Famous People Born in 1928 a to z

Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Edward Albee is best known for penning Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Zoo Story.

Maya Angelou is a poet and prize-winning memoirist. She is the author of the critically acclaimed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, president and prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s and father to Benazir Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People’s Party and was executed.

Rhythm and blues singer Ruth Brown signed with Atlantic Records at a young age and recorded a number of hit songs throughout the 1950s.

Famed scholar Noam Chomsky is known for both his groundbreaking contributions to linguistics and his penetrating critiques of political systems.

Rosemary Clooney was a popular singer beginning in the 1950s and had a No. 1 hit with "Come On-a My House." She was aunt to actor George Clooney.

James Coburn was a prolific Oscar-winning film and TV actor known for projects like Our Man Flint and Affliction.

Philip Dick is an American novelist and short story writer best known for his science fiction short stories, many of which have been translated to film.

American singer and pianist Fats Domino was a rhythm-and-blues star who became one of the first rock-and-roll stars and who helped define the New Orleans sound.

Paul Dooley drew comic strips for his local newspaper before he turned to the big screen, taking roles in films such as Sixteen Candles and Breaking Away.

Pianist Leon Fleisher is best known for his compositions and performances of classical music.

Lefty Frizzell is widely recognized as one of the most influential country singers in history. Willie Nelson and Randy Travis count him among their influences.

James Garner is an actor known for his lead role in the TV show Maverick and for films such as Murphy’s Romance and Decoration Day.

Vincent Gigante was an Italian-American mobster, known as "The Enigma in the Bathrobe," who led the Genovese crime family of New York City.

Che Guevara was a Marxist revolutionary allied with Fidel Castro who went on to become an iconic cultural hero.

Roman Catholic priest Gustav Gutiérrez is one of the most prominent figures in Latin American Catholicism and is considered the father of liberation theology.

Painter, Al Held was know for his painting complex cube-like structures in the 1960s, and his precise and brightly colored geometric forms in the 1980s.

Ethel Kennedy is best known as the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, the former U.S. Attorney General and New York Senator who was assassinated in 1968.

Jack Kevorkian was a U.S.-based physician who assisted in patient suicides, sparking increased talk on hospice care and "right to die" legislative action.

Stanley Kubrick was an American filmmaker best known for directing Dr. Strangelove, Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket.

Tom Lantos was a 14-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the state of California, as well as the first and only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress.

Jean-Marie Le Pen is best known for being the founder of the Front National, a far-right wing political party in France, and for his polarizing xenophobic and anti-Semitic comments.

Sol Lewitt was an American artist best known for helping to launch Conceptual Art and Minimalism of the Post-War era.

Jim Lovell is a former U.S. astronaut who commanded NASA's nearly disastrous Apollo 13 flight to the moon.

Actor Roddy McDowall had a recurring role on the Batman television series, and played Cornelius in the film and TV versions of Planet of the Apes.

Antonio Molina was a Spanish singer and actor best known for his films such as El pescador de coplas (1953) and Esa voz es una mina (1955).

Jeanne Moreau is a French actress, best known for her performances in French New Wave films of the 1950s and 60s.

Writer Gabriel García Márquez, author of Love in the Time of Cholera, has gained worldwide readership with his brand of magical realism.

American author Robert Pirsig is best known for his philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974).

Magician James Randi, known as "The Amazing Randi," has spent much of his career debunking the claims of self-proclaimed psychics and paranormalists.

James Earl Ray is best known for assassinating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968.

Fred Rogers is the much-loved host of the public television show, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran on PBS from 1968 to 2001.

Actress Marion Ross became one of America's favorite television moms in the 1970s for playing "Mrs. C" on the sitcom Happy Days.

Vidal Sassoon revolutionized women’s hairstyles in the post-war years and created an international hair-products empire which proclaimed "If you don't look good, we don't look good."

Maurice Sendak is a Caldecott award-winning children's book author and illustrator best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are.

Poet Anne Sexton wrote the collections To Bedlam and Part Way Back, as well as Live or Die, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. She committed suicide in 1974.

Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel's 11th prime minister.

Ted Sorensen was an American presidential adviser and speech writer, best known for his contributions to President John F. Kennedy's most famous speeches.

Shirley Temple was the leading child actor of her time, receiving a special Oscar and starring in films like Bright Eyes and Heidi.

Ralph Waite is an American actor whose most notable role was playing John Walton Sr. on the 1970s television series The Waltons.

Illustrator Andy Warhol was one of the most prolific and popular artists of his time, using both avant-garde and highly commercial sensibilities.

James D. Watson is a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist and researcher credited with co-discovering the double-helix structure of DNA.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer is one of the world's most recognized authorities on sex. She has delivered her advice on TV, radio and the web for decades and has written numerous books.

Elie Wiesel is a Nobel-Prize winning writer, teacher and activist known for the memoir Night, in which he recounts his experiences surviving the Holocaust.