Music · born 1929Berry Gordyrecord executive, producer, songwriter, film producerDetroit-born founder of Motown, who turned a house on West Grand Boulevard into Hitsville U.S.A. and built the most successful Black-owned business of its era.DETROIT / A living lexicon / ¼
Famous Detroiters
People who were born here, moved here or built their careers in Detroit: musicians, carmakers, athletes, writers, inventors, civil-rights leaders and a few notorious names. With their dates, their Detroit story and the places where they lived, worked and played, closed ones included.
- 1,743 famous people
- 96 Detroit places
- 7 fields
Hungarian ties 21 Detroiters with Hungarian ties →
Field
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Born in
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9 people
Clear filtersMusic · born 1929Berry Gordyrecord executive, producer, songwriter, film producerDetroit-born founder of Motown, who turned a house on West Grand Boulevard into Hitsville U.S.A. and built the most successful Black-owned business of its era.
Science & invention · 1927–2021Edmund GettierphilosopherPhilosopher whose three-page 1963 paper 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?', written while he taught at Wayne State in Detroit, created the famous Gettier problem.
Sports · 1927–2016Bill Gadsbyice hockey defenseman and coachHall of Fame defenseman who finished his career with the Red Wings, briefly coached them and spent the rest of his life in metro Detroit.
Politics · 1923–2015Robert P. Griffinlawyer, U.S. senator, state Supreme Court justiceDetroit-born, Dearborn-raised Republican who co-wrote the Landrum-Griffin labor law, told Nixon to comply with Watergate subpoenas and lost his Senate seat to Carl Levin in 1978.
Politics · 1925–2016Roman Gribbslawyer, sheriff, mayor of Detroit, appeals judgePolish American prosecutor and Wayne County sheriff who was mayor in 1970–1974, created the notorious STRESS police unit, and was Detroit's last white mayor until 2014.The lexicon keeps growing. Every entry lists its sources at the bottom. Dates were checked against Wikidata and Wikipedia. The texts are our own.