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List of people from Ridgefield, Connecticut

This is a list of notable people, past and present who have lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut or are closely associated with the town, listed by area in which they are best known:

Authors, writers, playwrights, screenwriters

  • Silvio A. Bedini (1917–2007), retired Smithsonian Institution curator, author, born and raised in Ridgefield
  • Rich Cohen (born 1968), non-fiction writer
  • Howard Fast (1914–2003), novelist
  • Ira Joe Fisher (born 1947), CBS weatherman and poet (Some Holy Weight in the Village Air)
  • Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985), poet, critic and translator; he and his wife Sally called Ridgefield home and many sources repeat the assertion, though their residence was located in neighboring Redding
  • Tom Gilroy, screenwriter, actor and film producer, graduated from Ridgefield High School in 1978
  • Max Gunther (1926–1998), journalist and writer
  • Tim Herlihy (born 1966), screenwriter, film producer, former head writer of Saturday Night Live
  • Roger Kahn (1927–2020), author, lived on North Salem Road
  • Irene Kampen (1923–1998), novelist and journalist
  • Richard Kluger (born 1934), author
  • Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987), playwright, ambassador, politician, and wife of Henry Luce, lived on Great Hill Road
  • Andy Luckey (born 1965), children's book author
  • John Ames Mitchell (1844–1918), novelist, founder of Life magazine
  • Allan Nevins (1891–1971), only writer to win the Pulitzer prize for historical biography twice (on Grover Cleveland and Hamilton Fish)
  • Flannery O'Connor (1925–1964), writer often said to have lived in town when she was a boarder of Robert Fitzgerald's from 1949 to 1951, although Fitzgerald actually lived in neighboring Redding
  • Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953), Nobel Prize-winning playwright, owned Brook Farm on North Salem Road from 1922 to 1927
  • Brad Parks (born 1974), author
  • Cornelius J. Ryan (1920–1974), author
  • Mark Salzman (born 1959), author and actor who wrote about the town in his novel Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia
  • Richard Scarry (1919–1994), children's author
  • Maurice Sendak (1928–2012), author and artist
  • Robert Lewis Taylor (1912–1998), Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, 1959)
  • Alvin Toffler (1928–2016), futurist, author
  • Abigail Goodrich Whittlesey (1788–1858), educator, publisher, editor
  • Max Wilk (1920–2011), author
  • Bari Wood (born 1936), author

Actors, others in the dramatic arts

Singers, musicians, composers

  • Larry Adler (1914–2001), harmonica virtuoso, lived on Pumping Station Road
  • Bert Buhrman (1915–1999), organist
  • Judy Collins (born 1939), Grammy Award-winning folk singer (current resident)
  • Aaron Copland (1900–1990), lived on Limestone Road
  • Fanny Crosby (1820–1915), wrote more than 8,000 hymns, lived as a child at the corner of Main Street and Branchville Road
  • Edwina Eustis Dick (1908–1997), contralto, pioneer in the field of music therapy, lived on Old Branchville Road
  • Geraldine Farrar (1882–1967), Metropolitan Opera soprano, lived on West Lane and later New Street, where she died
  • Andrew Gold (1951–2011), singer, songwriter, and musician, lived on St. Johns Road
  • Stephen Jenks (1772–1856), composer and "teacher of psalmody", lived in Ridgefield
  • Ed Kowalczyk (born 1971), singer, songwriter, musician and a founding member of the band Live
  • Jim Lowe (1927–2016) singer, disc jockey and radio host
  • Václav Nelhýbel (1919–1996), composer
  • Alex North (1910–1991), film composer
  • Noël Regney (1922–2002), pianist and songwriter
  • Stephen Schwartz (born 1948), composer and lyricist (current resident)
  • Debbie Shapiro (born 1954), singer (current resident)
  • Maxim Shostakovich (born 1938), conductor (past resident)
  • Jim Steinman (1947–2021), composer, lyricist, record producer, and playwright
  • Frieder Weissmann (1893–1984), conductor and composer, lived on Prospect Ridge

Artists, architects, designers, cartoonists

Businessmen

Journalists

  • Todd Brewster, author, documentary film producer, former Senior Editorial Producer, ABC News (current resident)
  • Morton Dean (born 1935), television journalist (current resident)
  • Henry Luce (1898–1967), founder of Time magazine, husband of Clare Boothe Luce, lived on Great Hill Road
  • David Manning, fictitious film reviewer said to be with the Ridgefield Press but created in a deceptive advertising campaign
  • Westbrook Pegler (1894–1969), columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner (resident, 1941–1948)

Government

Other

See also

Footnotes

External links