Famous People Who Started Businesses a to z

Louis B. Mayer was a film mogul and the most influential person in Hollywood from the mid-1920s to the late-1940s.

Architect Thom Mayne helped found the architectural design firm Morphosis, and co-founded the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Linda McCartney was a photographer who became widely known as the wife of Beatle Paul McCartney.

Scottish actor Ewan McGregor first received worldwide acclaim with his role in Trainspotting, and has since played Obi-Wan in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Founder of female musician showcase Lilith Fair, McLachlan's emotional ballads include "I Will Remember You," "Sweet Surrender," "Adia" and "Angel".

Charles Edward Merrill was an American investment banker who co-founded Merrill Lynch & Company and arranged the merger that created the Safeway food chain.

Explorer and mountaineer Reinhold Messner is famous for making the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.

Michael N Milken is known as the "junk bond king." He was indicted for racketeering and securities fraud and served two years in prison.

Barry Minkow is a convicted felon who used his carpet-cleaning business as a front for a massive Ponzi scheme and investor fraud.

Married to Judy Garland and father to Liza Minnelli, film director Vincente Minnelli infused a new sophistication and vitality into movie musicals of the 1940s and '50s.

Graphic designer Clarence Mok sold his design firm Studio Archetype to Sapient Corp. in 1998, marrying their technical prowess to his graphic design.

Sun Myung Moon was founder and leader of the Unification Church, a religious movement whose followers were labeled "Moonies."

Garrett Morgan blazed a trail for African-American inventors with his many patents, including those for a hair-straightening product, a breathing device, and an improved sewing machine and traffic signal.

J.P. Morgan founded the banking company J.P. Morgan & Co., one of the leading financial firms in the country, in 1871.

Dwight Morrow (1873–1931) helped draft an early workers' compensation law, devised a national aviation policy, and served as ambassador to Mexico.

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch is the founder and head of News Corporation, a global media conglomerate. He created Fox Broadcasting Company in 1986.

Elon Musk is an entrepreneur known for co-founding Tesla Motors, X.com—which later became PayPal—and SpaceX, the last of which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft on May 22, 2012.

French artist Nadar was a caricaturist and photographer who became famous for his portrait studio and the images snapped from his giant hot air balloon.

Paul Newman came to be known as one of the finest actors of his time. He also started the Newman's Own food company, which donates all profits to charity.

A.C. Nielsen was an American market-research engineer and business executive, best known for creating Nielsen ratings, a national rating of television viewing.

Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and other explosives. He used his enormous fortune from 355 patents to institute the Nobel Prizes.

Business leader and entrepreneur Kevin O'Connor is a co-founder and the CEO of the internet advertising technology company DoubleClick.

Jamie Oliver is a British chef best known for his television series The Naked Chef and for campaigning for healthier diets in school children.

Aristotle Onassis is best known as the Greek shipping tycoon who married JFK’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, in 1968. Onassis died on March 15, 1975.

British playwright John Osborne's Look Back in Anger ushered in a new movement in British drama and made him known as the first of the "Angry Young Men."

Sharon Osbourne is known as the wife of legendary rock star Ozzy Osbourne and a television personality who's been featured on several programs, including The Osbournes and The Talk.

Singer, actress, and television personality, Marie Osmond was half of the brother-and-sister duo Donny and Marie, with her brother Donny Osmond.

William S. Paley was a businessman who started what would become the CBS television network.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Allan Pinkerton was a Scottish-born detective and founder of a famous American private detective agency, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

Inventor Ron Popeil pioneered the TV sales pitch with products like the Ronco Chop-O-Matic and phrases like "But wait, there's more."

Ferdinand Porsche founded the Porsche car company in 1931. In the early 1920s, he oversaw the development of the Mercedes compressor car, and later developed the first designs of the Volkswagen car with his son, Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche.

Priscilla Presley is an American businesswoman and actress, best known for marrying Elvis Presley, with whom she had daughter Lisa Marie Presley.

Wolfgang Puck is a chef who expanded his purview into running restaurants, writing cookbooks and hosting cooking shows.

Howard Pyle was an American illustrator, author and teacher who produced dozens of classic illustrated volumes, including fables, fairy tales and adventure stories.

Hot-tempered chef Gordon Ramsay owns a number of successful restaurants but is best known as the star of television series Hell's Kitchen.

Tony Randall was an actor who played popular television character Felix Unger on the hit series The Odd Couple.

J. Arthur Rank was a British film producer and magnate who also owned two large movie chains.

Actress Donna Reed charmed audiences in the film It's a Wonderful Life and on television's The Donna Reed Show.

Wilhelm Reich was a psychiatrist who developed psychoanalysis that concentrated on overall character structure rather than on individual symptoms.

Countess of Wessex Sophie Rhys-Jones is married to Edward, Earl of Wessex, and is the mother of Lady Louise and James, Viscount Severn.

Pat Robertson is a television evangelist best known for founding the Christian Coalition, an influential conservative political organization.

John D. Rockefeller was the head of the Standard Oil Company and one of the world's richest men. He used his fortune to fund ongoing philanthropic causes.

Al Roker is a television personality, a weatherman for NBC's Today show, and a nine-time Emmy winner.

Artist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth became the king of California custom car culture in the 1950s and '60s with his Beatnik Bandit model and characters like Rat Fink.

Bayard Rustin was a civil rights organizer and activist, best known for his work as adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s and '60s.

Cyrus S. Eaton was a Canadian industrialist and formed the third largest steel company in the United States.

Sebastião Salgado is an award-winning photographer known for his arresting documentation of communities across the world.

Colonel Sanders is best known for creating a fried chicken recipe that would become the world's fast-food chicken chain, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

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."

Mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo controlled Philadelphia's organized crime for many years, even from prison.

Howard Schultz is CEO and chairman of Starbucks, the highly successful coffee company.

Ridley Scott is an English director and producer, whose notable hits include Thelma and Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. He is also recognized as the older brother of director Tony Scott, who committed suicide in August 2012.

English film director Tony Scott was best known for his first box-office success, Top Gun, as well as later films like True Romance and Enemy of the State. He was the brother of  Ridley Scott, also a famed producer and director.

Charles Scribner co-founded the publishing house Baker & Scribner, which became Charles Scribner's Sons.

William Shockley was an engineer and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for his development of the transistor.

Dinah Shore was an award-winning television personality and singer known for her string of TV shows, including Dinah!, Dinah's Place, and Dinah and Friends.

Isaac Singer founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company, the first company to make sewing machines practical and easy to use at home.