List of people from Ridgefield, Connecticut

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This is a list of notable people, past and present who have lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut or are closely associated with the town, listed by area in which they are best known:

Authors, writers, playwrights, screenwriters[edit]

Actors, others in the dramatic arts[edit]

Singers, musicians, composers[edit]

  • Larry Adler (1914–2001), harmonica virtuoso, lived on Pumping Station Road
  • Judy Collins (born 1939), Grammy Award-winning folk singer (current resident)
  • Aaron Copland (1900–1990), lived on Limestone Road[8]
  • Fanny Crosby (1820–1915), wrote more than 8,000 hymns, lived as a child at the corner of Main Street and Branchville Road
  • Edwina Eustis Dick (1908–1997), contralto, pioneer in the field of music therapy, lived on Old Branchville Road
  • Geraldine Farrar (1882–1967), Metropolitan Opera soprano, lived on West Lane and later New Street, where she died
  • Andrew Gold (1951–2011), singer, songwriter, and musician, lived on St. Johns Road
  • Stephen Jenks (1772–1856), composer and "teacher of psalmody", lived in Ridgefield
  • Ed Kowalczyk (born 1971), singer, songwriter, musician and a founding member of the band Live
  • Jim Lowe (1927–2016) singer, disc jockey and radio host
  • Václav Nelhýbel (1919–1996), composer
  • Alex North (1910–1991), film composer
  • Noël Regney (1922–2002), pianist and songwriter
  • Stephen Schwartz (born 1948), composer and lyricist (current resident)
  • Debbie Shapiro (born 1954), singer (current resident)
  • Maxim Shostakovich (born 1938), conductor (past resident)
  • Jim Steinman (1947–2021), composer, lyricist, record producer, and playwright

Artists, architects, designers, cartoonists[edit]

Businessmen[edit]

Journalists[edit]

Government[edit]

Other[edit]

Alice Paul, 1901

See also[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ BookBrowse. "Rich Cohen author biography". BookBrowse.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  2. ^ [1] "Notable Ridgefielders" A–F page, at Jack Sanders' Web site about Ridgefield history
  3. ^ [2] Internet Movie DataBase Web site, Web page titled "Biography for Ira Joe Fisher" accessed August 20, 2006
  4. ^ a b Numerous sources state that the Fitzgerald's home was on Seventy Acre Road and that Flannery O'Connor lived with them there, including, Letters of Flannery O'Connor: The Habit of Being, selected and edited by Sally Fitzgerald (1979, Farrar, Straus & Giroux), address from the top of a letter from O'Connor: "70 Acre Road/Ridgefield, Conn./October 6, '49", page 15; Hyson, Lynn, "Flannery O'Connor Biographer gets glimpse of author's time here", article in The Redding Pilot, February 1, 2007, page A020: "The scene at the home of Janet August and Amy Atamian on a recent Saturday resembled a salon, true to the tradition of their house on Seventy Acre Road. Around the massive stone fireplace the two had gathered neighbors and friends to compare notes about the time writer Flannery O'Connor (1925–1964) lived here.";"Flannery O'Connor". Archived from the original on 2003-01-18. Retrieved 2007-07-12. Web page titled "Flannery O'Connor / Lesson Plan Ideas for Teachers" from "Flannery O'Connor-Andalusa Farm Foundation" website ("she was introduced to Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, with whom she lived for over a year in Ridgefield, Connecticut.") accessed July 12, 2007; [3] Map of Redding showing 70 Acre Road entirely within Redding (between Mountain Road and Umpawaug Road in the central part of western side of town; click on map to enlarge), at the "History of Redding" Web site, accessed July 12, 2007
  5. ^ a b c [4]"Where Americana and Aesthetics Mingle," article by Lisa Prevost, part of series "If You're Thinking of Living In" in the Real Estate section of The New York Times, March 14, 2004, accessed August 29, 2006 "Current residents include Maurice Sendak, the children's book author and illustrator; Harvey Fierstein, the actor and playwright; and Roz Chast, the New Yorker cartoonist."
  6. ^ [citation needed]
  7. ^ ResearchGate.com. "Profile - Fred Stahl".
  8. ^ A Library of Congress biography of Copland includes a photograph of him raking leaves at his Ridgefield home in 1946. See Library of Congress
  9. ^ Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607–1896. Marquis Who's Who. 1967.
  10. ^ [5] "Notable Ridgefielders" G–L page, at Jack Sanders' Web site about Ridgefield history. Actor George Sanders, married to both Magda and Zsa Zsa, was also fond of Jolie. "You know, Jolie," he once wrote her, "I think marriage is for very simple people, not great artists like us." Zsa Zsa, on the other hand, observed of Sanders: "When I was married to George Sanders, we were both in love with him. I fell out of love with him, but he didn't."
  11. ^ Scalise was an associate of mobster Dutch Schultz. He was arrested in 1940 by the crusading district attorney Thomas E. Dewey, later governor of New York and almost-president, and was charged with extorting $100,000 from hotels and contracting firms. But the arrest came only after Pegler exposed Scalise as part of a series of anti-racketeering columns that won him the Pulitzer. In a 1940 piece, Pegler described how Scalise had acquired the 27-room mansion on Tackora Trail in Ridgefield, apparently with union funds. “A remarkable proportion of Mr. Scalise’s fellow officers of the union have criminal records, and he reached the presidency by private arrangement with the officers and without any vote, direct or indirect, of the rank and file chambermaids, charwomen, window cleaners, janitors and other toilers,” wrote Pegler, who moved to Ridgefield a year later. He also noted that just across North Salem Road in Ridgefield was the town poor house. “Villa Scalise” was later acquired by the Society of Jesus, who used it as a retreat house, and is now the St. Ignatius Retreat House, owned by the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.
  12. ^ Barker, Sean (June 13, 2021). "Ridgefield swimmer Kieran Smith qualifies for Olympics in 400 freestyle". Connecticut Post. Retrieved July 20, 2021.
  13. ^ Barber, John Warner (1838). Connecticut Historical Collections, Containing a General Collection of Interesting Facts, Traditions, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, Etc., Relating to the History and Antiquities of Every Town in Connecticut with Geographical Descriptions. Durrie & Peck. pp. 400–401.

External links[edit]

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