List of people from Newton, Massachusetts

Newton, Massachusetts has been the home of many notable people.

Academics

• David Berson, neurobiologist, professor at Brown University
• J. Walter Fewkes, ethnologist and archaeologist
• Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel and former professor at the MIT Department of Economics
• Michael Hammer, one of the founders of the management theory of Business process reengineering
• H. Robert Horvitz, MIT professor of biology who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2002 together with Sydney Brenner and John Sulston
• Steven Hyman, noted neuroscientist and Provost of Harvard University
• Ruth Langer, Professor of theology at Boston College, and a noted expert on Jewish Liturgy and on Christian Jewish Relations
• Rosalind Picard, director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab
• Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard professor during 1980-2002, before moving to his current position of a director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
• Jonathan Sarna, Joseph H. Braun and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History in the department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University
• Andrei Shleifer, economist and professor of economics at Harvard
• Isadore Singer, mathematician, recipient of the Abel Prize (2004) and National Medal of Science (1983), and Institute Professor in the Department of Mathematics at MIT
• Lawrence Summers, former Harvard president, former secretary of the treasury, and nephew of the Nobel Prize laureate Paul Samuelson
• Susumu Tonegawa, MIT professor who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987
• Edward Wagenknecht, American literary critic, prolific writer and Boston University professor, lived on Otis Street in West Newton
• Howard Zinn, radical historian and author of A People's History of the United States

Actors and actresses

• Priyanka Chopra, Indian actress and Miss World 2000
• Matt Damon, actor, Oscar-winning screenwriter (with Ben Affleck) for Good Will Hunting
• Bette Davis, twice Oscar-winning actress
• Anne Dudek, actress
• Kathryn Erbe, actress
• Jonathan Katz, actor, best known for his starring role on the animated sitcom Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
• John Krasinski, actor best known for playing Jim Halpert on NBC's The Office
• Ben Kurland, actor
• Matt LeBlanc, actor, best known for role on sit-com Friends and the spin-off Joey
• Jack Lemmon, Oscar-winning actor
• Christopher Lloyd, actor, best known for playing "Doc" (Emmett Brown) in Back to the Future
• Robert Morse, actor, star of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying and Tru
• Olga C. Nardone, actress, best known for playing three parts in The Wizard Of Oz
• B.J. Novak, comedian, writer, writer, best known for playing Ryan Howard on The Office
• Rebecca Pidgeon, actress, singer and songwriter, and the wife of playwright David Mamet
• Amy Poehler, actress and comedian
• Robert Preston, actor, "Professor" Harold Hill in The Music Man
• James Remar, actor best known for his role as the title character's father in Dexter
• Joe Rogan, actor and comedian
• Eli Roth, film director, producer, writer and actor
• Louis Szekely, known as Louis C.K., stand-up comedian, Lucky Louie actor, writer, comedian
• John Slattery, actor, best known for playing Roger Sterling in "Mad Men"

Artists

• Bow Sim Mark, well-known wushu practitioner and mother of actor Donnie Yen
• Arthur Polonsky, draughtsman, painter and academic
• Sidewalk Sam (Robert Guillemin), folk artist
• Nancy Schön, sculptor, most famously of the Make Way for Ducklings statues on Boston Common; also did statues of Winnie-the-Pooh and Eeyore at the Newton Free Library

Authors, writers, journalists, poets, etc.

• Binyamin Appelbaum, journalist
• Tom Ashbrook, journalist and radio broadcaster
• Isaac Asimov, prolific science fiction and non-fiction writer
• Russell Banks, writer of fiction and poetry
• Alex Beam, columnist for the Boston Globe
• Thomas Bulfinch, author of Bulfinch's Mythology
• Ty Burr, film critic for the Boston Globe
• Virginia Lee Burton, illustrator and author of children's books
• Anita Diamant, author of fiction and non-fiction books
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, poet, lecturer, philosopher
• Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of novels The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance
• Raymond Kurzweil, writer, futurist, inventor
• Don Lessem, author
• Barry Levy, screenwriter, best known for the 2008 film Vantage Point
• Bill Lichtenstein, Peabody Award-winning journalist and filmmaker
• Elizabeth McCracken, author
• David Mamet, playwright, screenwriter and film director
• Tova Mirvis, novelist
• Diana Muir, writer and historian
• Michael Novak, author
• Robert Pinsky, former Poet Laureate of the United States
• Anne Sexton, poet, writer
• Samuel Shem, playwright
• Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
• Andrew Szanton, collaborative memoirist
• Celia Thaxter, poet and writer
• Ben Ames Williams, novelist
• Jonathan Wilson, novelist and critic
• Nate Kenyon, author

Business and industry

• Roger Berkowitz, owner of Legal Sea Foods
• Richard B. Carter, head of Carter's Ink Company from 1905–1949
• Semyon Dukach, professional gambler, entrepreneur, writer
• Jim Davis, CEO of New Balance Athletic Shoe
• Leo Kahn - co-founder of Staples
• Louis K. Liggett, drug store magnate
• Sumner Redstone, Global media businessman

Colonial figures

• Waban, 17th Century American Indian tribal chief lived in Nonantum
• Ephraim Williams, Colonel in the colonial militia during the French and Indian War and benefactor of Williams College
• Thomas Wiswall (1601–1683), prominent early citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Cambridge Village, Massachusetts

Environmentalists

• Francis P. Farquhar, president of the Sierra Club, pioneering mountain climber

Fictional Newtonians

• Gorgeous Rosensweig Teitelbaum, one of the three sisters in Wendy Wasserstein's 1994 play The Sisters Rosensweig, is a "housewife, mother and radio personality" who lives in Newton.
• Andrew Sabot, the male ingenue in Cole Porter's 1928 play Paris is a Mayflower descendant form Newton Center whose mother comes to Paris to prevent his marriage to a French actress.

