Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 - June 7, 1980) was an American writer and painter. He is known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of "novel" that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional.

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 - July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. Nicknamed "Papa", he was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris known as "the Lost Generation", as described in his memoir "A Moveable Feast." He led a turbulent social life, was married four times, and allegedly had various romantic relationships during his lifetime.

Jonathan Littell is an award-winning French-American writer who writes mainly in French and now lives both in France and Spain.

David Sedaris (born December 26, 1956) is an American humorist and radio contributor. Much of his humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating, and it often concerns his family life, Greek heritage, various jobs, education, drug use, homosexuality and his life as an expatriate in France with his partner, Hugh.

John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is a three-time Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning American actor, best known for his frequent portrayals of offbeat and eccentric characters such as the title character in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Ichabod Crane in the film adaptation of Sleepy Hollow.

Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 - April 12, 1975) was an American-born French entertainer, most noted for her singing career, while in her early career she was a celebrated dancer (she is often credited as a movie star, although she only starred in 3 films in her early career). She was given the nicknames "Black Venus" or "Black Pearl" and "Créole Goddess", while in France she was known in the old theatrical tradition as "La Baker". She became a citizen of France in 1937.

James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, and essayist, best known for his novel "Go Tell It on the Mountain". Most of Baldwin's work deals with racial and sexual issues in the mid-20th century United States.

Arthur Buchwald (October 20, 1925 - January 17 2007) was an American humorist best known for his long-running column that he wrote in "The Washington Post", which in turn was carried as a syndicated column in many other newspapers. His column focused on political satire and commentary. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Outstanding Commentary in 1982 and in 1986 was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Richard Wright was an American author of novels, short stories and non-fiction.

Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 - July 27, 1946) was an American writer and is considered to have acted as a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. She spent most of her life in France.

John Arnold Griffin III (April 24, 1928) is an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist. Like many other successful musicians from Chicago, he studied music at DuSable High School under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe, alto sax and finally, shortly after joining Lionel Hampton's Orchestra, tenor sax. While still at high school, at 15 Griffin was playing alongside T-Bone Walker in a band led by Walker's brother.

Natalie Clifford Barney (31 October 1876 - 2 February 1972) was an American expatriate who lived, wrote, and hosted a literary salon in Paris. She was a poet, memoirist, and epigrammatist, but believed her life was her true work of art. Her salon, held at her home on Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years, brought together writers and artists from around the world, …

Gilbert Shelton (born May 31, 1940, Houston, Texas) is an American cartoonist and underground comix artist. He is the creator of "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers", "Fat Freddy's Cat", "Wonder Wart-Hog", "Not Quite Dead" and the cover art to The Grateful Dead's 1978 album "Shakedown Street". He graduated from Lamar High School in Houston.

James Douglas Morrison was an American singer, songwriter, writer, film director, and poet. He was best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the popular American rock band The Doors, and is considered to be one of the most charismatic, unique, and influential frontmen in the history of rock music. He was also an author of several poetry books, a documentary, short film, and three early music videos ("The Unknown Soldier", "Moonlight Drive", and "People are Strange").

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (May 22, 1844 - June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists. Cassatt (pronounced ca-SAHT) often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.

Alice B. Toklas was the life partner of writer Gertrude Stein.

Jean Seberg was an American actress. She starred in 34 films in Hollywood and in France. Seberg became even more of an icon after her roles in numerous French films and the tragedy of her turbulent life.

Rhys Chatham (b. September 19, 1952, New York City) is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist fields of experimentation. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions, which are acknowledged as the major influence on his sonic contemporary Glenn Branca. He has lived in France since 1987.

Ezra Pound was born on October 30, 1885 in the small mining town of Hailey, Idaho . He had an average middle-class childhood in Wyncote, Philadelphia , where his father held the position of assistant assayer for the United States Mint . Pound left high school, and attended the University of Pennsylvania , where he befriended another notable poet of the twentieth century, William Carlos Williams , who was studying medicine at the time.

John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor, producer and director.

Robert Dennis Crumb (born August 30, 1943), often credited simply as R. Crumb, is an American artist and illustrator recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream. He currently lives in France. Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded as its most prominent figure. Though one of the most celebrated of comic book artists, …

Joseph Nechvatal (born 1951) is a post-conceptual digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses. He started this work in 1986.

