[ehenningsen]

I saw a post about Gale Sayers, so I collected a bunch of posts that had a thread on famouse nebraskans..

There are certainly alot of famous people, here is some:

Johny Carson
Paula Zahn
Tom Brokaw
Henry Fonda
Marlon Brando
Fred Astaire
President Gerald Ford
Malcom X
Billionaire Warren Buffet
Cy Young Winner Bob Gibson

Actors:
Nick Nolte
Rosemarry Clooney
Dorothy McGuire
James Coburn
John Beasley

Legendary College Football Coach Tom Osborne
Film Director, (Sideways, About Schmidt, Election,etc) Alexander Payne

Musician and Producer for Manheim Steamroller Chip Davis
Conor Oberst the singer and writer for band Bright Eyes

writer Willa Cather
Rock Band 311
Politician: William Jennings Bryan, Westerners
Wild Bill and buffalo bill cody
Tennis Champ Andy Roddick
Cheif Standing Bear
Arbor Day founder: J. Sterling Morton
General John J. Pershing
Boys Town Founder, Edward Flanagan
Architect: Leo A Daly
Construction Mogul: Peter Keiwit

And the new poet laureate for the U.S, are all from the State of Nebraska, just to name a few.

Also:
spam, kool-aid, instant cake mix, metal hairculers, reuban sandwich, raisin bran, 911 systems, Wells Fargo, were invented or started here.

We are home to Union Pacific, First National Bank, Woodmen Insurance, Physcians Mutal, Mutal of Omaha insurance, Kawasaki north american headquaters, Berkshire Hathaway, Ameritrade, Con-Agra, Arbor Day, #1 rated Zoo, Henry Doorly, the College Baseball World Series.

Birthplace of TV dinners and general whiner, rabble rouser

How about 3 Heisman trophy winners (Kinnick, Crouch, Rodgers)?
How about NFL Hall of Famer Gale Sayers?
What about the JFK speechwriter who is credited with writing the 1960 inaugural address (probably the 2nd best inaugural address behind Lincoln's 1864 address

Also former heavyweight boxing champion Max Baer, talk show host Dick Cavett, and Frank Leahy who coached Notre Dame to 4 national titles, and was arguably Notre Dame's most successful coach since Knute Rockne

Chris Klein of American Pie fame, and Randy Meisner who was a member of the pre-Joe Walsh Eagles

And no famous Nebraskans list would be complete without the Vice President of the United States of America Richard Cheney!

Don't forget that the Vise Grip that everone with a little mechanical ability has used was invented by a farmer in Dewitt Nebraska

Former baseball player Wade Boggs

ConAgra is from here. And its predecessor, Nebraska Consolidated Mills has been headquartered in Omaha for a long long time after being started in several smaller towns in the Grand Island area.

It doesn't seem to be as well known, at least in my circles, that the Cake Mix was invented here. Duncan Heines cake mix was dreamt up and started here in Omaha by Nebraska Consolidated Mills, again ConAgra before the name change. It really was the birth of modern food processing in terms of mixes in a box rather than items made from scratch. It allowed mom to get a job outside of the home. You know by inventing the cake mix, Omaha has changed the world.

Columbus is home to Dorothy Lynch Salad Dressing

Cabella's is based out of Sydney

We're also home to the Strategic Air Command.

The trendy clothing boutique The Buckle began and is based out of Kearney.

And of course Omaha Steaks

Gabriel Union
Bemis Center for Contemporary Art - Largest urban artists colony in the country
We already mentioned the zoo, but even it has several "sub-categories" of "America's Largests" and "World's Largests"

To add to the above :
Marg Helgenberger (spelling?) from Televisions Smash Hit: CSI
Jamie (aka James) King- Actress/Super Model/TV show host (straight outta Westside High)
THE FAINT
Fee Waybill - singer for the Rock Band THE TUBES
Larry "The Cable Guy" - Comedian - from some small town in SE Nebraska
That guy from Maroon 5 you guys were talking about on another post.
One of the guys from Flaming Lips is from Omaha...