Government, education and politics

• Benigno Aquino, Jr. and Corazon Aquino, Filipino public intellectual and political figures. Corazon Aquino eventually became the first woman president of the Philippines (1986-92).
• Benigno Aquino III, current president of the Philippines
• Barney Frank, Current United States Representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district
• Joseph Healy, United States Representative from New Hampshire
• Horace Mann, public educator, college president (Antioch College) and United States Representative from Massachusetts
• Cyrus Peirce, public educator, college president of Framingham State College (which was once located in West Newton). The Peirce School in West Newton is named for him.
• Roger Sherman, the only person to have signed all four basic documents of American sovereignty: the Continental Association of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution, born and spent his first two years in Newton
• Nguyen Van Thieu, exiled President of South Vietnam
• John W. Weeks, mayor of Newton, U.S. Congreeman and U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and US Secretary of War under Harding.
• Sinclair Weeks, son of John W. Weeks, was born in West Newton and like his father served as mayor and Newton and U.S. Senator. He was U.S. Secretary of Commerce under Eisenhower.

Music

• Ralph Burns, songwriter, bandleader, composer, conductor, arranger and bebop pianist
• Stephen Custer, cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, grew up in Newton
• Osvaldo Golijov, Grammy award-winning composer of classical music
• Vaughn Monroe, singer, trumpeter and big band leader
• Alfred Genovese, principal oboist of Metropolitan Opera and Boston Symphony Orchestra
• Seiji Ozawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Laureate
• Fritz Richmond, jug and washtub bass player
• Robert Beaser, American composer, Professor, The Juilliard School
• Mark Sandman, lead singer of the alternative rock band Morphine
• Horatio Parker, composer, first Dean of Yale School of Music, born in Auburndale (A village of Newton)
• Fat Mike, lead singer and bassist of prominent punk rock band NOFX.
• Jane Morgan, popular singer, specializing in traditional pop music.
• Catie Curtis, folk/pop singer
• Mike Mangini, drummer for Dream Theater
• Seth Putnam, singer and leader of grindcore band Anal Cunt

Philosophy, religion and spirituality

• Ram Dass (Dr. Richard Alpert), author, philosophic and religious "guru"
• Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. See Dupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy Home.
• Timothy Leary, author, psychologist, lecturer at Harvard, advocate of L.S.D.-25 (i.e., Lysergic acid diethylamide) and other entheogens, jailbird, computer enthusiast

Physicians

• Atul Gawande, general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Political activists

• Charles Jacobs, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group and of The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership
• Andrea Levin, director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
• Leonard Zakim, prominent New England religious and civil rights leader

Producers and directors

• Brad Falchuk, writer, director, and producer of Nip/Tuck and Glee
• Eli Roth, film director, producer, actor
• Julie Taymor, director of Broadway theatre and film

Psychologists and psychiatrists

• Julian Jaynes, psychologist
• Kenneth Levin, psychiatrist and historian
• Kurt Lewin, "the father of social psychology"

Radio, television and motion pictures

• Maria Lopez, former judge, TV court show host
• Paula S. Apsell, television producer
• Tom Ashbrook, host of the NPR radio show, On Point.

Science, medicine and technology

• Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, co-creators of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet
• Reginald Fessenden (1866–1932), inventor and radio pioneer; his house at 45 Waban Hill Road is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
• Charles Stark Draper, inventor of the aircraft internal guidance system, and founder of MIT's Draper Labs
• Atul Gawande, surgeon, writer for The New Yorker
• Jonathan Mann, head of the World Health Organization's global AIDS project
• Frank E. Winsor, civil engineer and chief engineer of the Quabbin Reservoir project
• Francis Edgar Stanley and Freelan O. Stanley, twin brothers, who invented the famous steam-powered automobile known as the Stanley Steamer
• Thomas C. Peebles, physician, responsible for first isolating the measles virus, setting the stage for the development of a vaccine.

Songwriters

• Katharine Lee Bates, professor of English at Wellesley College and author of the lyrics to "America the Beautiful"
• Samuel Francis Smith, Baptist minister and author of the lyrics to My Country, 'Tis of Thee, also known as "America"

Sports

Baseball

• The following current and former players of the Boston Red Sox:
  • Matt Clement, (former)
  • Jim Corsi, (former player of the Boston Red Sox, Florida Marlins, Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, and Houston Astros)
  • JD Drew, (current)
  • Mark Loretta, (former)
  • Doug Mirabelli, (former)
  • Trot Nixon, (former)
  • David Ortiz, (current)
  • Wily Mo Peña, (former)
  • Jimmy Piersall, (former)
  • Jason Varitek, (current)
  • Ted Williams, (former)

Basketball

• Larry Bird, former Boston Celtics basketball player

Figure skating

• Jennifer Kirk
• Tenley Albright (born July 18, 1935 in Newton Centre, Massachusetts) is an American figure skater and became the first American female skater to win an Olympic gold medal. Other titles include the 1952 Olympic silver medal, the 1953 & 1955 World Champion, the 1953 & 1955 North American champion, and the 1952–1956 U.S. national champion.

Motor racing

Pete Hamilton former American NASCAR racer

Soccer

• Daouda Kante (former) New England Revolution player
• Taylor Twellman (current) New England Revolution player