Carole Denise Fredericks (June 5 1952, Springfield, Massachusetts - June 7 2001, Dakar, Senegal) is an African American singer most famous for her recordings in France. She was the oldest sister of blues musician Taj Mahal. At 20 years old, she moved to California where she began her career as a singer. In 1979, she emigrated to France.

Tara Jarmon is a Paris-based fashion designer. Born in Canada, she moved to Newport Beach, California in high school. Jarmon launched her self-titled clothing line over 20 years ago, which now spans 23 free-standing Tara Jarmon boutiques and 80 store-in-store locations throughout Europe and Asia. Jarmon attended The University of Southern California, but graduated from The American University of Paris. her interests include skiing and traveling.

Jess Hahn (born Jesse Beryle Hahn) (born October 29, 1921 in Terre Haute, Indiana; died June 29, 1998 in Saint-Malo) was an American actor who mostly starred in French films. After serving with the Marines in the Second World War, he moved to France in 1949 and took French citizenship. First being a musician, he became a comedian and starred in film noirs and westerns. He was employed by French movie-maker Jean-Marie Pallardy, …

Jules Dassin (born Julius Dassin on December 18, 1911, in Middletown, Connecticut) is an American film director. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist. One of eight children of a Russian-Jewish barber, Dassin started as a Yiddish actor with the ARTEF ("Yiddish Proletarian Theater") company in New York, but became well-known for his noir films "Brute Force", "The Naked City", and "Thieves' Highway" in the 1940s.

Pierre Emil George Salinger (June 14, 1925 - October 16, 2004) was a White House Press Secretary to U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He later became known for his work as an ABC News correspondent, and in particular for his stories on the American hostage crisis in Iran, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland, and his discredited claims as to the cause of the explosion of TWA flight 800.

Uffie (born Anna-Catherine Hartley in 1987) is an American-born, Paris-based indie electronica musician.

Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 - March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. His diverse body of work, spanning six decades, covers numerous genres and subjects throughout the Americas, Europe and Africa.

Aline Kominsky-Crumb (born Aline Goldsmith, August 1948, Long Beach, New York) is an underground comix artist, who married into the Crumb family, best known for her autobiographical stories. In these stories she refers to herself as The Bunch, a nickname she was apparently given as a child. She was born to a middle class Jewish family in the Five Towns area of Long Island.

Jeane Manson, born Jean Manson, (born October 1, 1950 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American model, singer and actress. She was "Playboy" magazine's Playmate of the Month for the August 1974 issue. (The pictorial opens with her nude in the ocean while lying in the sand.) Her centerfold was photographed by Dwight Hooker. Jean's father was a writer; her mother was a signer. She attended The American School in Mexico, where she spent much of her childhod, …

Rick Owens, (born 1962) is an American fashion designer known for his edgy fashions favored by rock stars and people who like to cultivate an avant garde reputation. Since 2003, he has worked out of Paris where in addition to his own line, he serves as creative director for Revillon, the furrier. Born and raised in Central California (Porterville, CA), …

William Hurt (born March 20, 1950) is an Academy Award-winning American actor.

Jerome Charyn (born 1937) is an American novelist. Charyn was born in the Bronx area of New York and was educated at Columbia. He now lives and teaches in Paris. His novel, "Darlin' Bill" received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He has written over ten novels featuring the mythic hero-cop of a surreal New York City, Isaac Sidel.

Dee Dee Bridgewater (b. May 27, 1950) is an American Jazz singer. She is a two-time Grammy Award Winner, Tony Award Winner and Host of NPR's Syndicated Radio show "JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater". She is a United Nations Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Gershon Legman (November 2, 1917 - February 23, 1999), American social critic and folklorist was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania to parents of Eastern or Central European Jewish descent. According to George Chauncey's book "Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940" (1994), Legman was a homosexual. As a young man he acquired a number of interests including sexuality, erotic folklore, and origami.

Noël Lee is an American classical pianist and composer living in Paris, France. He studied music in Lafayette, Indiana, then attended Harvard University, studying with Walter Piston, Irving Fine, and Tillman Merritt. Following World War II, he traveled to Paris where he studied music with Nadia Boulanger and was a friend of Douglas Allanbrook. He has composed orchestral, chamber, piano, vocal, and film music.