People a to z

English admiral Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in 1577-1578, helped defeat the Spanish Armada and was the most renowned seaman of the Elizabethan era.

The music of British singer-songwriter Nick Drake wasn't a hit during his lifetime, but his albums Fruit Tree and Pink Moon have gained fans over the years.

Charles Drew was an African-American surgeon who pioneered methods of storing blood plasma for transfusion and organized the first large-scale blood bank in the U.S.

Alfred Dreyfus was a French army officer who was wrongly convicted of treason based primarily on anti-semitism. The scandal was known as the Dreyfus Affair.

Richard Dreyfuss is an American actor known for his roles in Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, American Graffiti and The Goodbye Girl.

American football wide receiver Donald Driver, drafted by the Greenbay Packers in 1999, won the 14th season of Dancing with the Stars in May 2012.

British actress Minnie Driver made her film debut in Circle of Friends, followed by roles in Grosse Pointe Blank and Good Will Hunting.

Didier Drogba has earned worldwide acclaim as a professional soccer player and champion for peace in his native Ivory Coast.

W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the most important African-American activists during the first half of the 20th century. He co-founded the NAACP and supported Pan-Africanism.

Dame Daphne du Maurier was a novelist and playwright whose famous works Rebecca and The Birds were made into films by Alfred Hitchcock.

Actor David Duchovny has played FBI agent Fox Mulder on the television series The X-Files and Hank Moody in HBO’s Californication. He married Téa Leoni in 1997.

Tammy Duckworth is the first Asian-American congresswoman for Illinois and the first disabled female veteran to take a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Actress and musician Haylie Duff is Hillary Duff’s older sister. Haylie earned national fame as Summer Wheatley in the 2004 cult classic Napoleon Dynamite.

Actress Hilary Duff came to fame as the title character on the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire. Her debut pop record, Metamorphosis, went triple-platinum.

John Duffy was a British serial killer who, in partnership with childhood friend David Mulcahy, murdered multiple women the 1980s.

Patrick Duffy is best known for his portrayal of Bobby Ewing on the long-running television series Dallas. He also starred in the 1976 TV show Man from Atlantis and the 1990s sitcom Step by Step, among other roles.

Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped by Phillip Garrido in 1991, at age 11. She spent 18 years in captivity with Garrido—who raped Jaycee repeatedly and impregnated her twice—and his wife, Nancy Garrido.

Jean Dujardin is a French actor and comedian. He is the first French actor to win an Oscar for Best Actor, for his performance in the 2011 film The Artist.

Tobacco heiress Doris Duke was the only child of American tobacco baron, James Duke. When she was born, the press called her the "million dollar baby."

Actress Patty Duke won an Academy Award in 1963, at age 16, for her portrayal of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker—becoming the youngest Oscar recipient at the time.

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is best known as the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, the father of Prince Charles and the grandfather of Prince William.

Prince Andrew, the brother of Prince Charles, is the Duke of York and fourth in line to the British throne.

Renato Dulbecco was an Italian virologist best known winning the Nobel Prize for pioneering the growing of viruses in culture in the 1950s.

U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles made major contributions to U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War.

Alexandre Dumas was a 19th-century French novelist and playwright whose best known works are The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Faye Dunaway is a revered Oscar-winning actress known for her work in films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crown Affair, Chinatown and Network.

African-American author Paul Laurence Dunbar is best known for his verse and short stories, many of which are written in black dialect.

Isadora Duncan was a trailblazing dancer and instructor whose emphasis on free forms of movement was a precursor to modern dance techniques.

Michael Clarke Duncan was an African-American actor, best remembered for his role in The Green Mile.

Basketball player Tim Duncan has led the San Antonio Spurs to multiple championships and is widely hailed as one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history.

Ann Dunham was the mother of Barack Obama, who became the 44th president of the United States and the first African-American to hold this office.

Jeff Dunham is a popular comedian and ventriloquist, known for his crass yet clever antics with his puppets.

Golden Globe winner Lena Dunham is best known for writing, directing, producing and acting in Girls, the original series she created for HBO.

