People a to z

Sarah Jessica Parker is an award-winning TV and film actress whose starring role in the series Sex and the City catapulted her to stardom.

Sean Parker is an entrepreneur who co-founded the music file-sharing service Napster and was the founding president of Facebook.

Trey Parker is a writer, director and actor known chiefly as the creator and driving force behind the animated TV series South Park.

English born, English bred, forgotten by the English and the world, James Parkinson identified the "shaking palsy" as a disease of the central nervous system.

Gordon Parks was an African-American photographer, filmmaker and author, best known for his work published in LIFE magazine and for directing the hit movie Shaft.

Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator who was the highest-paid commercial artist in the United States by the 1920s.

Lucy Parsons was an activist who was politically radical for her times and one of the first minority activists.

Country music queen Dolly Parton is a cultural icon whose voluptuous figure and powerful voice made her popular on both stage and screen.

Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher, who laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities.

Scientist Louis Pasteur came up with the food preparing process known as pasteurization; he also developed a vaccination for anthrax and rabies.

Ann Patchett is an American novelist best known for her PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novel Bel Canto.

As head football coach at Pennsylvania State University, Joe Paterno was one of the most successful coaches in the history of collegiate football.

Mina Stevens was an astronomer who was a pioneer in the classification of stellar spectra.

Danica Patrick is a female race car driver and has set several records for women drivers, including becoming the first woman to lead the Indy 500 and the first woman to win the pole position at the Daytona 500.

Deval Patrick is governor of Massachusetts and the former U.S. assistant attorney general of civil rights.

American boxer Floyd Patterson was the first to hold the world heavyweight championship twice. He won a gold medal in the 1952 Olympic Games.

James Patterson is an author of popular thrillers. He is best known for the Womens Murder Club series, and for his books starring psychologist Alex Cross.

Actor Robert Pattinson is known for such roles as Cedric Diggory in 2005's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Edward Cullen in 2008's Twilight.

Mississippi blues guitarist and singer Charley Patton is remembered as the "Father of the Delta Blues." He played with guitarist Willie Brown, and the Chatmons.

General George Patton led the Third Army in a very successful sweep across France during World War II in 1944. He was skilled at tank warfare.

New York City resident Etan Patz disappeared in 1979, when he was 6 years old. Nearly 33 years later, in May 2012, New Jersey resident Pedro Hernandez confessed to the murder.

Suffragette Alice Paul dedicated her life's work to women's rights and was a key figure in the push for the 19th Amendment.

Pope John Paul II made history in 1978 by becoming the first non-Italian pope in more than four hundred years.

Les Paul was a musician who designed a solid-body guitar in 1941, which then was a new type of instrument.

Senator Rand Paul, son of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, is best known for his support of the Tea Party movement and his controversial comments on the Civil Rights Act.

Politician Ron Paul has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for Texas multiple times. His politics are a mix of Republican and Libertarian views.

Paul I of Russia served as the nation's emperor for a brief, tyrannical five years before he was assassinated 1801.

Jane Pauley was a correspondent and co-anchor for NBC’s Today. She also started the weekly magazine series Real Life with Jane Pauley, later renamed Dateline.

Henry Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs until he became secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2006. As such, he developed a bailout program.

A tenor known for his larger-than-life showmanship, Luciano Pavarotti helped expand the popularity of opera worldwide.

Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov studied "conditioned reflex" through an experiment that made hungry dogs salivate at the sound of a dinner bell.

Anna Pavlova was a famous Russian prima ballerina and choreographer. The company she founded in 1911 was the first to tour ballet around the world.

Attorney and politician Tim Pawlenty is a former Republican Minnesota state senator, and served as governor of Minnesota from 2003 to 2009.

Actor Bill Paxton has made a name for himself with such films as Apollo 13 and Twister and the television series Big Love.

Walter Payton was a running back for the Chicago Bears in the National Football League and is in the Football Hall of Fame.

