Famous and Not-So-Famous Americans of German, Austrian, or German-Swiss Ancestry
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North Americans of German, Austrian, or German-Swiss heritage have made significant contributions to many fields of American culture, from the arts to science and engineering. Below is an alphabetical list of notable Americans and Canadians, both living and dead, who were born in German-speaking Europe or had Germanic ancestors. All persons listed have at least a summary. For some personalties you can click on a link to learn even more. This list also includes Austrian and Swiss-Americans.

Movie star Clark Gable in a 1940s publicity photo. Learn about Gable’s German heritage below. PHOTO: MGM, public domain

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Gable, Clark (1901-1960) | Clark Gable was an American actor of German heritage who appeared in Hollywood film classics from Gone With the Wind to The Misfits. Both Gable’s mother (Adeline Hershelman) and father (William H. Gable) had German ancestors (Frankenfield, Hershelman, and Haupt) who had settled in Pennsylvania. Despite unfounded claims found all over the Web, it is a myth that Gable’s name was once spelled “Goebel.” No one in Clark Gable’s family tree ever had a German version of the Gable surname, going back five generations to 1790. Gable was married to Carole Lombard, another German American, when she perished in a plane crash in Nevada in 1942. In 1955 Gable married fifth wife Kay Spreckels (née Kathleen Williams). Spreckels had previously been married three times. Her third husband was the sugar-refining heir Adolph Bernard Spreckels Jr. (1945–1952). Gable became stepfather to her son Bunker Spreckels. Adolph B. Spreckels Jr. was the great-grandson of the German-born “sugar king” Claus Spreckels (1828-1908), founder of the Spreckels Sugar Company.

Gaynor, Mitzi (1931- ) | Born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago on September 4, 1931, Mitzi Gaynor is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Her Budapest-born father, Henry de Czanyi von Gerber, who immigrated from Austria-Hungary as a young man, was a musical conductor, cellist, and violinist. Her mother, Pauline Fisher, was a trained dancer. Although often included on lists of German-Americans, it seems more likely that Gaynor is of Hungarian descent – despite her father’s partly German surname (von Gerber). Gaynor’s notable films include There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) and South Pacific, the 1958 motion picture adaptation of the stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Gehrig, Lou (1903-1941) | Lou Gehrig was a Baseball Hall of Fame member, born Ludwig Heinrich Gehrig in New York City to German immigrant parents. Both his mother and father were Lutherans born in Germany: Christina Flack in Schleswig-Holstein, Heinrich Gehrig in Baden. They came to America separately, met in New York and were married there in 1900. Gehrig, known as “The Iron Horse,” played first base for the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1939. For part of that time he was teamed with fellow German Babe Ruth. Gehrig died of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”) in 1941.
WEB: Biography – LouGehrig.com (official site)

Gephardt, Dick (1941- ) | Richard “Dick” Andrew Gephardt was a US congressman from 1977 to 2005. Gephardt made unsuccessful bids to become the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988 and 2004. His father, Lou Gephardt, was the grandson of German immigrants. His paternal grandfather, Andrew Gephardt, was born in Missouri to German parents. His paternal grandmother, Alice V. Jones, had German parents (Jacob Haller and Agatha Birk), who were from Württemberg. Lou Gephardt farmed family land in Washington, Missouri until moving the family to St. Louis, where he sold life insurance and real estate. Dick Gephardt grew up in South St. Louis and later became a lawyer.

Goelitz, Gustav (1846-1901) | Gustav Goelitz was a German American candy and ice cream merchant whose endeavors later led to the Jelly Belly candy company. Gustav was born to Adolf and Augusta (née Domyer) Goelitz on 28 March 1845 in Osterode am Harz, a community in the Harz Mountains at the southern edge of the Kingdom of Hannover, today part of the German state (Bundesland) of Lower Saxony. At the time of his birth, his uncle August was already living in the US. Later his uncle and other relatives would help him get settled in the New World. Gustav arrived in the United States in 1866. Two years later he bought a confectionery firm in Belleville, Illinois, at the time a very German town.

