detroit', raised and educated in the city, who set many of his hard-boiled stories on its streets.DETROIT / A living lexicon / ¼
Famous Detroiters
People who were born here, moved here or built their careers in Detroit: musicians, carmakers, athletes, writers, inventors, civil-rights leaders and a few notorious names. With their dates, their Detroit story and the places where they lived, worked and played, closed ones included.
- 1,949 famous people
- 516 Detroit places
- 22 fields
Hungarian ties 31 Detroiters with Hungarian ties →
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64 people · 1/2 page
Clear filtersLiterature · 1925–2013Elmore Leonardnovelist, screenwriterCrime novelist nicknamed 'the Dickens of Detroit', raised and educated in the city, who set many of his hard-boiled stories on its streets.
Literature · born 1960Jeffrey Eugenidesnovelist, short-story writerDetroit-born, Grosse Pointe-raised novelist whose The Virgin Suicides and Pulitzer-winning Middlesex are among the best-known literary portraits of the city and its suburbs.
Literature · 1940–2015Wayne Dyerself-help author, motivational speaker, psychologistBest-selling self-help author of Your Erroneous Zones who spent part of his childhood in an east-side Detroit orphanage and earned three degrees at Wayne State.
Film & TV · born 1965David S. Goyerscreenwriter, director, producerAnn Arbor-born writer of the Blade and Dark Knight films, whose Batman v Superman turned Detroit into Gotham and Metropolis.
Literature · born 1951Bob Blackanarchist writerDetroit-born anarchist essayist best known for 'The Abolition of Work' (1985), who grew up in suburban Oak Park.
Visual art · 1924–2013Arthur C. Dantoart critic, philosopher, professorInfluential philosopher of art and longtime critic for The Nation who grew up in Detroit and studied art and history at Wayne University.
Science & invention · 1928–2023
Natalie Zemon DavishistorianHistorian of early modern France and author of The Return of Martin Guerre, born in Detroit and educated at Cranbrook's Kingswood School.
Literature · 1918–1994Russell Kirkpolitical theorist, historian, man of letters, novelistAuthor of The Conservative Mind, a founding text of postwar American conservatism, born and raised in the metro Detroit railroad town of Plymouth.
Literature · 1928–2015Philip Levinepoet, essayist, professorU.S. Poet Laureate (2011–2012) and Pulitzer winner whose poems about Detroit's factories and working people made him the city's great industrial poet.
Music · 1944–2021Mary Wilsonsinger, authorFounding member of the Supremes who grew up in Detroit's Brewster-Douglass projects and stayed with the group longer than any other original member.
Film & TV · born 1962Paul Feigdirector, writer, producer, actorBridesmaids director and Freaks and Geeks creator who grew up in Mount Clemens and based his cult series on his years at Chippewa Valley High School.Thomas Ligottihorror writer, philosopherCult master of philosophical horror who was born in Detroit, studied at Wayne State and spent 23 years as an editor at Gale Research while writing his stories in the city.
Film & TV · 1926–2020James Liptontelevision host, writer, actor, educatorHost of Inside the Actors Studio who grew up in Detroit, worked as a Detroit Times copy boy, acted on local stages and radio, and studied at Central High and Wayne State.Marge Piercynovelist, poet, activistFeminist novelist and poet of Woman on the Edge of Time who grew up in working-class Detroit and returned to the city in her 2015 collection Made in Detroit.
Literature · born 1971Megan Abbottcrime novelist, screenwriterEdgar Award–winning crime novelist born in Detroit and raised in Grosse Pointe, whose suburban noirs about girls and women draw on her Michigan youth.
Film & TV · born 1941Robert McKeescreenwriting teacher, author, story consultantDetroit-born story guru whose Story Seminar and book Story have trained generations of screenwriters; he started as a young actor on Detroit stages.
Literature · born 1967Ruta Sepetyshistorical novelistCarnegie Medal–winning author of Between Shades of Gray, born in Detroit to a Lithuanian refugee family and raised in the city's northwestern suburbs.Tim LaHayeevangelical minister, novelist, activistDetroit-born co-author of the best-selling Left Behind novels and a key organizer of the Christian right, the son of a Ford autoworker.
Literature · born 1949Jim Starlincomics writer and artistDetroit-born comics artist and writer who created Thanos, Gamora and Drax and wrote The Infinity Gauntlet, the source of Marvel's biggest film saga.
Science & invention · born 1981Adam Grantorganizational psychologist, authorWharton organizational psychologist and best-selling author of Give and Take and Think Again, born in West Bloomfield and raised in the Detroit suburbs.
Film & TV · born 1970Matt Letscheractor, playwright, directorGrosse Pointe-born actor (The Mask of Zorro, The Flash's Reverse-Flash) and playwright, discovered at Jeff Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea.Norah Vincentjournalist, columnist, authorColumnist and author of Self-Made Man, the account of living as a man for 18 months, who was born in Detroit to a Ford Motor Company lawyer.
Civil rights & activism · 1939–2016Tom Haydenactivist, author, politicianRoyal Oak-raised author of the Port Huron Statement and New Left leader who grew up in Father Coughlin's parish and later served in the California legislature.
