The following list includes notable people who were born or have lived in Newport, Rhode Island .
Notable people born in Newport [ edit ]
Philosopher Bishop Berkeley resided in Newport
D. Putnam Brinley , artist
Clarence G. Child , scholar
William Ennis , U.S. Army brigadier general[ 2]
Thomas Harper Ince , actor
Clarence R. King , geologist, mountaineer, and first director of the U.S. Geological Survey (1879–1881); noted for exploration of Sierra Nevada
Ida Lewis , lighthouse keeper credited with saving 18 lives in Newport Harbor; received national attention and numerous honors; a Coast Guard buoy tender bears her name
David Melville , credited with first gas street lighting in the United States
Matthew C. Perry , Navy Commodore who opened Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854, under the threat of military force
Cornelia Bryce Pinchot , native of Newport who became a conservationist, Progressive politician, women’s rights activist, and First Lady of Pennsylvania
Cynthia Taggart , poet
Charles C. Van Zandt , 34th Governor of Rhode Island[ 3]
Harry Anderson , actor and comedian (Night Court )
Margaret Frances Andrews , socialite and show dog breeder
Lillian Barrett , novelist and playwright (also lived and died in Newport)
Allen Bestwick , NASCAR and IndyCar Series announcer
Nadia Bjorlin , soap opera actress (Days of Our Lives )
Frank Corridon , pitcher for Chicago Cubs , Philadelphia Phillies , and St. Louis Cardinals ; invented now-illegal pitch, the spitball
Tanya Donelly , musician; vocalist for Rhode Island–based bands Belly and Throwing Muses ; guitarist for the band The Breeders
Charlie Fern , White House speechwriter, journalist
Van Johnson , actor, known best for "all-American" roles in MGM films during World War II
Lawson Little , 1940 U.S. Open golf champion
Mena Suvari , actress, known for role in 1999 film American Beauty
Leon Wilkeson , bass guitarist
Notable people who lived or worked in Newport [ edit ]
George Berkeley , philosopher
Louis Alexandre Berthier , French army officer, later Marshal of France and Napoleon's chief of staff
William Ellery , signer of Declaration of Independence
Robert Feke , portrait painter
Peter Harrison , architect
Samuel Hopkins , Congregational minister, Calvinist theologian, leader for abolition of slave trade
Aaron Lopez , merchant
Louis-Marie, vicomte de Noailles , French army officer
Charles Theodore Pachelbel , first organist of Newport's Trinity Church; son of Johann Pachelbel
Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau , French general
William Selby , organist at Trinity Church, composer
John Smybert , artist
Ezra Stiles , minister, diarist, and President of Yale
Gilbert Stuart , portrait painter
Isaac Touro , hazzan at Synagogue
Judah Touro , merchant and philanthropist
19th century to 1885 [ edit ]
George Bancroft , historian, Secretary of the Navy, diplomat, and summer resident
August Belmont , financier
Ambrose Burnside , Army officer stationed at Fort Adams , later Civil War general, governor, senator
Julia Ward Howe , author and summer resident
Henry James , author
William James , philosopher and Harvard professor
John Kensett , artist
Clement C. Moore , summer resident and author of "'Twas the Night before Christmas"
Levi P. Morton , summer resident and donor of Morton Park, later Vice President of the United States
Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry , hero of War of 1812
William Trost Richards , artist
Milton H. Sanford , textile magnate and thoroughbred racehorse owner
Judah Touro , philanthropist
Richard Upjohn , architect
Mahlon Van Horne , politician
The Gilded Age, 1885–1914[ edit ]
Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor , socialite
Charles D. Barney , socialite, banker, founder of Smith Barney Brokerage
Alva Belmont , socialite and leader of women's rights movement
August Belmont , financier
Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont , socialite, builder of Belcourt Castle
James Gordon Bennett, Jr. , newspaper publisher and yachtsman
Ogden Codman , designer
Richard Morris Hunt , architect
William Morris Hunt , artist
John LaFarge , artist
Pierre Lorillard , tobacco manufacturer
Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce , founder of Naval War College
Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan , naval historian and strategist
Ward McAllister , flamboyant raconteur of high society, coined the term 'the 400' for the New York social elite
Charles McKim , architect
Edith B. Price , writer and illustrator
H.H. Richardson , architect
Horace Trumbauer , architect
James J. Van Alen , summer resident and Ambassador to Italy
Alva Vanderbilt , wife of William K. Vanderbilt; early feminist, active in women's suffrage movement
Consuelo Vanderbilt , daughter of W.K. and Alva Vanderbilt; Duchess of Marlborough
Cornelius Vanderbilt II , heir to Vanderbilt fortune, Chairman of New York Central Railroad
Frederick Vanderbilt , heir to Vanderbilt fortune, philanthropist
William Kissam Vanderbilt , heir to Vanderbilt fortune, yachtsman
Edith Wharton , author
Stanford White , architect
Thornton Wilder , author, playwright; his 1973 novel Theophilus North is set in Newport; served briefly in Army's Coast Artillery Corps at Fort Adams in World War I
20th century, 1914–2000[ edit ]
John Jacob Astor VI , socialite, heir to Astor family fortune, summer resident
Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda , 25th Chief of Naval Operations
John Nicholas Brown , socialite, yachtsman and philanthropist
Doris Duke , tobacco heiress and philanthropist
Joanna Going , actress, Another World , House of Cards
Paul Gordon , musician with Goo Goo Dolls , New Radicals , The B-52's
Kristin Hersh , musician, vocalist for Rhode Island–based band Throwing Muses , 50 Foot Wave ; solo artist
Antony Kloman , painter
Jane Pickens Langley , singer, entertainer and philanthropist
Elaine Lorillard , summer resident, founder of Newport Jazz Festival
Perle Mesta , socialite, political hostess and U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg
MacGillivray Milne , 27th Governor of American Samoa , 1936–1938
Diane Nelson , president of DC Entertainment
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz , Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 1942–1945; Chief of Naval Operations
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis , First Lady of the United States, summer resident
Claiborne Pell , socialite and U.S. Senator 1961–1997
Alfredo Sciarrotta , silversmith and undersea weapons expert
Admiral William Sims , commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, 1917–1919
Carolyn Mary Skelly; owned Bois Dore Mansion ; eccentric daughter of William Grove Skelly ; oil heiress, dubbed the "most robbed woman in the US" by the Boston Globe ; socialite; hosted fundraisers for President George H.W. Bush, & Texas Governor John Connally[ 4] [ 5]
Admiral Raymond Spruance , the victor of Midway; President, Naval War College
Jimmy Van Alen , summer resident and founder of International Tennis Hall of Fame
Margaret Van Alen Bruguiere , socialite, art collector; niece of Frederick Vanderbilt
Harold Vanderbilt , yachtsman, bridge player, inventor of contract bridge
Martha Sharp Crawford (Sunny) von Bülow , socialite, heiress (resided with husband Claus von Bülow at Clarendon Court on Bellevue Avenue)
Charlie Day , Actor
21st century, Since 2001[ edit ]
Ken Barlow , TV Meteorologist, Beginning 1987
Richard Hatch , first winner of the reality television show Survivor
Sheldon Whitehouse , U.S. Senator, Beginning 2007
Dede Wilsey , San Franciscan socialite, summer resident and philanthropist
Richard Saul Wurman , architect, graphic designer, founder of the TED Conferences