Famous People From Delaware

Aubrey Plaza is an American actress, writer, producer, and comedian. She is best known for her portrayal of April Ludgate in the sitcom Parks and Recreation for which she earned a couple of nominations at the ALMA Award. Plaza is also known for playing Allison in the 2020 film Black Bear which earned her the Imagen Award for Best Actress.

A politician and attorney, Beau Biden was the eldest child of politician Joe Biden. As a little boy, he was severely injured in a car accident in which his mother and sister perished. He overcame several challenges to become a successful attorney. However, fate was cruel to him and he died of brain cancer at the age of 46.

American actress, Elisabeth Shue, is best known for her roles in the films like The Karate Kid, Cocktail, Leaving Las Vegas, The Saint, Hollow Man, Deconstructing Harry, Hide and Seek and Greyhound and has shared screen space with some of the greatest actors of all time. She has also worked in television and has won several awards for her acting.

Valerie Bertinelli, better known as Melanie Moretti from the sitcom Hot in Cleveland and Gloria from Touched by an Angel, has also appeared as a host on several culinary shows on Food Network. Her role as Barbara Cooper Royer in One Day at a Time earned her a Golden Globe.

Actor Ryan Phillippe has been active in the entertainment industry for almost three decades. Making his debut in the early 1990s with small roles in TV dramas, he gained international fame for playing a gay teenager in the show One Life to Live. He soon ventured into films and found success there as well.

Teri Polo is best known as Pam Byrnes-Focker from the Meet the Parents film franchise. Fans also loved her as Stef Foster in The Fosters and as Helen Santos in The West Wing. She has also guest-starred on TV shows such as The Practice, Frasier, and Law & Order: LA.

Ashley Biden, youngest daughter of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, has been the executive director of the Delaware Center for Justice. Ashley owns a clothing company, Livelihood, which donates its sales proceeds to various charities, partnering with online retailer Gilt Groupe. She has fought against animal testing and for dolphin conservation.

Lawyer and social justice activist, Bryan Stevenson, is known for challenging bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system. He advocates for the poor, fights for children’s rights, and condemns the death penalty. He is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. He was honored with the Benjamin Franklin Award from the American Philosophical Society.

After studying physics and astronomy at Wellesley College, Annie Jump Cannon traveled across Europe and focused on photography for a decade, before venturing to study astronomy again. At the Harvard Observatory, she made a considerable contribution to the classification of stellar bodies. She was almost deaf due to scarlet fever.

Stephen Marley is a Jamaican-American musician best known for his collaborations with his brothers Damian and Ziggy Marley. Stephen, the son of Bob Marley, is a multiple-time Grammy Award winner and a successful musician, both in the Jamaican and American music industry.

Cynthia Rothrock was not just a mixed martial artist but has also acted in various martial arts films. The Black Belt Hall of Famer began training in martial arts at 13 and eventually ended up being one of the first women martial artists to be featured on the martial arts magazine covers.

John Gallagher Jr. is an American musician and actor known for his contribution across all three major acting mediums. He is best known for playing Moritz Stiefel in a rock musical titled Spring Awakening, for which he was honored with a Tony Award. He has also played important roles in popular TV series, such as The Newsroom and Westworld.

The first North American Black woman to publish a newspaper, USA-born Mary Ann Shadd was the founder of the Canadian newspaper, The Provincial Freeman. Concurrently serving as its anonymous editor and contributor, she also became one of the first women to pursue journalism in Canada. She was also one of the first Black women to earn a degree in law.

Daniel Nathans was an American microbiologist best remembered for winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978 for the discovery of restriction endonuclease. Over the course of his career, Nathans worked for prestigious institutions, such as the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Daniel Nathans was also the recipient of several awards, including the National Medal of Science.