- Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko born Marcus Rothkowitz (September 25, 1903 - February 25, 1970) was a Latvian-born American painter and printmaker who is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he rejected not only the label but even being an abstract painter. - Edward Leedskalnin
Edward Leedskalnin was an eccentric Latvian emigrant to the United States and amateur sculptor who, it is alleged, single-handedly built the monument known as Coral Castle in Florida. He was also known for his unusual theories on magnetism. - Natalie Gulbis
Natalie Anne Gulbis (born January 7, 1983) is an American professional golfer who plays on the U.S. based LPGA Tour. - Dj Lethal
Leor Dimant (born December 18, 1972 in Riga, Latvia), better known as DJ Lethal, is a turntablist and producer. He is best known as a member of the band Limp Bizkit, and formerly a member of the Irish-American-influenced hip hop group House of Pain. Currently, DJ Lethal is the main producer of hiphop supergroup La Coka Nostra, which includes his former House of Pain mates Everlast and Danny Boy, among others. - Rutanya Alda
Rutanya Alda is a Latvian-American actress. She may be best known for her roles in "Mommie Dearest", "The Deer Hunter", and "Amityville II: The Possession". She also appeared on numerous TV programs and on the TV series "Beauty and the Beast", which starred Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. - Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen (April 2, 1908 - July 6, 2003) was an American actor and dancer, who is best-remembered for his role as Jed Clampett in the popular television series "The Beverly Hillbillies". - Jacob Davis
Jacob Davis was born to Jewish parents in Latvia and came to Reno, Nevada in June 1868. A tailor, Davis used small copper rivets to reinforce and strengthen items including harnesses. In 1871, a woman approached Davis to make pants for her husband, who was quite large. Davis decided to use the copper rivets to reinforce the pants for men. At the time, Davis used white duck, a canvas-type material he had bought from Levi Strauss & Co a San Francisco merchant. - Harold Snepsts
Harold John Snepsts (born October 24, 1954, Edmonton, Alberta) was a professional hockey player who played 17 seasons in the National Hockey League - 12 of them with the Vancouver Canucks, three in Red Wings colours, two with the St. Louis Blues and one with the North Stars. He was drafted in the 1974 NHL Entry Draft, in the 4th round (59th overall) by the Canucks. He was a defenseman. He played 1,033 games, scored 38 goals and added 195 assists. - Lillian Faderman
Lillian Faderman (born 1940) is a scholar whose books on lesbian relationships in history have earned critical praise and awards. Faderman is a professor of English at California State University in Fresno, California. - Jay Rabinowitz
Jay Andrew Rabinowitz (February 25, 1927–June 16, 2001) was an American lawyer, best known for serving as an Alaska Supreme Court justice from February 1965 to February 1997. - Fred Norris
Eric Fred Norris (born Fred Leo Nukis on July 9, 1955) is an American radio personality on The Howard Stern Show. Norris is a comedic writer, musician and mimic, and has worked with Stern longer than any other staff member. - Debi Mazar
Deborah Mazar (born August 15, 1964), better known as Debi Mazar, is an American actress, best known for her trademark "Jersey Girl"-type appearances, and as edgy, sharp-tongued women in independent films. Mazar was born in Queens, New York. Her father, Harry Mazar, was born in the Latvian SSR, Soviet Union, to a Jewish family, … - Bill Rebane
Bill Rebane (born February 8, 1937 in Riga, Latvia) is a movie director. He is best known for low budget horror movies such as "Monster A Go-Go" and "The Giant Spider Invasion". Rebane also ran for governor of Wisconsin in 2002. Rebane's mother was a Latvian and father an Estonian, Arnold Rebane. - Frances Conroy
Frances Conroy (born November 13, 1953) is an Emmy-nominated, Golden Globe and SAG Award-winning American actress. Born in Monroe, Georgia of Irish and Latvian descent, Conroy studied drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Juilliard School in New York City. During the 1970s, she performed regularly with regional and touring theatrical companies (most notably The Acting Company), … - Dean Schonfeld
Dean Schonfeld (born December 25,1957, in Riga, Latvia) is a Latvian American engineer noted for his work in technology transfer at Caltech university, where he was director of this department in the Center for Neuromorphic Engineering Sciences in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Previously he worked at Lockheed Corporation and with the State of California's Office of Strategic Technology. He is also distinguished for his engineering work at the Naval R&D Lab (Annapolis, … - Paul Grasmanis
