Don Adams - (1923–2005) born Donald James Yarmy in New York. His father was of Hungarian descent. Best known for the television show Get Smart.
Morey Amsterdam - (1908-1996) born Moritz Amsterdam to Austro-Hungarian parents in Chicago, was an American comedy writer, actor and comedian. Best noted for his role as Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966.
Eszter Bálint - (1966-) born in Budapest is an accomplished musician and actress. She appeared in several films including Stranger Than Paradise (1984) directed by Jim Jarmusch and Shadows and Fog (1991) directed by Woody Allen. She is the daughter of avant garde playwright Stephan Bálint.
Rachel Weisz - Her father, George Weisz, was a Hungarian Jewish mechanical engineer.
Vilma Bánky - (1901-1991) born Koncsics Vilma in Budapest. The silent film actor appeared opposite Rudolph Valentino in The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). She also appeared in several films co starring Ronald Colman.
Ferike Boros - (1873-1951) born in Nagyvárad, Austria-Hungary, was a stage and movie actress with a long career on Broadway from 1909 through 1927. She went to Hollywood in 1930, acting in character roles for several studios.
Fanny Brice - (1891-1951) born Fania Borach in Manhattan to a Hungarian mother. A celebrated comedienne, singer, actor and radio personality, she was best known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series The Baby Snooks Show. The stage and film musical Funny Girl (1964) and 1968) both starring Barbra Streisand was based on her life.
Adrien Brody - (1973-) Academy Award Best Actor winner for The Pianist (2002). His mother is the noted Hungarian born photographer Sylvia Plachy.
Matthew Daddario - actor, his mother has Hungarian/Slovak, German, and English ancestry.
Alexandra Daddario - actress, her mother has Hungarian/Slovak, German, and English ancestry.
Bill Dana - (1924-2017) born William Szathmáry to Hungarian immigrant parents. An early television performing comedian and comedy writer appearing regularly on The Steve Allen Show. He had his own NBC sitcom, The Bill Dana Show (1963–1965).
Lili Darvas - (1902-1974) born in Budapest was an actress noted for her stage work in Europe and the United States and, later in her career, in films and on television. She was married to playwright Ferenc Molnár.
Dolly Sisters - Rosie Dolly (1892-1970) born Rózsika Deutsch and Jenny Dolly born Janka Deutsch (1892-1941). Vaudeville dancer identical twin sisters. Famous stage performers in the 1920s.
Peter Falk - (1927-2011) born in New York of Hungarian ancestry on his mother's side. This multi Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner is best known for his role as Lt. Columbo which ran for several decades. There is a statue of Falk in his role as Columbo in Budapest.
Eva Gabor - (1919-1995) born Gábor Éva in Budapest she was an actress, businesswoman, singer, and socialite. Best known for her role as Lisa Douglas, the wife of Eddie Albert's character, Oliver Wendell Douglas, on the television sitcom Green Acres, 1965–1971.
Zsa Zsa Gabor - (1917-2016) born Gábor Sári in Budapest she was an actress and socialite. She is noted for her beauty, wit and nine marriages. Zsa Zsa was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. One of her few leading film roles was in the John Huston-directed film, Moulin Rouge (1952). Her sisters were actresses Eva Gabor and Magda Gabor.
Olga Grey - (1896-1973) born Anna Zacsek in New York to Hungarian parents was a silent film actor appearing in Birth of a Nation (1915), her first film Intolerance (1916), Macbeth (1916) among other films.
Goldie Hawn - maternal grandparents were Hungarian Jews
Paul Henreid - (1908-1992) born in Trieste, Austro-Hungary. The actor is best remembered for two films: Casablanca and Now, Voyager, both released between 1942 and 1943.
Kate Hudson - two maternal great-grandparents were Hungarian Jews
Katalin Karády - (1910-1990) born in Budapest as Katalin Mária Kanczler was a Hungarian actress and noted singer. She received the posthumous Righteous medal from the Yad Vashem Institute for rescuing a number of Hungarian Jews. She left Hungary in 1952 and in 1968 she finally received a visa to the US after Ted and Robert Kennedy intervened on her behalf.
Natalie Kingston - (1905-1992) born Natalia Ringstromin, was an American actor during the silent and early talkie film era and worked with Mack Sennett, Harry Langdon and others. She was granddaughter of Agoston Haraszthy, founder of California's wine industry.