Gustav’s younger brothers, Albert and George, emigrated to America soon after and joined him in the business, known as the A. & G. Goelitz Confectionery Company after 1894. In 1898 the firm concentrated on “butter sweet candy corn” and “royal buttercreams.” (Candy corn was first developed in 1888 by George Renniger of the Wunderle Candy Co. in Philadelphia. The largest manufacturer of candy corn today is Brach’s Confections.) In 1904 the Goelitz company relocated to Chicago, and then to North Chicago in 1913. Gustav’s son, Herman Goelitz, moved to California to start his own business, Herman Goelitz Candy Company. In 1960 the company expanded to jelly beans and gummy bears. Mini jelly beans joined the lineup in 1965. In 1973 California governor Ronald Reagan popularized Goelitz jelly beans. In the 1980s an expanded range of Jelly Belly flavors (a name inspired by blues musician Lead Belly) made them even more popular. In 1980, now President Reagan again publicized Jelly Belly beans for his inauguration events. Today the company operates three manufacturing plants in Fairfield, California; North Chicago, Illinois; and Rayong, Thailand.
WEB: Gustav Goelitz and the Jelly Belly Co. (jellybelly.com)

Gold, Ernest (Ernst Sigmund Goldner, 1921-1999) | Ernest Gold was an Austrian-born American composer. His most noted work was the musical score for the 1960 film Exodus, starring Paul Newman and Eve Marie Saint, for which Gold won the Academy Award for Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, as well as a Grammy for the Best Film Score Album. Gold was born in Vienna on 13 July 1921. His Jewish parents were Elisabeth (née Stransky) and Gustav Goldner. A child prodigy, Gold learned to read music before he could read words. He began playing violin and piano at six years of age, and began composing music at eight. By age 13, he had written an entire opera. From an early age, he wanted to go to Hollywood and be a composer. Among other prominent film composers of the time he admired fellow Austrian Max Steiner, who had arrived in Hollywood in 1914, and was already successful there.

Former German tennis champ Stefanie Graf and her husband Andre Agassi at a public appearance for the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education in December 2018. Graf and Agassi have their home in Las Vegas. PHOTO: Andre Agassi Foundation for Education

Graf, Stefanie ‘Steffi’ (1969- ) | Steffanie Graf was the world’s number one woman tennis player in the 1980s and 1990s. She won 22 Grand Slam singles titles. She retired from pro tennis in 1999. Born June 14, 1969 in Mannheim, Germany, Graf learned to play tennis from her father, Peter Graf. On October 22, 2001 Stefanie married American tennis champ Andre Agassi at his home in Las Vegas. They now have two adult children, son Jaden Gil and daughter Jaz Elle. Although Graf has a permanent residence visa for the US, she is still a German citizen. See our full Stefanie Graf bio for more.

Gropius, Walter (1883-1969) | Walter Gropius was the founder of the Bauhaus school of architecture and industrial design in Germany (1925), which was housed in Weimar and Dessau before being closed by the Nazi regime in 1933. Gropius came to the the US in 1937 and taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 1945 he founded The Architects’ Collaborative (TAC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. TAC became a prominent and highly respected architectural firm with projects all over the world. See our full Walter Gropius bio for more.

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Hagen, Uta Thyra (1919-2004) | Uta Hagen was born June 12, 1919 in Göttingen, Germany to Thyra A. (née Leisner) and Oskar Hagen, an art historian and musician. Hagen and her family emigrated to the United States in 1924. Uta Hagen was primarily a stage actress after being blacklisted in Hollywood during the Cold War. She was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. She won two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play and received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999.

Hahn, William (1829-1887) | William Hahn was a German-American painter born Karl Wilhelm Hahn in Ebersbach, Saxony, Germany on January 7, 1829. After art studies in Germany and some success in Europe, Hahn met the American artist William Keith in Düsseldorf and went to the US in 1871. Hahn soon had a studio in San Francisco and became very successful, notably for his paintings of California scenes and landscapes. In 1882 he married an American artist named Adelaide Rising. They were on an extended European tour when Hahn died unexpectedly in Dresden.

