List of people from Indianapolis

The following is a list of notable people who have been born or lived in Indianapolis, Indiana. Organized alphabetically by field of study and then by last name.

Actors

• Abraham Benrubi (1969– ), actor, best known for ER and Parker Lewis Can't Lose
• Monte Blue (1887–1963), silent film/character actor
• Connie Booth (1944– ), actress, screenwriter
• Steve Burton (1970– ), television actor
• Joyce DeWitt (1949– ), actress, best known for Three's Company
• Cullen Douglas (1967– ), actor, producer, director, best known for Grey's Anatomy and Pure Genius
• Robert Emhardt (1914–1994), actor
• Mike Epps (1970– ), stand-up comedian, actor, producer, writer, rapper
• Frances Farmer (1913–1970), actress
• Rhett Fisher (1980– ), actor, best known for '
• Brendan Fraser (1968– ), film actor
• Ken Foree (1948– ), actor
• Vivica A. Fox (1964– ), actress
• Chase Infiniti (2000– ), actress
• Doug Jones (1960– ), actor
• Brook Kerr (1973– ), actress
• Priscilla Lawson (1914–1958), actress
• Marjorie Main (1890–1975), actress
• Steve McQueen (1930–1980), Academy Award-nominated actor
• Julie McWhirter (1947– ), actress
• Margo Moore (1931–2000), actress
• Dohn Norwood(1974– ) actor, Hell on Wheels
• Katy O'Brian (1989– ), actress
• Dayo Okeniyi (1988– ), film actor
• Jake Short (1997– ), actor
• Steve Talley (1981– ), television/film actor
• Harry von Zell (1906–1981), television/film actor and radio announcer, best known for The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
• Clifton Webb (1889–1966), stage/film actor
• Sasheer Zamata (1986– ), comedian, actress, former cast member on Saturday Night Live

• Rupert Boneham, reality show contestant, ', ', ', '; politician
• June Cochran, model, Miss Indiana USA 1960, Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Year 1963
• Ken Hixon, screenwriter
• David Letterman, television personality, former host of The Late Show (1993–2015)
• Ryan Murphy, film and television screenwriter, director, and producer, notably Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story and Glee
• Blair St. Clair (Andrew Bryson), drag performer
• Marc Summers, game show host, television personality
• Dan Wakefield, screenwriter, novelist
• Marjorie Wallace, Miss World 1973

• Georgia Alexander (1868–1928), textbook author and educator
• Grace Alexander (1872–1951), writer, journalist, teacher
• Margaret C. Anderson, critic, editor and publisher
• John David Anderson (1975– ), children's book author of Ms. Bixby's Last Day, 2017 Indiana Authors Award Winner
• Allan Bloom, philosopher and essayist
• A'Lelia Bundles (1952– ), TV producer, journalist, and author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker
• Jared Carter (1939– ), poet, author of Work, for the Night Is Coming (1981), and winner of the Walt Whitman Award and the Poets' Prize
• Matt Dellinger (1975– ), author of Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway
• Elliot Engel, writer, lecturer, and dramatist
• Mari Evans (1923–2017), poet, author of I Am a Black Woman (1970), winner of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters poetry award
• Janet Flanner, Paris correspondent of The New Yorker
• Hildegarde Flanner, poet
• John Green, children's book author of The Fault in Our Stars; vlogger
• Alex Hall, author of Ben Drowned (2010)
• Joseph Hayes, author
• Phillip Hoose (1947– ), children's book author of '
• Kathryn Lasky (1944– ), children's book author of Guardians of Ga'Hoole
• Charles Major, author
• Elizabeth Miller (1878–1961), novelist
• Bill Peet (1915–2002), children's book author and illustrator of Pamela Camel
• Madelyn Pugh, script-writer, I Love Lucy
• Booth Tarkington, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
• Kurt Vonnegut, author
• James Whitcomb Riley, poet
• Alice Wong, disability rights activist, founder of the Disability Visibility Project, and 2024 MacArthurs Fellow

Other

• Frank J. Anderson, former sheriff of Marion County, Indiana (2003–2011)
• Dilley sextuplets, the first surviving set of sextuplets in North America
• Kent Brantly, physician, author, speaker, first American to be treated for the Ebola virus in 2014, TIME Person of the Year 2014
• Emmett I. Brown Jr., professional photographer, documented Indiana Avenue's jazz scene in the 1940s and 50s, editor Sepia magazine
• John P. Donohue, professor, doctor, pioneered treatments for testicular cancer
• Ruth M. Gardiner, first nurse killed in action during World War II
• Michael Graves, architect
• Margaret Yandes Holliday, Presbyterian missionary in Tabriz 1883–1919
• Peter Kassig, aid worker, taken hostage and ultimately beheaded by the Islamic State
• Justin Knapp, Wikipedia editor
• John Morton-Finney, Buffalo soldier, lawyer, educator and civil rights leader
• Irvine Page, physiologist, former president of the American Heart Association (1956–1957)
• Harriet Augusta Prunk (1840–1911), educator and school founder
• John C. Rule, historian at Ohio State University
• Bill Shirk, escape artist, president of Hoosier Broadcasting Corp.
• Avriel Shull, architect
• William V. Wheeler, founder of Wheeler Mission Ministries of Indianapolis
• David A. Wolf, astronaut
• Evans Woollen III, architect, founder and principal of Woollen, Molzan and Partners

References