List of people from Newport, Rhode Island
This entry lists notable people who were born, resided or worked in Newport, Rhode Island.
Notable people born in Newport
Eighteenth Century
- Vice-Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, Royal Navy
- William Ellery Channing, one of the foremost Unitarian preachers of the 19th century.
- Edward Malbone, artist and miniaturist.
- Caleb Gardner, captain and counsul of the French Empire.
Nineteenth Century
- D. Putnam Brinley, artist
- Thomas Harper Ince, actor
- Ida Lewis, lighthouse keeper credited with saving 18 lives in Newport Harbor throughout the nineteenth century; she received national attention and numerous honors. A United States Coast Guard buoy tender bears her name.
- Matthew C. Perry, Commodore of the U.S. Navy who forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854, under the threat of military force.
Twentieth Century
- Harry Anderson, actor and comedian
- Margaret Frances Andrews, socialite and show dog breeder
- Nadia Bjorlin, soap opera actress (Days of our Lives)
- Frank Corridon, who pitched for the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies, and St. Louis Cardinals and is known for inventing the now illegal pitch, the spitball.
- Tanya Donelly, musician, vocalist for Rhode Island-based bands Belly and Throwing Muses, as well as guitarist for the band The Breeders.
- Leon Wilkeson, bass guitarist
- Charlie Fern, White House speechwriter, journalist.
- Van Johnson, actor, known best for "all-American" roles in MGM films during World War II.
- Mena Suvari, actress, known best for her role as the vampish cheerleader with whom Kevin Spacey's character is obsessed in the 1999 film American Beauty.
Notable people who lived or worked in Newport
17th Century
- Benedict Arnold (governor) of Rhode Island
- William Coddington, governor of Rhode Island
- John Clarke (1609–1676), Baptist minister and drafter of the Royal Charter
- Nicholas Easton, governor of Rhode Island
18th Century
- George Berkeley, philosopher
- Louis Alexandre Berthier, French Army officer, later Marshal of France and Napoleon's chief of staff
- William Ellery, signer of the Declaration of Independence
- Robert Feke, portrait painter
- Peter Harrison, architect
- Samuel Hopkins (clergyman), Congregational minister, Calvinist theologian and pioneer leader for abolition of the slave trade
- Aaron Lopez, prominent merchant
- Louis-Marie, vicomte de Noailles, French army officer
- Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, French general
- Charles Theodore Pachelbel, first organist of Newport's Trinity Church and son of Johann Pachelbel
- William Selby, organist (Trinity Church) and composer
- John Smybert, artist
- Ezra Stiles, minister, diarist, and President of Yale
- Gilbert Stuart, portrait painter
- Isaac Touro, hazzan at Synagogue
- Judah Touro, prominent merchant and philanthropist
19th Century to 1885
- George Bancroft, historian, Secretary of the Navy, diplomat, and summer resident
- August Belmont, financier
- Ambrose Burnside, Army officer stationed at Fort Adams, later a Civil War general, governor, and senator
- Julia Ward Howe, author and summer resident
- Henry James, author
- William James, Harvard professor
- John Kensett, artist
- Clement C. Moore, summer resident and author of 'Twas the Night before Christmas
- Levi P. Morton, summer resident and donor of Morton Park, later Vice President of the United States
- Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, Hero of the War of 1812
- William Trost Richards, artist
- Milton H. Sanford, textile magnate and Thoroughbred racehorse owner
- Judah Touro, philanthropist
- Richard Upjohn, architect
The Gilded Age, 1885–1914
- Louis Agaziz, scientist and adventurer
- Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, socialite
- Alva Belmont, socialite and leader of women's rights movement
- Charles D. Barney, socialite, banker, founder of Smith Barney Brokerage
- August Belmont, financier
- Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, socialite, builder of Belcourt Castle
- James Gordon Bennett, Jr. newspaper publisher and yachtsman
- Ogden Codman, designer
- Richard Morris Hunt, architect
- William Morris Hunt, artist
- John LaFarge, artist
- Pierre Lorillard, tobacco manufacturer
- Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, founder, Naval War College
- Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, naval historian and strategist
- Ward McAllister, flamboyant raconteur of high society, coined the term 'the 400' for the New York social elite
- Charles McKim, architect
- H.H. Ricardson, architect
- Edith B. Price, writer and illustrator
- Horace Trumbauer, architect
- Alva Vanderbilt Wife of William K. Vanderbilt, early feminist and active in the women's suffrage movement
- Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughter of W.K. and Alva Vanderbilt; Duchess of Marlborough
- Cornelius Vanderbilt II heir to Vanderbilt fortune, Chairman of New York Central Railroad
- William Kissam Vanderbilt heir to Vanderbilt fortune, noted yachtsman
- Edith Wharton, author
- Stanford White, architect
- Thornton Wilder, author and playwright, whose 1973 novel Theophilus North is set in Newport, served a three-month enlistment in the Army's Coast Artillery Corps at Fort Adams, Rhode Island in World War I (rising to the rank of corporal).
20th Century, 1914–2000
- Laura Jane Barney socialite, philanthropist, Smith Barney Brokerage heiress Champ Soleil Mansion on Belleveue Ave
- Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda, 25th Chief of Naval Operations
- John Nicholas Brown, socialite, yachtsman and philanthropist
- The Cowsills, a popular 1960s pop/flower power band that had a #2 hit with The Rain, The Park, And Other Things in 1967.
- Doris Duke, tobacco heiress and philanthropist
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, located his summer White House at Newport
- Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr.
- Paul L. Gaines, first African-American to be elected mayor of a New England city, 1981-1983.
- Kristin Hersh, musician, vocalist for Rhode Island-based band Throwing Muses, 50 Foot Wave and solo artist.
- Fleet Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations, 1941–1945
- MacGillivray Milne, 27th Governor of American Samoa, 1936–1938
- Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 1942–1945; Chief of Naval Operations
- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, summer resident and First Lady
- Claiborne Pell, socialite and U.S. Senator 1961-1997
- Admiral William Sims, commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe 1917–1919
- Admiral Raymond Spruance, the victor of Midway and later President, Naval War College
- Harold Vanderbilt, yachtsman and bridge player (inventor of contract bridge)
- Paul Gordon – keyboardist and guitarist with Goo Goo Dolls, New Radicals, Lisa Marie Presley and currently The B-52's
- Joanna Going, Actress
21st Century, 2001–present
- Richard Hatch, first winner of the realty television show Survivor
- Richard Saul Wurman, architect, graphic designer and founder of the TED Conferences
- Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator 2007 to present
- Michael G. Duchaney, heir to Mentadent corporation