Well, if you want to talk about a truly local celebrity, as in someone known here but not outside of L.A., there’s always the Venice beach guitar guy… (does he have a website? Googling “Venice beach guitar guy” only turns up mentions of him on blogs etc.)
Our local celeb list is pretty much endless thanks to the university. Some are, of course, a bit of a stretch at “local”, some of them are dead, but some are genuine and current.
Off the top of my head, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Philip Pullman, Richard Dawkins, Inspector Morse, Bill Clinton, Radiohead, Supergrass, JRR Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, CS Lewis, Tim Rice, Tim Henman, Rowan Atkinson, Winston Churchill.
Yeah, I admit it: he’s dead.
Don’t forget Jack White!
Since D.C.'s too easy, I’ll go with Bawlmer, which is actually closer to where I live:
John Waters, director and all-around awesome guy
Duff Goldman, baker and star of Ace of Cakes on the Food Network
Edward Norton, grandson of local developer James Rouse, and he may have acted in a movie or two. Don’t think he lives around here anymore though.
As for my real hometown, John Wilkes Booth’s house is our premier tourist attraction. (Hey, he was a celebrity. . .)
For a city the size of Denver we have amazingly few celebrities. John Elway is probably the only one known Countrywide. As far a local there is the Barrel guy.
Now that Gerald Ford and Hunter S. Thompson are gone, there really arn’t many in the whole state.
We got this good-looking fellow; coincidentally, it would have been his 71st birthday today. (There are some others as well.)
Peter Frampton.
Both Treat Williams and Roy Scheider went to college here. There is also Junior Vasquez , the DJ who put Madonna on the map. He still has a home in the area somewhere.
A true local celebrity - The best I can come up with is the owner of one of the breakfast joints here in town. He’s kind of cheesy and loud outside the place, telling bad jokes and wearing a 70s leather jacket, always runs for public office, and is just sort of a known name in town. His place is actually a favorite of ours, and of our out of town guests. Think ‘pretty damn close to Hooters’ and omelettes.
I love it.
Actual celebrities - I’ve seen Tom Waits and Joe Montana around town a couple of times each. That’s about it. I know Levi Leipheimer lives and cycles around here for part of the year, but I wouldn’t know him if he walked or cycled right by me.
And when I say “71st,” what I mean is, of course, “72nd.”
:smack:
I don’t know of any living in my neighborhood (Tokyo as a whole has plenty), but there are a couple originally from here.
Marc Panther, singer for the pop group Globe. He’s now living with his wife and kid in Okinawa.
Sada Abe, the subject of the film In the Realm of the Senses, mostly famous for walking around Tokyo with her lover’s tool tucked away in the folds of her kimono. Died some years ago.
Joe Lewis trained in Pompton Lakes.
Wellington’s best example of a local celebrity as described by the OP is probably Blanket Man. You really don’t have to look very hard to find him sitting around grooving to his portable radio. As much as they may hate to admit it, I reckon deep down every Wellingtonian thinks he’s freakin’ awesome.
As for “real” celebrities, Wellington is the home of this guy called Peter Jackson. Maybe you’ve heard of him. I believe he made a moderately successful movie about some pixies stealing rings or something.
Reports that Russell Crowe was born in Wellington are merely vicious rumours spread by embarrassed Aussies.
Here goes!
The Famous Chicken is probably the only one out of this list that counts as eccentric.
Reggie Bush went to a high school three miles from where I live now (if you look closely, sometimes he wears “619”, our area code, in eye black during games). Two of the three all-time Yankees to have thrown perfect games–David Wells and the other guy who isn’t David Cone–went to Point Loma High School, a couple of miles from my high school. Donnie Edwards grew up in San Diego, as did Junior Seau, Alex Smith, Kellen Winslow, Ricky Williams and Bill Walton. UCSD’s Geisel Library is named after contributor Theodore Geisel, AKA Dr. Seuss, who lived and died in the area. Jonas Salk and Francis Crick also lived and died in La Jolla, and co-founded the Salk Institute.
Gregory Peck and Raquel Welch lived in La Jolla. Anne Rice lives in La Jolla, as does Doug Flutie. Famous biochemist Kary Mullis lived in La Jolla, along with Carl Rogers and Raymond Chandler. La Jolla is mentioned in Surfin’ U.S.A.
Cameron Crowe attended high school and college in San Diego, and accordingly Fast Times at Ridgemont High was based on the life he observed while “undercover” at Clairemont High School. Pro skateboarders Tony Hawk and Bob Burnquist, soccer internationals Frankie Hejduk, Steve Cherundolo and Julie Foudy, and international snowboarding star Shaun White are San Diegans. So is Cameron Diaz.
McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc lived in San Diego, and left his fortune and the San Diego Padres to widow Joan, who later sold the team and contributed to the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace of Justice at USD, among other philanthropic efforts.
Fabio and RuPaul are San Diegans. Louis XIV is probably the local rock scene’s latest notable export, although the Subways made their American radio debut on 91X (91.1 FM) here.
Rabbit lives in my building. I’ve talked to him quite a bit. Hm, actually haven’t seen him in awhile. Hope he’s ok. Probably is, it’s easy to miss people for years in my building if you just go out at a different time then they do.
There used to be this guy with MS who was always tricycling around slowly or pushing his walker with the big orange flags on it. He lived just down the street. You’d see him all over Honolulu, everybody knew him. He even cycled across America to raise money. Haven’t seen him in years though. He’s most likely gone.
Hmm… previous posters seem to have understood the OP’s question in one of two mutually-exclusive ways:[ol]
[li]Who are your “local celebrities”, i.e. those who are (in)famous in your neck of the woods, but totally unknown elsewhere?[/li][li]Which widely-known “celebrities” live in (or are from) your locality? [/li][/ol]Assuming the first meaning, my previous apartment was a few blocks away from where the San Francisco Twins lived, and they apparently still eat once a week at my old neighborhood haunt, where I used to run into them all the time.
Recently deceased beloved local strongman/actor/itinerant/Hair Golf enthusiast The Great Antonio.
Homeless shelter/services founder and consistent winner of “Montrealer Closer to Sainthood” polls Father Emmett Johns
Oh – and drag empress of all media Mado Lamotte.