Famous People From Charleston and South Carolina

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?