Famous people from Buffalo, NY

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Many Buffalonians have found fame and fortune in their careers.

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1 Authors and Journalists
2 Actors and Entertainers
3 Politics and Law
4 Science and Technology
5 Other residents
6 Sports
7 Musicians
8 Buffalo companies
9 Infamous Buffalo people and events
10 Other events and trivia
11 External links
12 See also

[edit] Authors and Journalists

Several well known authors emerged from here, including Paul Horgan, Taylor Caldwell, and playwrights Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Lackawanna Blues) and A.R. Gurney (The Dining Room and Love Letters).

Mark Twain lived in Buffalo as a part-owner and managing editor of The Buffalo Express from 1869 to 1871. While not technically a Buffalonian, he's remembered by his readers for his time in Buffalo due to his stories A Day at Niagara Falls and The Diaries of Adam and Eve, the latter being a humorous play set in the nearby town of Eden.

Playwright Lanford Wilson based his play Hot L Baltimore on the Hotel Lafayette, where he stayed as an artist in residence at Studio Arena theater in Buffalo

Anna Katharine Green, America's first writer of detective fiction, spent her adult life here.

Mabel Dodge Luhan was born and raised here.

Christian music expert/author/celebrity interviewer/ journalist Mark Weber was born, raised and currently lives here.

William Wells Brown, the nation's first African-American novelist and historian, lived in Buffalo in the 1840s and was active in the Underground Railroad.

Elbert Hubbard was an executive with the Larkin Soap Company in Buffalo before moving to nearby East Aurora, founding the Roycroft arts and crafts community, and publishing several books and periodicals.

Charles Baxter did his graduate work at the University at Buffalo, as did Gary Barwin and Ishmael Reed. See University page for other notable alumni. Notable faculty include Tony Conrad, Robert Creeley, and Lejaren Hiller.

Other writers who lived here included Taylor Caldwell, Leslie Fiedler, John Barth and Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee.

Television news hosts Tim Russert and Wolf Blitzer were raised in the greater Buffalo area. Political satirist Mark Russell was born there as was sports commentator Don Criqui.

NPR's Terry Gross and Ira Flatow began their radio careers in Buffalo. In addition, Joey Reynolds, Bill Mazer, Buffalo Bob Smith and Foster Brooks got their careers started on Buffalo radio stations.

Buffalo has also long been a popular setting for fiction and short stories of all kinds.

[edit] Actors and Entertainers

Buffalo has a thriving theater and music scene that has spawned several national acts worth noting. Historical musicians of note include Jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr., seminal 1940s harmonic group The Modernaires, all graduates of Lafayette High School (the city's oldest public high school), singer-songwriter Willie Nile, and songwriters Harold Arlen and Jack Yellen. (Arlen's career was recently commemorated in Buffalo's twenties-era theater, Shea's Buffalo Theater), and Nino Tempo & April Stevens.

Popular modern musicians from Buffalo include funk singer Rick James, Three Dog Night founding member Cory Wells, keyboardist Stan Szelest, bassist Billy Sheehan (of Mr. Big and Talas fame), folk singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco, 90s new jack swing group Joe Public, "American Idol" finalist and recording artist John Stevens, The Goo Goo Dolls (colloquially known as "The Goos"), singer/songwriter Teddy Geiger was born and raised in Buffalo until the age of eight, 10,000 Maniacs (Natalie Merchant is from nearby Jamestown). Spyro Gyra started here and included many natives in its original lineup. Jazz composer Morton Feldman lived and taught here in the latter part of his career.

Other artists include the jamband moe., as well as: Cannibal Corpse, hardcore scenesters Snapcase, Every Time I Die, One Foot In Heaven, Tina Marie Williams, Relevant Worship, Elektromat, Sons of Thunder, and It Dies Today among many others.

Musical theater director and choreographer Michael Bennett is also from here. His most famous work, "A Chorus Line" features the locally infamous line, "To commit suicide in Buffalo is redundant."

Another Buffalonian, Vincent Gallo, cast a jaundiced eye on the city and its sports obsession in his film Buffalo 66.