Politics · born 1949Ann Romneyauthor, philanthropist, former First Lady of MassachusettsDetroit-born, Bloomfield Hills-raised Kingswood graduate who married Mitt Romney and became First Lady of Massachusetts and an advocate for multiple sclerosis research.Richard Ellmannliterary biographer, critic, professorHighland Park-born biographer of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde, whose Joyce is often called the greatest literary biography of the 20th century.John Groganjournalist, memoiristNewspaper columnist and author of Marley & Me, born in Detroit and raised in the Oakland County lake suburb of Orchard Lake Village.
Visual art · born 1960James O'Barrcomics artist, writerDetroit comics artist who created The Crow, a dark revenge story shaped by personal loss and by a Detroit murder case, later a cult film.Bruce Joel Rubinscreenwriter, meditation teacher, photographerOscar-winning screenwriter of Ghost and Jacob's Ladder, raised in Detroit, a Mumford High School graduate who discovered film at the city's Krim Theater and studied at Wayne State.Judith Guestnovelist, screenwriterDetroit-born author of Ordinary People, the basis of the Oscar-winning 1980 film, and great-niece of Free Press poet Edgar Guest.Dwayne McDuffiecomics writer, television writer and producerDetroit-born co-founder of Milestone Media and creator of Static, who brought Black superheroes into the mainstream in comics and on TV's Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited.
Film & TV · born 1944Denise Nicholasactress, writerRoom 222's Liz McIntyre and In the Heat of the Night's Harriet DeLong, born in Detroit, raised there and in Milan, Michigan, who left the University of Michigan to join the civil rights theater movement.
Literature · 1927–1993James Leo Herlihynovelist, playwright, actorDetroit-born author of Midnight Cowboy, whose novel became the only X-rated film to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
Literature · born 1960Kathe Kojanovelist, short-story writer, theatre directorDetroit-born author of the Bram Stoker Award–winning horror novel The Cipher who still lives in metro Detroit and directs the immersive theatre company nerve.Robert Haydenpoet, essayist, professorThe first African American Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, who grew up in Detroit's Paradise Valley and made that neighborhood a lasting subject of his poems.
Civil rights & activism · 1870–1952Agnes Inglisanarchist activist and archivistDetroit-born heiress turned anarchist who funded radical causes and built the Labadie Collection, one of the great archives of American radicalism.
Literature · born 1939Thomas McGuanenovelist, short-story writer, screenwriterWyandotte-born novelist of Ninety-Two in the Shade who grew up downriver from Detroit and attended Cranbrook before becoming a chronicler of the American West.Dudley Randallpoet, publisher, librarianFounder of Detroit's Broadside Press (1965), the pioneering Black poetry publisher, author of Ballad of Birmingham and Detroit's poet laureate from 1981.Saladin Ahmednovelist, comic book writer, poetDetroit-born Arab American fantasy novelist and Marvel comics writer whose series Abbott, set in 1970s Detroit, follows a Black woman reporter facing the occult.
Literature · born 1950Carolyn Forchépoet, translator, human-rights advocateDetroit-born poet of The Country Between Us and The Colonel, a leading voice of the 'poetry of witness', raised in a Slovak-American family in the Detroit suburbs.
Music · born 1976Carla Harveysinger, writerDetroit-raised metal singer, a former co-vocalist of Butcher Babies, who has spoken about loving hard rock as a biracial kid in the Detroit area.
Military · 1823–1907Orlando B. WillcoxUnion general, lawyer, authorDetroit-born West Pointer and Detroit lawyer who led the 1st Michigan Infantry to Bull Run, won the Medal of Honor and served as a Union general.Faruq Z. Beyjazz saxophonist, composer, poetDetroit saxophonist and composer who led Griot Galaxy, the city's leading avant-garde band of the late 1970s and 1980s.Beth Brantwriter, poet, editorDetroit-born Mohawk writer who edited A Gathering of Spirit, the first anthology of Native American women's writing, and wrote Mohawk Trail.E. M. Bronernovelist, playwright, feminist ritual writer, professorDetroit-born Jewish feminist author of A Weave of Women and The Women's Haggadah, who studied and taught for decades at Wayne State.Donald GoinesnovelistDetroit-born pioneer of urban crime fiction who wrote 16 novels in five years, among them Dopefiend and Whoreson, before being murdered in Highland Park in 1974.
Theatre & dance · 1842–1908Bronson HowardplaywrightDetroit-born son of an 1849 Detroit mayor, often called the first American to make a living as a professional playwright, author of Shenandoah and Saratoga.
Theatre & dance · 1898–1993Edith Meiseractress, playwright, radio writerDetroit-born actress and writer who brought Sherlock Holmes to American radio in 1930 and appeared in more than 20 Broadway shows.Dominique Morisseauplaywright, actress, television writerDetroit-born playwright whose Detroit Project trilogy (Detroit '67, Paradise Blue, Skeleton Crew) puts the city's history on stage; MacArthur Fellow and Tony nominee.The lexicon keeps growing. Every entry lists its sources at the bottom. Dates were checked against Wikidata and Wikipedia. The texts are our own. Famous people's places among the sights ↗
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