Paul Grasmanis (born August 2 1974, Grand Rapids, Michigan) is a former National Football League defensive lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles. He was a 10 year veteran of the NFL and was picked in the 4th round of the draft in 1996 by the Chicago Bears. In 1999 he spent one week with the St. Louis Rams and was dropped and picked up by the Denver Broncos. He signed onto the Eagles in 2000, and retired prior to the 2006 season due to his persistent injuries. - Laila Robins
Laila Robins (born March 14 1959, in St. Paul, Minnesota) is an American stage, film and television actress. - Alexander Shabalov
Alexander Shabalov (born September 12 1967) is an American chess grandmaster, the multiple winner of the U.S. Chess Championships. He is of Latvian origin, and like his fellow Latvians Alexei Shirov and Mikhail Tal he is known for courting complications even at the cost of objective soundness. As of the June 2007 rating supplement Shabalov had a United States Chess Federation rating of 2671, ranking him 7th best among American chess players. - Philippe Halsman
Philippe Halsman (2 May, 1906 Riga, Latvia - 25 June, 1979 New York City) was a Latvian-born American portrait photographer. Born to a Jewish family of Max Halsman, a dentist, and Ita Grintuch, a grammar school principal, in Latvia. Halsman studied electrical engineering in Dresden, but moved into photography in Paris in 1931. - Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts (b. September 21, 1951, Pontiac, Michigan) is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book "The Gutenberg Elegies", which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture." Birkerts graduated from Cranbrook Kingswood School and then from the University of Michigan in 1973. - Leo G
Leo G is a production alias of Lev Gorodinski, first used for his single Supersonic on DeepBlue Records. Lev Gorodinski was born in Daugavpils, Latvia on October 9, 1985 to Russian parents. In 1997 he moved to Denver, Colorado and remains there to this day. - Morris Halle
Morris Halle, né Pinkowitz, is an American linguist. He was born in Liepaja, Latvia, in 1923, and moved with his family to Riga in 1929. They arrived in the United States in 1940. From 1941 to 1943, Halle studied engineering at the City College of New York. He entered the United States Army in 1943 and was discharged in 1946, at which point he went to the University of Chicago, where he got his master's degree in linguistics in 1948. - Jānis Sprukts
Jānis Sprukts is a Latvian professional ice hockey forward, who currently is playing for NHL team Florida Panthers. He was drafted by Panthers as their eighth-round pick, #234 overall, in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft. Sprukts has played two seasons of hockey in North America, then three seasons in Europe with Odense Bulldogs, ASK/Ogre, HK Riga 2000, HPK. In 2006 he returned to North America, where he signed with the Florida Panthers. - Joseph Hirshhorn
Joseph Herman Hirshhorn (1899 - 1981) was an entrepreneur, financier and art collector. Born in Latvia, the twelfth of thirteen children, Hirshhorn emigrated to the United States with his widowed mother at the age of six. Hirshhorn went to work as an office boy on Wall Street at age 14. Three years latter, in 1916, he became a stockbroker and earned $168,000 that year. A shrewd investor, he sold off his Wall Street investments two months before the collapse of 1929, … - Mark Roess
- Max Weinreich
Max Weinreich (1893/94 Goldingen, Courland (Kuldiga, Latvia) - 1969 New York City, USA) was a linguist, specializing in Yiddish, and the father of the linguist Uriel Weinreich. Weinreich founded the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (originally called Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO)) in Vilnius (Vilna) in 1925, and was its director from 1925 to 1939. From 1940 he led it in New York. - Edmar Mednis
Edmar John Mednis (1937-February 13, 2002) was an American chess International Grandmaster (awarded in 1980), born in Riga, Latvia. - Daina Taimina
Daina Taimina is a Latvian-American mathematician at Cornell University who crochets objects to illustrate hyperbolic space. She came up with the idea in an idle moment during a camping trip in 1997, based on paper models designed by geometer William Thurston. Colleagues were intrigued that her creations embodied concepts they had been teaching for years but never actually seen. She was invited, together with her husband David Henderson, a math professor also at Cornell, … - Peter Woit