General Spade is the first Buffalo-born Hip Hop artist to have a hip hop track played on "The edge" rock radio station with his song "Welcome To Buffalo."

Rhyson Hall, a college radio chart topping Hip hop artist, was born and raised in Buffalo, and still records for Buffalo born and based label DeepThinka Records.

Lucille Ball hailed from nearby Jamestown.

Dick Shawn was born in Buffalo.

Howdy Doody host Buffalo Bob Smith was a Buffalo native.

Ron Silver attended University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.

Sorrell Booke - actor best known for role as Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard, born in Buffalo on January 4, 1930.

Kyle Chandler, who starred on "Early Edition," was born in Buffalo, NY on September 16, 1965.

Aretha Franklin lived briefly in Buffalo in her childhood.

Jesse L. Martin, currently starring in TV's "Law & Order," is a Buffalo native and graduate of the Buffalo Academy For The Visual And Performing Arts. Noted TV writers Tom Fontana ("Oz") and David Milch ("NYPD Blue") also hail from here.

Diane English, creator of Murphy Brown is a Buffalo native.

Edward Summer, producer of Conan the Barbarian and founder of The Buffalo International Film Festival was born in the city.

Up and coming hip-hop artist Omega Redd hails from Buffalo's East Side.

Calypso/Gospel artist Oral Roberts lives here.

Gospel artist Nathan Salter recorded his live CD/DVD, "Breakthrough In His Presence" at Greater Refuge Temple on Jefferson Ave. here in 2006.

Up and coming Hip hop/reggaeton artist Carlito Corleone/El Mystico, creates a buzz in Buffalo's West Side.

Actress Katharine Cornell, for whom a theater is named at her alma mater, the University of Buffalo, was born in Berlin but raised here.

R&B singer Brian McKnight was raised in Buffalo and began his career in his father's Seventh Day Adventist church on Buffalo's East Side.

Singer Ani DiFranco grew up in here and is a graduate of the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts.

Gary Mallaber, drummer for The Steve Miller Band, also recorded with Van Morrison, Eddie Money and Bruce Springsteen, was born in Buffalo

Silky voiced Virginia radio personality Mike Maniscalco grew up and spent his early radio career in Buffalo.

Producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein were raised in Buffalo and attended the University of Buffalo. They are the co-chairmen of The Weinstein Company, which launched in 2005. Prior to forming The Weinstein Company, the Weinsteins founded and ran Miramax Films, one of the most successful film companies in history. During the Weinsteins’ tenure, Miramax films were nominated for 249 Oscars and won 60, including three for Best Picture. In addition to The Producers, the Weinsteins have produced several award-winning shows on Broadway, in the West End and around the world, including The Real Thing, 2000 Tony Award winner for Best Revival of a Play; the Broadway revival of Gypsy; the London and New York productions of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; the revival of Wonderful Town; Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; and All Shook Up.

Amanda Blake and John Schuck were graduates of nearby Amherst High School.

Singer Brian McKnight has an older brother Claude McKnight. One of the founding members of the Gospel Sextet "Take 6" along with Brothers Mark and Joe Kibble attended the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Buffalo's East Side.

Several prominent actors and actresses also hail from the Buffalo area, including:

Nick Bakay - actor who has appeared on ESPN and NFL Network and has appeared in shows such as That 70's Show, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Angry Beavers and Boy Meets World. Also a writer and voice-over actor. Currently works as a supervising producer on CBS hit comedy, The King of Queens.
Christine Baranski
Amanda Blake
David Boreanaz
Arlene Golonka
Wendie Malick
Nancy Marchand
Tom Mardirosian
Chad Michael Murray
Chelsea Noble
William Sadler
John Schuck
James Whitmore

[edit] Politics and Law

The anti-slavery Free Soil Party held its first convention here in 1848.

The Workers World Party was founded here.

The service organization Optimist International started here.

President Millard Fillmore was a long-term resident of Buffalo and he is buried here in Forest Lawn Cemetery with his two wives: Abigail Fillmore, and Caroline Fillmore.