Brilliant, brash and a little wacky, J. Stephen Peace co-produced the cult horror film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and, as a state legislator, oversaw energy deregulation in California.

Charles Willson Peale was an American painter best known as one of the most prolific artists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He painted more than a dozen heroic portraits of George Washington.

Norman Vincent Peale was a minister and author known for works like The Power of Positive Thinking and A Guide to Confident Living.

Pearl Bailey was a Tony Award-winning singer and actress known for her roles in works like Carmen Jones, House of Flowers, Hello, Dolly! and Porgy and Bess.

American explorer Robert Edwin Peary is best known for claiming to be the first person to reach the geographic North Pole.

Annie Smith Peck was a trailblazing scholar, writer and athlete who set records as a mountain climber in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Gregory Peck is best known for his larger-than-life film roles, particularly as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Serial killer. Born Pedro Alonzo Lopez in 1949 in Tolmia, Colombia. The son of a prostitute, Lopez grew up in a world of poverty and political violence. His mother kicked him out at age eight, forcing him to fend for himself on the streets. After being

I.M. Pei is a Chinese-born American architect, perhaps best known for his controversial glass pyramid in the courtyard at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

A member of three Brazilian World Cup-champion teams, Pelé is considered by many to be the greatest soccer player of all time.

Politician Nancy Pelosi became the first female Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives as well as the first female Speaker of the House.

Thomas Pendergast was a political boss of Kansas City in the early 20th century.

Kal Penn is best known for his performance in the Harold and Kumar comedy films. He has also performed on several television shows, including House and 24.

Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn starred in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, married Madonna, and directed Jack Nicholson in two films.

J.C. Penney was best known as an American businessman who founded a retail chain under the same name. His stores today sell general merchandise for the home.

Ty Pennington is a TV host, author and designer whose purview, in all its forms, is home improvement.

Jacques Pépin is a chef and the host of cooking shows on public television. He is also an author, columnist and former guest judge on the Bravo show Top Chef.

Walker Percy was a novelist known chiefly for his first novel, The Moviegoer, which explored spiritual emptiness.

President of Israel Shimon Peres was also twice prime minister of Israel and won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Oslo Accords with Rabin and Arafat.

Actress, musician and activist Pauley Perette is best known as the lab technician on the crime drama NCIS.

I.L. Peretz was a Jewish author who gained fame after writing folktales, ballads and plays about the ideals of Judaism.

Ancient Greek statesman Pericles, leader of Athens from 460–429 B.C., organized construction of the Parthenon and developed a democracy based on majority rule.

Anthony Perkins is an Oscar-nominated stage and film actor who is best known for his role as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Frances Perkins was the first female to serve in the U.S. presidential cabinet. As secretary of labor, she helped with the New Deal and Social Security.

Israeli classical violinist Itzhak Perlman is one of the 20th century's premier musicians, despite having lost the use of his legs at age 4 due to polio.

Eva Perón used her position as the first lady of Argentina to fight for women's suffrage and improving the lives of the poor.

American businessman Ross Perot ran for the U.S. presidency as an independent candidate twice, in 1992 and 1996. He is one of the most successful third-party candidates in American history.

Charles Perrault was a French poet and author known for writing the Mother Goose fairy tales.

Pop music singing sensation Katy Perry has become known for her over-the-top fashions, quirky stage props and catchy songs like "I Kissed a Girl".

Reggae artist and music producer Lee Perry was an early pioneer of reggae music and its offshoot, dub music, and recorded a young Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Actor Luke Perry was born October 11, 1966, in Fredericktown, Ohio. In 1990, he landed his breakthrough role as the rebellious teen heartthrob Dylan McKay on Aaron Spelling’s dramatic TV series Beverly Hills 90210. In the years since, he has enjoyed

Matthew C. Perry was a 19th century U.S. Naval officer who fought in the Mexican War and headed an important naval expedition to Japan.

Republican politician Rick Perry was elected governor of Texas in 2000, and ran for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential race.