Hammerstein, Oscar (1847-1919), Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960) and Oscar Hammerstein III (1905-2003) | The first Oscar Hammerstein was born in Stettin, Pomerania (now part of northern Germany and Poland). He arrived in New York during the Civil War in 1864. Best known as an opera promoter, Hammerstein was also “…an inventor, writer, editor, publisher, composer, speculator, designer, builder, promoter, showman.” He is also known as the “Father of Times Square.” Oscar Hammerstein II, the first Hammerstein’s grandson, was born in New York in 1895 and later became famous as one half of the Broadway musical production team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. With composer Richard Rodgers, Hammerstein created a string of popular musicals, including “Oklahoma!,” “South Pacific,” and “The Sound of Music.” Also see: Edelweiss with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.
WEB: Oscar Hammerstein I – from the Jewish Virtual Library

Handler, Chelsea (1975- ) | Chelsea Handler is an American comedienne, actress, and author born as the youngest of six children in Livingston, New Jersey. She has a Jewish American father (Seymour Handler). Her German mother, Rita Stöker, died of cancer in 2006. Handler was raised in Reform Judaism and has always embraced her Jewish side. But she also has fond memories of her maternal grandfather, Karl Stöker, born in Bochum, Germany. Karl served in the German army and was a WWII POW in Algona, Iowa before returning to Germany after the war. Her mother came to the US from Germany with her parents in 1958 when she was 19. Chelsea herself was also 19 when she moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. She began doing stand-up comedy and appearing in films and on various television reality shows. In a 2013 appearance on the genealogy series “Who Do You Think You Are?” Handler was relieved to learn that her German grandfather Karl had been drafted into military service and was not a card-carrying Nazi. In April 2006, Handler began hosting “The Chelsea Handler Show” on E!, which lasted two seasons. She has written five best-selling books, including Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (2010), and Uganda Be Kidding Me in 2014.

Heigl, Katherine Marie (1978- ) | Katherine Heigl is an American film actress and producer born in Washington, D.C. on November 24, 1978. She is the youngest of four children born to Paul Heigl and his wife Nancy Engelhardt. Katherine’s father is of German, Swiss-German, and Irish descent. Her mother is of German ancestry. Although she grew up in Connecticut, Heigl now lives in Utah with her husband, singer Josh Kelley, and their three children. She has appeared in about 30 Hollywood films, including a voice role (as Andie) in the animated feature The Nut Job (2014) and The Nut Job 2 (2017). She is also active in television. In 1999, Heigl accepted the role of Isabel Evans on the hit sci-fi TV series Roswell, a role she played for three seasons. Heigl later played Dr. Isobel “Izzie” Stevens on the ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy (2005–2010), two seasons as Samantha Wheeler in the USA Network’s legal drama series Suits (2018-2019), and in 2021 the leading role opposite Sarah Chalke and Ben Lawson for the Netflix series Firefly Lane, for which Heigl was also executive producer. She also appeared in the 2021 horror film Fear of Rain.

Heileman, Gottlieb (1824-1878) | Johann Gottlieb Heileman was the founder of the G. Heileman Brewing Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin, which he established in 1858. His business philosophy focused on producing the best local beer, rather than expanding nationwide like his company’s contemporary Anheuser-Busch. Heileman was born on 6 January 1824 in Kirchheim unter Teck, Württemberg. He grew up in a family of bakers and brewers in southern Germany. In 1852 Heileman immigrated to the United States. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he founded a bakery with another German immigrant, he met Johanna Bandel, another Württemberg native, and they moved permanently to La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1858. With fellow German immigrant John Gund he co-founded the City Brewery in La Crosse. After a disagreement, Gund sold his share to Heileman, who renamed the company G. Heileman Brewing Company. Following Heileman’s death in 1878, the company passed to his widow, Johanna, who controlled the company until her death in 1917, making her the first female head of a brewery in the United States and following the incorporation of the company, the first female CEO in America. After being sold to Stroh and other corporate holders, the brewery’s name disappeared. But in 1999 the old G. Heileman Brewing Company’s former brewery buildings in La Crosse were bought by a group of investors who founded the City Brewing Company, harking back to the name of Gund and Heileman’s original brewery. City Brewing now brews beers for various labels.