President Grover Cleveland was sheriff of Erie County, mayor of Buffalo, and governor of New York state. He married Buffalo native Frances Folsom Cleveland. He is the only US president to have personally presided over executions, a duty he held as sheriff.

Henry J. Nowak was a sports hero, and represented Buffalo in the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1993.

Shirley Chisholm lived outside Buffalo in suburban Amherst, NY, in her later years and is buried in Buffalo's Forest Lawn cemetery.

William Joseph Donovan, the founder of the office that became the CIA, was born and raised here.

Jack Kemp was a sports hero and the Republican candidate for the Vice Presidency in the 1996. He represented Buffalo in the House of Representatives from 1971 to 1989.

Political cartoonist Tom Toles resided here for many years.

Political satirist Mark Russell tapes his PBS specials in the city.

John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the United States, was born here.

[edit] Science and Technology

Astronaut Edward Gibson, astronaut support crew, a capcom for the Apollo 12 lunar landing, science-pilot of Skylab 4.

Astronaut James Pawelczyk, STS-90 Neurolab mission aboard space shuttle Columbia.

Astronauts Gregory Jarvis and Ellen S. Baker, while not from the area, graduated from University at Buffalo.

Joseph Dart invented the steam-powered grain elevator here in 1842.

Albert Southwick invented the electric chair here.

Herman Hollerith, who lent his name to the IBM punch card was born here.

Researchers Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Cori conducted their Nobel-prize winning work on cancer at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Willis Carrier started a large branch of Carrier Corporation here.

Author and astronomer Cliff Stoll grew up here and attended the University at Buffalo.

Other scientists of note include Nobel laureate Herbert Hauptman and Wilson Greatbatch, inventor of the Pacemaker.

[edit] Other residents

Noted twentieth-century architect Gordon Bunshaft was born here, attending the same high school (Lafayette) as famed science-fiction cover artist Kelly Freas, Fran Striker, the creator of the radio serial "The Lone Ranger", and Bruce Shanks, Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist for the "Buffalo Evening News".

Anthropologists Marvin Opler and Morris Opler were born here. Marvin Opler later taught at the University at Buffalo.

Architect Louise Blanchard Bethune opened her own practice in Buffalo in 1881, making her the nation's first professional woman architect.

Painter Charles E. Burchfield spent his career in the Buffalo area.

William G. Fargo, mayor of Buffalo in 1862-63 and 1864-65, and Henry Wells, founded American Express, followed in 1851 by the famous Wells, Fargo & Company, which established of a line of overland mail and passenger coaches before the construction of the Pacific railways. It included the well-remembered Pony Express, which carried letters and messages between Missouri and California in a week's time before the construction of telegraph lines. The company also assisted commerce throughout the early American west through its network of savings banks.

Mary Burnett Talbert, civil rights activist, suffragist, co-founder of the Niagara Movement, and the first woman to win the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor awarded by the NAACP, spent her adult life here.

In 1910, Cornelia Bentley Sage was appointed the director of the Albright Art Gallery, making her the nation's first female director of a major art gallery.

John Bates Clark Medal hopeful and youngest Nobel Prize winner Lewis Walter Gaul III.

Isaac Klein was a well-known author of rabbinic law.

John Neumann, America's first saint, had an early mission here.

Seneca leader Red Jacket lived on the Buffalo Creek reservation and is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Sister Karen Klimczak was a well known nun who worked with the city's poor and recently imprisoned. She was murdered in April, 2006.

[edit] Sports

Buffalo was the home to Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn, who won the 1957 National League Cy Young Award while pitching for the Milwaukee Braves and amassed 300 wins in his illustrious 25-year career. Another famous former pitcher who hails from here is Orel Hershiser, who won the 1988 NL Cy Young Award, as well as the 1988 World Series MVP Award while pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Buffalo's best known athlete was the NBA Hall of Famer Bob Lanier, who attended Bennett High, Fillmore Junior High and nearby St. Bonaventure University. NBA player and Duke star Christian Laettner grew up in nearby Angola and attended Nichols high school in Buffalo.