Also....
Jolie Edwards - Country Singer
Swoozie Kurz - Actress
The charachter actress who played the housekeepper on TV show BENSON
(can't remember her name right now ? Swenson?)
There is also a internationaly known female Classical or Jazz singer from Omaha (again I don't have my list in front of me, & can't remember her name)

Actress Gabrielle Union. Looking at IMDB.com, it looks like she has quite a roster of good movies, but I know her best as Syd from Bad Boys

Marg Helgenberger who plays Cathrine on CSI is from Fremont.

Darryl Zanuck (one of the godfather's of the early Hollywood studio system).
Harold Lloyd (one of the three great comedians of the silent screen era) (A side note to that, one of the other great silent era comedians, Buster Keaton, was born in Kansas, but he has a Nebraska connection in that his parents were married in Lincoln.)
Montgomery Clift

Delving into the more obscure:

The guy who starred in The Terminator, the one who travels through time to stop Schwarzenneger and then ends up impregnating Sara Conner. He's from Nebraska. He was also in Aliens and The Abyss.

Harley Jane Kozak is from Lincoln. She was in some soap operas and did some film work. She was in Paranthood and When Harry Met Sally.

A guitar player from the band Mr. Mister (they had some hits in the 80s) is from Fremont.

The name of that Maroon 5 guy is James Valentine, by the way.

And I'm forgeting his name... They have a whole museum devoted to him in Aurora. The guy who invented the strobe light and developed high-speed photography (some of his photographs include the famous milkdrop and the bullet through an apple) grew up in Aurora Nebraska, but he did all his inventing while on the faculty at MIT.

A random tidbit. Charles Lindberg learned how to pilot at a flight school in Lincoln.

Hugh Hefner's parents were farmers from Nebraska. Hugh himself was born in Chicago, though.

Henry/Peter Fonda
Bob Gibson
Chris Klein
Swoosie Kurtz
Harold Lloyd
Dorothy McGuire
Nick Nolte
Gayle Sayers
Gabrielle Union
Paul Williams
Roger Williams

[kosnebbear]

Not sure if you got them all, but I did see one mistake that I know that you made. The three Heisman trophy winners are Johnny Rogers in the early 1970's, Mike Rozier in the 1980's and Eric Crouch. I don't know who Kinnick is at all.

[ehenningsen]

these three heisman winners were born and raised in Nebraska

The three your referring to were University of Nebraska winners

[kosnebbear]

Oh okay, just thought you were naming individuals who played in Nebraska. Where was Kinnick playing then and where was he from in Nebraska if I might ask.

[ehenningsen]

He played for University of Iowa, they named their stadium after him..

Also, Nebraska has had alot of NFL talent come out of it for its population, currently Nebraska ranks #7 in the nation for NFL players per capita..

[kosnebbear]

I know that we feed our football players well and they do good in the NFL. I did check on Nile Kinnick and he was born in Abel Iowa and only played football in Nebraska for maybe one or two years in Omaha at Benson high. He moved to Nebraska when his father changed jobs. He had a choice of playing for Minnesota or Iowa, Nebraska was not even one of his choices at the time. He went to Iowa because Iowa was down and he wanted a to challenge himself to be the best, which he was in 1939 when he won the Heisman Trophy and about every other award that a football player could win back then.

So if we are including Nile Kinnick as from being from Nebraska we need to add US Army General of the Armies John "Black Jack" Pershing. He was assigned to the miilitary department of the University of Nebraska around 1890 as a teacher of military tactics. Pershing Center or Auditorium in Lincoln was named after him.

I was checking your list and saw that you missed Richard Jensen as well. He was the one who was the fugitve on the TV series in the 60's and 70's. He was born in Naponee Nebraska and went to school there. I even think he went to college in Nebraska as well. His home in Naponee is still standing today.

I hope that others will step in and add to your list over time. I know that one person can not get everyone who is famous who either was born or had lived in Nebraska.

Thank you for your effort in putting this list together. Nice job.

[Dave1215]

That was a long (and great list) so if this was already mentioned and I just missed it then I applogize:

Astronaut Clayton Anderson just got back from the international space station last month (he handed the reins over to an Iowan - so "go midwest")

[Gigaspeed]

The original "The Fugitive" TV main character (Dr. Richard Kimble) was born in Naponee Nebraska. He was very well known in Hollywood and died in 1980.

[Steve_W]

I guess considering our location and population we haven't done too bad?

[ehenningsen]

Rookie sensation from UNL to the Yankees in Joba Chamberlain