Heinz, Henry J. (1844-1919) | Henry Heinz was the founder and president of the H.J. Heinz Company (1869, as Heinz Noble & Company) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, Heinrich Heinz, was born in Kahlstadt, Bavaria, and came to America in 1840. In 1843 Heinrich married Anna Margaretta Schmitt, also from Germany, and a little more than a year later Henry John Heinz was born. The company’s famous slogan, “57 varieties,” was introduced by Heinz in 1896. The number was chosen merely for its sound, since even at that time Heinz was producing many more than 57 product varieties. Heinz revolutionized the way that food and condiments were marketed and sold. By the early 1900s Heinz had also opened factories in England. Heinz became so well established there that many Brits thought it was a British company. Today the H.J. Heinz Co. has plants and distributors all over the world.

Henreid, Paul (Paul Georg Julius Freiherr von Hernried Ritter von Wasel-Waldingau, 1908-1992) | Paul Henreid was an Austrian-American actor, director, producer, and writer. He is best remembered for two film roles: Victor Laszlo in Casablanca and Jerry Durrance in Now, Voyager, both released between 1942 and 1943. Henreid was born Paul Georg Julius Hernried in Trieste, Austria-Hungary (now in Italy) on 10 January 1908. His parents were Maria-Luise (Lendecke) and Karl Alphons Hernried, a Viennese banker, born Carl Hirsch, who in 1904 had converted from Judaism to Catholicism, due to anti-semitism. Paul Henreid’s father died in April 1916 when Paul was only eight. By the time he graduated from the Theresianum (Theresianische Akademie), a private boarding school in Vienna, the family fortune had been reduced dramatically. Over his family’s objections, Henreid trained for the theater in Vienna, and debuted on the stage under the direction of Max Reinhardt. Henreid began acting in German and Austrian films in the 1930s. After the Nazis deemed him part-Jewish, Henreid accepted an acting role in London in 1935, later getting small roles in British films before moving to California in 1940. After early film success in the early 1940s, and smaller roles in ensuing years, Henreid appeared in his last Hollywood film as the cardinal in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). Henreid had already begun directing both film and television productions in the 1950s. His TV directorial credits include episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Maverick, Bonanza, The Virginian, and The Big Valley. Henreid married Elizabeth Camilla Julia “Lisl” Glück (1908–1993) in 1936. The couple adopted two daughters. At 84 years of age, Henreid died of pneumonia in Santa Monica, California in March 1992 after suffering a stroke. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica. Henreid was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for film, the other for television.

Hershey, Milton (1857-1945) | Milton Hershey earned his fortune by appealing to people’s sweet tooth and love of chocolate. Hershey was born on September 13, 1857, in a farmhouse near Derry Church, Pennsylvania. He was a descendant of Mennonite immigrant farmers who had come to Pennsylvania from Switzerland and Germany in the early 1700s. Milton Hershey’s ancestor, Benjamin Stauffer Hershey (Hirschi, 1696-1789) was born in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. He was 93 when he died in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Raised as a Mennonite, Milton Hershey attended school only through the fourth grade. After working in the candy/caramel business for several years in various places from Louisiana to Colorado, and following several business failures, Hershey purchased some German chocolate-making equipment for his plant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Hershey Chocolate Company was founded in 1894 and soon expanded to become one of the world’s largest candy and food manufacturers. Hershey helped turn chocolate from an expensive Swiss-made delicacy into a confection that everyone could afford.
WEB: Milton S. Hershey – from thehersheycompany.com

Patricia Highsmith at her home on the Hudson River near New York City in 1957. PHOTO: Francis Goodman

Highsmith, Patricia (Mary Patricia Plangman, 1921-1995) | The American novelist Patricia Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas. Her father was Jay Bernard Plangman (1887-1975), also born in Fort Worth. He and his wife, Mary Coates, divorced just days before Patricia was born. Coates married Stanley Highsmith in 1924. Patricia thus got her nom de plume from her stepfather. Jay Plangman’s father, Herman Plangman (1863-1942), was born in Germany on June 21, 1863. Jay’s mother, Minna Friedrike Bertha Hartmann (1865-1953), was born in Texas to parents from Germany. – Highsmith’s first novel, Strangers on a Train, was made into a classic 1951 film by Alfred Hitchcock. That film’s success allowed her to write her psychological thrillers full time and to travel to Europe. Her series of Ripley novels became popular. In 1977 German director Wim Wenders adapted Ripley’s Game for the screen as The American Friend, starring Dennis Hopper. A typical description of her by people who knew her was “misanthropic and hostile.” She was an alcoholic whose addiction only worsened with age. After living in New York City for some years, Highsmith went to England to live. In 1982 she moved to a village in Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. At the age of 74 she died there on February 4, 1995, leaving an estate of about $3 million. Highsmith bequeathed her literary estate to the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern, Switzerland.
WEB: Herman Plangman’s grave and info from Find A Grave
WEB: Patricia Highsmith’s grave in Switzerland, from Find A Grave

