# Well-known women who became naturalized US citizens **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 10, 2012, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698 "2012-06-10T08:36:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/21 "2012-06-11T10:18:05Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > What I really want are women who became well-known before they were naturalized. In that case, never mind! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/22 "2012-06-11T13:57:15Z")
Lynn Redgrave. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/23 "2012-06-11T17:37:22Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Golda Meir, born in Kiev, emigrated to Milwaukee, then to Israel. Since she didn’t become famous until she became PM of Israel, she fails the famous-before-naturalization test. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/24 "2012-06-11T21:02:55Z")
Svetlana Stalina Alliluyeva Peters. From her obit in New York Times, [Lana Peters, Stalin’s Daughter, Dies at 85](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/world/europe/stalins-daughter-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=all), Nov. 28, 2011 [QUOTE=New York Times] Information about the next few years is sketchier. Ms. Peters became a United States citizen in 1978 and later told The Trenton Times that she had registered as a Republican and donated $500 to the conservative magazine National Review, saying it was her favorite publication. [/quote] Among her many name changes throughout her life, she shortened her name from Svetlana to simply Lana. There’s a joke that she had to petition a court and argue before a judge to make this “official”. The judge’s ruling: No Svet. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/25 "2012-06-11T21:13:46Z")
(Missed edit windor for above post.) And yes, [del]Svet[/del]Lana was an international “celebrity” (of sorts) when she arrived in the United States, well before becoming a citizen. She arrived in 1967, at a fairly high-tension time during the Cold War, and denounced Stalin and the Soviet Union, creating an international stir. Some excerpts from the NYT article: [QUOTE=New York Times] Once in India, Ms. Alliluyeva, as she was known now, evaded Soviet agents in the K.G.B. and showed up at the United States Embassy in New Delhi seeking political asylum. The world watched in amazement as Stalin’s daughter, granted protection, became the most high-profile Soviet exile since the ballet virtuoso Rudolf Nureyev defected in 1961. The United States quickly dispatched a C.I.A. officer to help her travel through Italy to neutral Switzerland, but American officials worried that accepting her into the United States could damage its improving relations with Moscow. Finally, President Lyndon B. Johnson, on humanitarian grounds, agreed to admit her but asked that there be as little fanfare as possible. \ Her arrival in New York, in April 1967, was more triumphant than low-key. Reporters and photographers were waiting at the airport, and she held a news conference in which she denounced the Soviet regime. Her autobiography, “Twenty Letters to a Friend,” was published later that year, bringing her more than $2.5 million. In 1969 she recounted her journey from the Soviet Union in a second memoir, “Only One Year.” Settling in Princeton, N.J., Ms. Alliluyeva made a public show of burning her Soviet passport, saying she would never return to the Soviet Union. She denounced her father as “a moral and spiritual monster,” called the Soviet system “profoundly corrupt” and likened the K.G.B. to the Gestapo. Writing in Esquire magazine, Garry Wills and Ovid Demaris — under the headline “How the Daughter of Stalin Denounced Communism and Embraced God, America and Apple Pie” — said the Svetlana Alliluyeva saga added up to “the Reader’s Digest ultimate story.” As the Kremlin feared, Ms. Alliluyeva became a weapon in the cold war. In 1968, she denounced the trial of four Soviet dissidents as “a mockery of justice.” On Voice of America radio, Soviet citizens heard her declare that life in the United States was “free, gay and full of bright colors.” [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/26 "2012-06-11T21:16:01Z")
How about the first U.S. citizen to be canonized as a saint? Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/27 "2012-06-11T21:22:49Z")
How about the Irish-born labor activist Mary “Mother” Jones? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/28 "2012-06-11T21:31:58Z")
And while we’re discussing famous Soviet leaders whose kids became U. S. citizens, there’s also this: Nina L. Khrushcheva, great-grand-daughter of Nikita: [Immigrant of the Day: Nina Khrushcheva (Former Soviet Union)](http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2007/10/immigrant-of-14.html) (publ. Oct. 19, 2007): > [@](#): > > Dr. Nina L. Khrushcheva is a professor of media and culture in the graduate program of international affairs at The New School, a senior fellow of the World Policy Institute, and from 2002 to 2004 was adjunct assistant professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She is the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev. Dr. Khrushcheva earned a degree from Moscow State University with a major in Russian and minors in English and Italian in 1987 and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University in 1998. She write regularly about world affairs. > > Khrushcheva is a naturalized U.S. citizen and lives in New York City. I’ll leave it up to the Interested Reader to research what may have happened to the intervening Khrushchev generations. ETA: And now, the $64,000 question! How many sons/daughters/descendants/cousins/whatever of U. S. Presidents have become naturalized Soviet or Russian citizens? ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/29 "2012-06-12T02:48:07Z")
