Famous Citizens:

Fred Astaire
Born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, he and his older sister Adele showed the ability to dance at a very early age. In 1904, Fred’s mother moved both children to New York City where they enrolled in a school for the performing arts and became involved in the vaudeville circuit. Because of World War I, they changed their Austrian name to “Astaire.” Adele retired from the stage in 1932 following her marriage, but Fred continued, and is most well known for his work with Ginger Rogers. He appeared in countless movies and continued working on the stage and on television until he was well over 70 years of age.

 

 

George Beadle
Born in Wahoo, Nebraska, Beadle was a pioneer in genetic research on the fruit fly at the California Institute of Technology. He later shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology for his work on bread molds and the influence of genes on the cell’s production of enzymes.

 

 

Marlon Brando
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Marlon Brando moved to New York to study acting after he was expelled from military school. He is best known for one of his earliest roles as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, although younger fans may best remember his portrayal as Mafia chief Don Corleone in The Godfather, a role for which he received the Academy Award.

 

 

Richard B. Cheney
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney studied at the University of Wyoming, but left graduate school before earning the PhD in order to work in the Nixon White House. When President Nixon, resigned, Cheney worked with the transition team and became White House chief of staff under Gerald Ford. After the Ford Presidency, he returned to Wyoming and served in Congress until he became secretary of defense under George Bush in 1989. In 2000, he was asked by George W. Bush to serve as Vice-Presidential nominee, and was elected to that position.

 

 

Gerald R. Ford
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Ford went on to star on the University of Michigan football team, and then earned his law degree at Yale. He served in the Navy in World War II, and when he returned, he entered Republican politics. He was elected to Congress from the state of Michigan in 1948. When he took the oath of office to the Presidency in 1974, his rise to the position was unprecedented in two ways. First, he succeeded the first US president to resign the office (Richard Nixon), and he was the first Vice-President to be selected under the terms of the 25th Amendment, having taking that position after the resignation of Nixon’s first Vice-President, Spiro Agnew.

 

 

Malcolm X
Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, he saw his childhood home in Lansing, Michigan burned by the Ku Klux Klan. Shortly afterwards, his father was murdered and his mother was placed in a mental institution. He spent much of his childhood in juvenile detention homes. In 1946, while serving time in prison for burglary, he converted to the Black Muslim faith, and when he was released, went to work with the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad. At that time, he changed his name to Malcolm X using the “X” to signify his belief that his last name had been chosen for him by white slaveholders. Malcolm X quickly became a leader in the radical black power movement, calling for black separatism, and supporting the use of violence when necessary to accomplish the movement’s goals. However, after a trip to Mecca in 1964, Malcolm X began to moderate his views, and eventually left the Nation of Islam and converted to orthodox Islam. He was murdered by a group of Black Muslims in 1965.