George "The Gipper" Gipp - first football All American for Notre Dame University and immortalized by Ronald Reagan in the movie "Knute Rockne: All American", was born in Laurium on the Keweenaw Peninsula.
John Voelker - a Marquette lawyer, judge and Michigan Supreme Court Justice wrote Anatomy of a Murder under the pen name Robert Traver. The book was made into a movie of the same name starring Jimmy Stewart.
Tom Izzo - from Iron Mountain, is now Michigan State University's head basketball coach.
Steve Mariucci - also from Iron Mountain, starred as a quarterback at Northern University and later coached the San Francisco 49'ers and Detroit Lions.
Lloyd Carr - also played quarterback for NMU and later coached the University of Michigan's football team.
Earnest Hemingway - no, not really a Yooper. He did spend a lot of time in the Yoop and based some of his famous short stories about fishing, etc. on U.P. locations.
Jim Harrison - no, this author is not a born Yooper either but he did have a place near Grand Marais for a while and, like Hemingway, wrote a lot of material in and about the U.P.
James Tolkan - (*Tolkan* not Tolkien!) This authentic Yooper is from Calumet. You might recognize him as the bald high school principal from "Back to the Future" and the gritty navy officer in "Top Gun", as well as many other roles in movies and television.
Terry O'Quinn - Another bald actor - this one from Sault St. Marie - is best known as John Locke in the TV series "Lost".
Some other folks that may not be all that famous to the general public, but who have made impressive contributions:
Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson - from Ishpeming. First leader of the Lockheed Skunkworks team. A major contributor to the design of famous aircraft: U2, SR-71 Blackbird, the P-38 and 37 other aircraft.
Glenn T. Seaborg - also from Ishpeming, was the only living person to have an element - seaborgium (Sg) named after him.
No comments:
Post a Comment