You are thinking of someone else.
Without looking it up I am fairly confident that William Butler Yeats
rarely left Ireland.
Having looked it up, you’re wrong, but I am too. He did leave when he was two, but the family moved back to Dublin when he was about 16. Then he moved back to England 7 years later, and appears to have remained there until he was appointed to the Senate in his fifties.
Then following timeline refers to many notable occasions throughout Yeats’ life
which took place in Ireland:
However, he was much more cosmopolitan than I had supposed, and does seem
to have spent much time in England.
Ronan Keating (shudder)
Ed Byrne
Among the people who were actually born in the town where I now live:
Ernest Hemingway
Ray Kroc
Dan Castellaneta
Kathy Griffin
Betty White
Some people who’ve lived here:
Frank Lloyd Wright
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Percy Julian
Judy Tenuta
Peter Sagal
John Mahoney
Rick Barry - basketball player
Judy Blume - writer; lived right around the corner from me
Hubie Brown - basketball coach and commentator
Nicholas Murray Butler - Nobel Peace Prize winner
Michael Chertoff - US Homeland Security Director
William Halsey, Jr. - Navy admiral
Alexander Hamilton - plus a handful of other Founding Fathers
Don Newcombe - pitcher
Elizabeth Pena - actress
Mickey Spillane - writer
Plus, a whole bunch of NBA and NFL players who are not household names
So - there’s got to be a story there, either about what Siegel was like, or whether she knew about Superman or any ideas Siegel was noodling through…
Dude.
Chuck Palahniuk
Phil Knight
Mel Blanc
Gus Van Sant
Katee Sackhoff (suck it, Seattle!)
I’m going to limit the list to the city I was born in: Detroit. So some notables born in the same city as I, would include:
Charles Lindbergh
Christie Brinkley
Mitt Romney
Sonny Bono
Jerry Bruckheimer ::shivver::
Steve Ballmer ::another shivver::
Casey Kasem
James Lipton
Ed McMahon
Gilda Radner
Tom Selleck
Lily Tomlin
William Boeing
Mike Ilitch
John DeLorean 
Alice Cooper
Jack White
Speaking of musicians, this being Motown, I don’t even want to roll down that alley. However, I lived in Warren for 10 years. Even though Eminem wasn’t born here, he came to fame here while working at Little Caesers/Caesarland. at 10 1/2 Mile & Hoover road. The plaza it’s in was literally right behind my backyard. I can’t tell you how many times we took the kids there. Of course, he’d already came to fame by then (but only by a few years). I wonder if we ever crossed paths.
Where I’m currently living: Conrad Bain, of “Diff’rent Strokes” fame.
A few miles outside of town: Fay Wray, of “King Kong” fame.
I came here to post that there were only two notable residents (many many years apart) in my small home town but to my surprise Wikipedia disagreed with me:
John Douglas Armour, Puisne judge of the Supreme Court of Canada
Charles Arkoll Boulton, militia leader in the Red River Rebellion
James Cockburn, lawyer and Father of Confederation
Marie Dressler, silent film actress - This was the first one I knew
Francis P. Duffy, Military Chaplain of the Fighting 69th New York Regiment during WWI
Sir Sandford Fleming who helped create and define the idea of time zones - :o This one I should have known
Ed Greenwood, author of the Forgotten Realms setting for Dungeons & Dragons - This was the second one I knew
Rev. John Weir Foote, politician, chaplain, and Victoria Cross recipient
Ebenezer Perry, Cobourg’s police commissioner - Seriously wikipedia? THIS is notable??
William Renwick Riddell, judge and historian
Justin Williams, NHL hockey player
Alex Hailey
Quentin Tarantino
Patricia Neal
Kenny Chesney
Jack Hanna
David Keith
Johnny Knoxville
Patty the Daytime Hooker (Dale Dickey)
Back when I was a reporter living in Noblesville, Indiana, and working for the local paper, I did a large-ish article about famous folk from Noblesville. After a few days of research at the local historical society and library, I was staggered to learn how many there are from a podunk little town in the middle of nowheresville.
There are a handful of sports stars who either live in Noblesville or were born here, but the more interesting folks are listed below. Sorry about the length. Once a reporter, always a reporter.
William ‘Pete’ Knight – politician, combat pilot, test pilot, and astronaut. Knight still holds the world’s speed record for flight in a winged, powered aircraft. I actually got to meet the man while doing the article. Fascinating individual. Bluest, sharpest eyes I’ve ever seen. Truly the eyes of a pilot.
**Steve Wariner **– country music star who still maintains his ties to Noblesville. In fact, he was back last summer to play at the local Moose Lodge for a fundraiser. I was there.
Rex Stout – prolific mystery author and creator of the popular Nero Wolfe novels.
Norman Norell (born Norman David Levinson) – fashion designer, known for elegant suits and tailored silhouettes. Generally credited as the forerunner of designing womens’ pant suits.
Earl ‘Lucky’ Teter – race car driver and daredevil who pioneered the vocation of stunt driving. First to coin the phrase Hell Drivers. Killed at the Indiana State Fair in July, 1942, while trying to break his own world car jump record for the second time in the same day.
On the not-so-savory side of famous:
David Curtiss Stephenson (D.C. Stephenson) – Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana and 22 other northern states. Put on trial not for KKK crimes but for the gruesome rape of Madge Olberholtzer, who later suicided as a result of her brutalization by Stephenson. The jail and courthouse he was tried in and served time in, still stand in the square in downtown Noblesville.
William Dudley Pelley – fascist and Christian extremist. Founder of a national Nazi-like political party during the Great Depression. At one time he’d been a Hollywood scriptwriter.
**Helen Worley **(nicknamed ‘Dirty Helen’) – madam and owner of a house of ill-repute known as the Sunflower Inn. She entertained the famous and infamous of Chicago and Milwaukee during the gangster era of the 20s and 30s, allegedly including such characters as Al Capone. A local brewery/restaurant in downtown Noblesville called Barley Inn offers Dirty Helen beer, named in her honor. And yes, I’ve raised more than a few of them in my day. 
George Washington
Robert E. Lee
Antonia Ford
Frank Zappa
Can’t think of anyone else at the moment…
For the Dayton folks, how did you miss Mike Schmidt and Edwin Moses?
Not sports fans?
Oops, yeah, how could I forget him? Also, Steven Moffat, but I guess he’s only “famous” if you like Doctor Who.
Ha. I used to run into Carrot Top all the time. And I volunteer at Kerouac House. He lived there less than a year, although he wrote Dharma Bums there, so that’s cool. And he and his mom lived only in the back of the house, which is maybe 300 square feet.
Lots of pro athletes live around here, too. Davey Johnson lives in Winter Park, and I guess Horace Grant still lives in the cool huge house on the lake in WP. I don’t know many others because I’m not into sports, but lots of famous people have homes here.
Ginger Rogers wasn’t born here, but lived here much of her early life.
Etta Place - the SO of the Sundance Kid
Lee Harvey Oswald
From IMDB:
Larry Hagman
Bill Paxton
Kate Capshaw
Kelly Clarkson (My SIL knows her mother, IIRC)
Betty Buckley (the mom from Eight is Enough)
Fess Parker (I didn’t know that)
Mark David Chapman. :eek:
A couple of notables who lived here at some point:
Martina Navratilova
Julie Newmar (who was “the other woman” in my second cousin’s divorce and subsequently married my cousin’s ex-husband)