Peter Woit is a mathematical physicist at Columbia University. He obtained his PhD in particle theory from Princeton University in 1985, followed by postdoctoral work in theoretical physics at State University of New York at Stony Brook and mathematics at MSRI in Berkeley. He spent four years as an assistant professor at Columbia and now holds a permanent position as "Lecturer in Discipline" in the mathematics department where he runs the computer system, teaches classes, … - Kaspars Daugaviņš
Kaspars Daugaviņš is an ice hockey player. Daugaviņš was selected 91st overall in the third round of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft by the Ottawa Senators. He is currently playing for the Binghamton Senators in the AHL. Daugaviņš has played for Latvian national ice hockey team in 2006 and 2007 World Championships. He is the youngest player ever to play for Latvia in World Championships, at the age of 17 in 2006. - Viktors Pupols
Viktors (Viktor Pupols) Pūpols a Latvian–American chess master. In 1955, he played in Lincoln, Nebraska (US Junior-ch; Charles Kalme won), and beat young Bobby Fischer there. Viktors Pupols first played in a Washington State Championship tournament in 1954. He has played in most of the tournaments since and was the winner in 1961, 1974, tied for first in 1978, and winning in 1989. He won the tourney in 1964 but Gerald Ronning took title in a match. - Leo Michelson
Leo Michelson was an American artist considered part of the École de Paris, although his works span many periods and styles. - Anna Hahn
Anna Hahn (born June 21, 1976, Riga) is an American chess player with the title of Woman International Master. In her native Latvia, she took the women's championship of 1992 and then moved to the U.S. She won the 2003 U.S. Women's Chess Championship in Seattle after beating Irina Krush and Jennifer Shahade in a three way playoff for the title. - Anna Hahn
Anna Hahn (born 1976, in Latvia) is an American chess player with the title of Woman International Master. In her native Latvia, she took the women's championship of 1992 and then moved to the U.S. She won the 2003 U.S. Women's Chess Championship in Seattle after beating Irina Krush and Jennifer Shahade in a three way playoff for the title. - Aleksander Wojtkiewicz
Aleksander Wojtkiewicz was an International Grandmaster of chess. He was Polish by nationality but was born in Latvia, USSR; his name was originally spelled Aleksandrs Voitkevičs. In his early teens he was already a strong player, student of ex-world champion Mikhail Tal whom he assisted in the 1979 Interzonal tournament in Riga. His promising chess career was interrupted when he refused to join the Soviet Army. - Lipman Bers
Lipman Bers (May 22, 1914, Riga, Latvia – October 29, 1993, New Rochelle, New York) was an American mathematician who worked on Riemann surfaces. Bers received his Ph.D. in 1938 from the University of Prague. His advisor was Charles Loewner. He worked at Syracuse University (1945-1951), New York University (1951-1964) and at Columbia University (1964-1982). He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Finnish Academy of Sciences, … - Hyman Bloom
Hyman Bloom is a painter. His work is influenced by his Jewish heritage, as well as the supernatural. Many of his works feature macabre subjects such as skeletons or corpses. Bloom was born into an orthodox Jewish family in the tiny Jewish village of Brunavišķi, in the Bauska District of the Zemgale region of southern Latvia, near the town of Bauska and about 45 miles south of Riga near the Lithuanian border. He emigrated to the United States with his family in 1920, … - Kevin Rutmanis
Kevin Rutmanis was born Kevins Roberts Visvaldis Rutmanis in the Bronx NY in 1958 to Latvian immigrants. Kevin's family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. He completed a public school education where he excelled in music playing the piano and cello. He moved to the Minneapolis area in 1976. Attended the University of Minnesota where he befriended fellow Lincolnite Thor Eisentrager. - Charles Kalme
Charles Kalme (November 15 1939-2003) was an International Master of chess recognized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation. Kalme was born in Riga, Latvia on November 15, 1939. At the conclusion of World War II, Kalme and what was left of his family fled Latvia, lived for years in a Displaced persons camp in Germany and finally arrived in Philadelphia in the United States in 1951. Kalme won the U.S. Junior Chess Championship in both 1954 and 1955. - Betty Walker
Betty Walker was a Jewish-American comic who performed primarily during the 1950s and 1960s. She was born Edith Seeman in Elizabeth, New Jersey to Latvian immigrants. Over the course of her career, she appeared numerous times on television, including guest appearances on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, "The Merv Griffin Show" and "The Steve Allen Show", on the radio, and in film, most notably in "Exodus" in 1960.
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