In the early 20th century, Buffalo was a boxing mecca, and spawned world champions including light-heavyweight Jimmy Slattery and lightweight Jimmy Goodrich.Professional wrestling legends Dick "THE DESTROYER" Beyer, Mark Lewin, Donn Lewin and Don Curtis were from Buffalo, NY. They held various world singles and tag team championship titles in the USA and Japan. Modern wrestling star Lex Luger and other wrestlers were born here.

Buffalo was one of the leading cities to host wrestling events from the defunct, soon to be returning Extreme Championship Wrestling.

"Baby" Joe Mesi, the world famous boxer, grew up in Tonawanda, a suburb of Buffalo.

Former tennis player Jimmy Arias who reached the nº5 spot in the world in 1984 was born in Buffalo. Basketball player Clifford Robinson attended Riverside High School

[edit] Musicians

Harold Arlen

Lucas Foss

Morton Feldman

Cory Wells

Grover Washington, Jr.

Gamalon

[edit] Buffalo companies

Present:

Delaware North Companies
M&T Bank
Moog, Inc
Rich Products Corporation
Righteous Babe Records (Ani DiFranco's label)
New Era Cap Company

Past:

[edit] Infamous Buffalo people and events

Buffalo resident and convicted murderer William Kemmler was the first person to be executed in the electric chair.
David Hampton, born here, conducted a swindle in the 1980's by convincing others that he was Sidney Poitier's son.
Timothy McVeigh was born here.
John Wayne Bobbitt was born here.
O. J. Simpson, Buffalo's most famous sports alumnus, went on trial for double-murder and was found not guilty.
James Charles Kopp shot Dr. Barnett Slepian here.
A year after 9/11, the FBI broke up the Lackawanna Six.
While not in Buffalo, Howard Carmack became known as the Buffalo Spammer.
Ralph Bucky Phillips, an escaped convict from Erie County Correctional Facility, was the subject of the longest manhunt in New York State history.

[edit] Other events and trivia

1836 - New Buffalo Township, Michigan named after Buffalo.
August 22, 1843 - Henry Highland Garnet gives speech here at the National Negro Convention
Spaulding's Penny Post operated here from 1847 to 1850.
May 31, 1866 - The Fenian raids into Canada are launched from here.
1875 - Approximate start of Gilded Age, additional European immigration
1889 - International Industrial Fair held here.
November 16, 1896 - First transmission of electrical power between two cities was sent from Niagara Falls to industries in Buffalo, New York. (See War of Currents.)
1899 - Boston Red Sox founded here, moves to Boston in 1901
1901 - President William McKinley is assassinated in Buffalo at the Pan-American Exposition
1908 - A made-in-Buffalo Thomas Flyer wins the 1908 New York to Paris Race, the first and only around-the-world automobile race ever held. The vehicle is on exhibit at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, NV.
1950's exodus to the suburban areas starts. See also white flight, rust belt, desegregation busing, urban sprawl
1954 - Larkin Warehouse fire was the first fire in Buffalo's history to go to a general alarm
1961 - Avery Sandberg and colleagues publish first report of a man with a 47,XYY karyotype.
June 27, 1967 - A race riot here, 200 arrests
June 12, 1972 - American Airlines Flight 96 averts near-disaster after its cargo hatch bursts open
March 24, 1973 - Lou Reed is bitten by a fan during a concert here
1977 - 29 perish in the Blizzard of 1977
1981 - Scheduled fight with Sugar Ray Leonard cancelled when it is discovered he has a detached retina.
1983 - North Division Street explosion here kills five firefighters and two civilians and destroys millions in property.
May 30, 1993 - Transit Valley offers Grant Fuhr membership after earlier denial because of his race.
1993 - Operation Rescue conducts clinic protests here
1999 - The Columbus Destroyers an Arena Football League team, are founded here.
2003 - Buffalo is one of the few cities that largely escapes the 2003 North America blackout that crippled much of the nation.
2004 - Steve Kurtz arrested by the FBI in May due to apparent misunderstanding
2005 - Uranium metalworkers at a Bethlehem plant are found to have symptoms similar to Gulf War Syndrome
2006 - Kingdom Bound Christian music festival celebrates its 20th anniversary; festival takes place at Six Flags Darien Lake amusement park