Hedy Lamarr was famous before her naturalization. She became a US citizen in 1953. Most of her Hollywood films were made in the 1930s or 40s. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/30 "2012-06-12T02:55:10Z")
Martina was already an accomplished tennis player when she defected. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/31 "2012-06-12T03:08:31Z")
Hedy Lamarr was an inventor and patented a spectrum-hopping device that serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as Bluetooth, COFDM used in Wi-Fi network connections, and CDMA: > **[Hedy Lamarr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr#Frequency-hopping_spread-spectrum_invention)** > > Hedy Lamarr (/ˈhɛdi/; born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914\[a\] – January 19, 2000) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American actress and inventor. She was a film star during Hollywood's Golden Age. > After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, including the controversial Ecstasy (1933), she fled from her first husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. Traveling to London, she met Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer, who offered he... There are a number of prize-winning women writers who were born in other countries but I’m not sure of their current status, whether they’re naturalized, or green card holders. Some of them are married to US citizens: Jamaica Kincaid Edwige Danticat Bharati Mukherjee Jhumpa Lahiri Bapsi Sidhwa Monique Truong I don’t know how many of these you’d count as “well-known”, though–Jhumpa Lahiri won a Pulitzer prize but she’s not really a household name. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/32 "2012-06-12T03:26:15Z")
I just remembered well-known author Isabel Allende, who became a US citizen in 2003: > **[Isabel Allende](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Allende)** > > Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (American Spanish: \[isaˈβel aˈʝende\] (listen); born in 2 August 1942) is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the genre magical realism, is known for novels such as The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus, 1982) and City of the Beasts (La ciudad de las bestias, 2002), which have been commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author." In 2004, Allende was inducted Allend... ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/33 "2012-06-12T07:29:55Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > The majority of these women seem to be from the field of entertainment and sports. No scientists, no writers, no engineers. But that’s probably just a reflection of the overall situation. Most people are more familiar with entertainers than with scientists or engineers; “engineer” isn’t something you get into “because I want to be famous!”. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/34 "2012-06-12T09:26:47Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > The majority of these women seem to be from the field of entertainment and sports. No scientists, no writers, no engineers. But that’s probably just a reflection of the overall situation. Ayn Rand was a writer. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/35 "2012-06-12T13:36:56Z")
> [@CatherineZeta](#): > > … As it happens, I can find no confirmation online, incl. in her Wiki bio, that Catherine Zeta-Jones (born in Wales, UK) was ever naturalized. Thought she had been. From this list, [Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Naturalized_citizens_of_the_United_States), I find these famous female naturalized U.S. citizens (some duplicates with names already mentioned - sorry): Elizabeth Arden Jacinda Barrett Mischa Barton Sarah Chalke Charo Anna Chenault Claudette Colbert Nadia Comăneci Sheena Easton Frances Fisher Joan Fontaine Greta Garbo Greer Garson Jennifer Granholm Salma Hayek Teresa Heinz Iman Margot Kidder Heidi Klum Madeleine M. Kunin Nancy Kwan Elsa Lanchester Merle Oberon Catherine O’Hara Maureen O’Hara Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Isabella Rossellini Ann Rutherford Monica Seles Orly Taitz Jessica Tandy Elizabeth Taylor Ivana Trump Rachel Weisz Ruth Westheimer Anna Wintour Fay Wray ---
**Author:** ![benbo1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@benbo1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/benbo1)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/36 "2012-06-14T08:26:56Z")
Nicole Kidman Olivia Newton-John Natalie Portman ?Diane Kruger? ?Brigitte Gabriel? Audrey Hepburn Isla Fisher ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698/37 "2012-06-14T11:16:17Z")
[Famke Janssen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famke_Janssen) [Ayaan Hirsi Ali](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali) ETA both have been working and living in the US for years, but I don’t know if they are naturalized. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-known-women-who-became-naturalized-us-citizens/624698.md?page=1)