Scores of famous people have called Charleston or South Carolina “home” at one point or another. Here is a partial list—how many do you know?
Entertainers, actors, musicians
Darius Rucker, singer
Vanessa Minnillo, MTV VJ and cast member of Entertainment Tonight
Stephen Colbert, TV personality and comedian
Bill Murray, actor
Mabel King, actress
Bill Anderson, country singer
Andy Dick, comedian
Dizzy Gillespie, jazz trumpet player
Eartha Kitt and James Brown, singers
Vanna White, game show hostess
Models, authors, artists
Norb Vonnegut, Frank Gilbreth, and Alexandra Ripley, authors
Lauren Hutton, model
David Carson, graphic designer
Arthur Freed, producer and writer
Alice Childress, playwright
Shepard Fairey, artist
Pat Conroy, author
Wilson Casey, newspaper columnist
Sports figures
Isaiah Thomas and Alex English, basketball players
Tara Lipinski, Olympic figure skater
Langston Moore, Roddy White, AJ Green, Harold Green, NFL players
Joe Frazier, boxer
Beth Daniel, pro golfer
Bud Moore, NASCAR driver
Althea Gibson, tennis player
Mark Messier, hockey player
Art Shell, football coach
Business and industry gurus
Samuel Maverick, rancher
Elizabeth Timothy, first female newspaper publisher in the U.S.
Mary McLeod Bethune, educator
Darla Moore, financial guru
Lane Kirkland, president of AFL-CIO
Todd Howard, entrepreneur
Sallie Krawcheck, chairperson and CEO of Citi Global Wealth Management
Political and military personalities
Andrew Jackson, U.S. president
Francis Marion (“Swamp Fox”), American patriot
Benjamin Huger, Confederate Army general
William Westmoreland and Mark Wayne Clark, Army generals
John C. Calhoun, Vice President, and Floride Calhoun, Second Lady
Thomas Heyward, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Lynch, Jr., signers of the Declaration of Independence
Bernard Baruch, statesman
Strom Thurmond, congressman
Mark Sanford, former governor
Do you know any more famous South Carolinians?