Hindemith, Paul (1895-1963) | Paul Hindemith, a composer and violinist, was born in Hanau, Germany (Frankfurt am Main area), but he lived and worked in the United States from 1940 to 1953, and became an American citizen in 1946. After leaving Germany (the Nazis labeled his music “degenerate”), Hindemith taught at Harvard and Yale. He settled in Geneva, Switzerland in 1953, joining the music faculty at the university in Zurich. Hindemith has been termed “one of the main innovators of musical modernism.” His best known, most popular opus is “Symphonic Metamorphoses of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber” (1943). Hindemith fell ill in Switzerland and he was sent to a hospital in Frankfurt, where he died of pancreatitis on December 28, 1963. He was later interred in the Cimetière de Saint-Légier-La Chiésaz in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland.
WEB: Paul Hindemith Biography – hindemith.info

Herbert Hoover around 1928. PHOTO: Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commmons

Hoover, Herbert (1874-1964) | Herbert Clark Hoover served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. Hoover was born into a Quaker family on August 10, 1874 in West Branch, Iowa. His father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith and farm implement store owner of German, Swiss, and English ancestry. The original German Swiss surname was Huber, a tenant or Hube on a feudal manor. The Huber family lived for several centuries in Oberkulm in the Kulm district of what is now the Aargau Canton in Switzerland. The Hubers married members of other Swiss families including the Kreutzers, Neffs, and Hoffmans. Andreas Huber’s father went to Germany, where Andreas was born in Ellerstadt. He migrated to Philadelphia in 1738 at age fifteen. Around 1762 the family anglicized their last name to Hoover. In 1745 Andreas married Margaret Catherine Pfautz, who also had Swiss ancestry, and they had thirteen children. Their son, John, was born in 1760, and he married Sarah Burket, from a Swiss family. John and Sarah’s descendant, Jesse Clark Hoover, was born on September 2, 1846. At about age eight, he moved to Iowa, where he married Hulda Randall Minthorn in March 1870. Their second child was Herbert “Bert/Bertie” Hoover. Orphaned at a young age, Hoover was sent to live with various relatives and had a shaky education.

Despite doing poorly on the entrance exams, Hoover attended Stanford University in California, graduating in 1895 with a degree in mining geology. He took a job with a gold mining company in Western Australia. It was here that he developed an aversion to unions and worker rights, opposing a minimum wage and workers’ compensation. Later he was posted to China, where he and his family were caught up in the Boxer Rebellion and were rescued in 1900 at the Relief of Tientsin. By 1914, Hoover was a wealthy man, having become more involved with financing and developing mining companies around the globe. Now based in London, the outbreak of war in Europe had an immediate impact on his career. Hoover became a member of a committee organized to assist over 100,000 American citizens stranded in Europe by the war. It was at this time, he later commented, that he unknowingly began his public service career, as he began negotiating with European government officials while still a private citizen in August 1914. After the US declared war against Germany in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to head the U.S. Food Administration, charged with ensuring the nation’s food needs during the war. The Republican Hoover would later serve as Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1929, serving under two presidents, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Following a landslide victory over Al Smith in 1929, Hoover had the misfortune of becoming president just as the Great Depression began, following the Black Tuesday stock market crash. In his reelection campaign against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Hoover carried just six states, getting only 59 electoral votes vs FDR’s 472.

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• Notable Germans, Austrians, Swiss | Brief biographical sketches
• Featured Bios | Notable people with full biographies
• Germans in Hollywood | The three waves of Hollywood immigration
• Notable Women in Germany, Austria, Switzerland
• Notable Authors in Germany, Austria, Switzerland