Patricia Dunn served as a director and non-executive chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard before resigning in 2006, after receiving a criminal indictment stemming from a spying scandal.

Irene Dunne was an Academy Award-nominated actress and singer known for her roles in Showboat, Anna and the King of Siam and Love Affair.

Once a child star, actress Kirsten Dunst has garnered over 40 film and television credits and continues to command hefty sums for acting appearances.

Ashley Alexandra Dupré was the Emperor's Club VIP escort hired on several occasions by former New York governor Elliot Spitzer.

Kevin Durant is a top-scoring American professional basketball player, who plays for the National Basketball Association's Oklahoma City Thunder franchise.

Jimmy Durante was an American comedian whose career in every major entertainment performance medium spanned more than six decades.

Actor Charles Durning appeared in such films as The Sting, Tootsie and Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. He also had roles on such shows as Rescue Me, Everybody Loves Raymond and Evening Shade.

Controversial musician Fred Durst came to fame in the mid-1990s as the front man for the "nu metal" band Limp Bizkit.

Actor Robert Duvall has been in some of the most acclaimed films of all time, including To Kill A Mockingbird, Apocalypse Now, Lonesome Dove and The Godfather.

Well regarded for her ability to portray quirky and eccentric characters, actress Shelley Duvall has starred in Thieves Like Us, Popeye and The Shining, among other films.

Andrea Dworkin was an American feminist and author, an outspoken critic of sexual politics, particularly of the victimizing effects of pornography on women.

Bob Dylan is a folk rock singer-songwriter whose career began in the early 1960s with songs that chronicled social issues like war and civil rights.

Esther Dyson, named by Forbes magazine as one of the most powerful women in American business, is regarded as one of the most influential voices in technology.

Eadweard Muybridge's photography of moving animals captured movement in a way that had never been done before. His work was used by both scientists and artists.

Thomas Eakins was a naturalist figure painter, portraitist and sculptor. He is considered one of the most influential artists in U.S. history.

Amelia Earhart, the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, mysteriously disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

Edward, Earl of Wessex is son to Queen Elizabeth II and husband to Sophie Rhys-Jones. A former theater and television producer, he remains active in charity.

Steve Earle is a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter whose albums seamlessly blend rock, folk and country. He has also appeared on the HBO series The Wire and Treme.

Dale Earnhardt was a champion stock car driver with NASCAR who won seven championships. He died in the final lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001

Wyatt Earp was a frontiersman, marshal and gambler. After moving to Tombstone, Arizona, he got into a feud, which ended in a gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Grammy Award–winning singer Sheena Easton is recognized for such hits as "Morning Train," "For Your Eyes Only" and "Sugar Walls."

Clint Eastwood has made his name as a popular TV and film actor. He went on to become a famed director, working on several Academy Award-winning films.

At the Summer Games in London, Ashton Eaton—the youngest to member of the U.S. decathlon team that year, at age 24—took home the decathlon gold medal.

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and human-rights activist. She was the first female judge in Iran, and won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.

Heinrich Eberbach was a German General der Panzertruppen in the German Army of World War II.

Roger Ebert is an American film critic best known as one half of the popular Siskel and Ebert film critic television show.

Dancer and actor Buddy Ebsen performed on Broadway and films, but he’s best known for his role as Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies, which ran for nine seasons.

British-born Christopher Eccleston is best known as the ninth actor to play the lead role in the popular U.K. science-fiction television program Doctor Who.

J. Presper Eckert Jr. was the award-winning co-inventor of the first general purpose digital computer.

As lead singer of the grunge rock band Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder belted out hits like "Evenflow," "Alive" and "Jeremy."

Actress Barbara Eden made magic as a bottled-up genie in the TV sitcom I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970).

American swimmer Gertrude Ederle achieved fame when she competed in the 1924 Olympics and became the first woman to swim across the English Channel in 1926.

Australian actor, producer, writer and director Joel Edgerton played Will McGill in the soap opera The Secret Life of Us, and Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.