Robert Klein - (1942-) noted comedian and actor. Both sets of grandparents were Hungarian. Part of The Second City comedy improv theater, he hosted Saturday Night Live several times in the 1970s and had his own show, Robert Klein Time on USA network 1986–1988. He appeared in several films and released numerous comedy albums.
Charles Korvin - (1907-1998) born Géza Korvin Kárpáthy. Noted Hungarian-American film noir actor, stage and television actor, cinematographer and still film photographer.
Hedy Lamarr - (1914-2000) born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. Her mother was Hungarian. She was an actor, inventor, and film producer who gained world recognition in Ecstasy (1933). With her friend, George Antheil she created a frequency-hopping signal that couldn't be tracked or jammed. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, an updated version of their design was installed on Navy ships.
Bela Lugosi - (1882-1956) born Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó. Hollywood actor known most notably for portraying Count Dracula.
Paul Lukas - (1894-1971) born Pál Lukács in Budapest. A suave actor with a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany, and Austria, where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor in the film Watch on the Rhine, 1943.
Ali MacGraw - maternal grandparents were of Hungarian descent
Bill Maher - mother's family was of Hungarian Jewish origin
Ilona Massey - (1920-1974) born Hajmássy Ilona in Budapest. A stage, screen and radio actor, she acted in three films with Nelson Eddy including Rosalie 1937, and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, 1943, as Baroness Frankenstein.
Paul Newman - father was of Hungarian and Polish Jewish descent, maternal grandparents were Slovaks from Hungary
Joe Penner - (1904-1941) born Pintér József in Nagybecskerek, Austria- Hungary, (now Zrenjanin, Serbia). He was a noted 1930s-era vaudeville, radio and film comedian.
Joaquin Phoenix - maternal grandmother was of Hungarian descent
River Phoenix - maternal grandmother was of Hungarian descent
Rain Phoenix - maternal grandmother was of Hungarian descent
Summer Phoenix - maternal grandmother was of Hungarian descent
Liberty Phoenix - maternal grandmother was of Hungarian descent.
Carl Reiner - (1922-2020) award winning stand-up comedian, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned seven decades was born in the Bronx to Austrian-Hungarian parents.
Soupy Sales - (1926-2009) born Milton Supman in Franklinton, North Carolina. His father was a Hungarian immigrant. Sales was a comedian in radio, television and film. Noted for his pranks and antics.
Jerry Seinfeld - (1954-) born Jerome Allen Seinfeld in Brooklyn, New York. Comedian noted for his eponymous television sitcom Seinfeld (1989-1998). His father was of Hungarian descent.
William Shatner - Canadian-American actor, of Hungarian descent
Szőke (S. Z.) Szakáll - (1888-1955) born Jakab Grünwald in Budapest. Nicknamed “Cuddles”, he was already a noted cabaret performer and film actor in Europe, and later became a staple of Hollywood's Golden Age productions after emigrating to the US.
Jessica Szohr - paternal grandfather was of Hungarian descent
Jeffrey M. Tambor - (1944-) American actor and comedian of Hungarian ancestry. A winner of two Emmy awards. Appeared in dozens of films and television series. Most noted for his role in Transparent as transgender divorced parent Maura Pfefferman.
Victor Varconi - (1891-1976) born Várkonyi Mihály in Kisvárda, Austria-Hungary. Hungarian silent film actor later relocated to Hollywood. He was in The King of Kings (1927), and later in numerous roles as a character actor.
Johnny Weissmuller - (1904-1984) born János Weissmüller in Szabadfalva, Austria Hungary, now a district of Timisoara, Romania. He was a competition swimmer, water polo player and actor, known for playing Tarzan in a dozen films of the 1930s and 1940s and for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century.
Cornel Wilde - (1912-1989) born Kornél Lajos Weisz, he was a Hungarian-American actor and film director. Noted for his Film Noir leading roles.
Stephan Balint - (1943-2007) born Bálint István in Budapest, Hungary, he was a writer, actor, theatre director and playwright and co-founder of New York City's avant garde Squat Theatre. Balint was the father of actress and musician Eszter Balint.
László Benedek - (1905-1992) born in Budapest; cinematographer and film director best known for directing The Wild One (1953) and Death of a Salesman (1951) for which he won the Golden Globe Award for best director.
William S. Darling - (1882-1963) born Vilmos Béla Sándorházi, was born in Sándorház, Austria- Hungary. An art director, he was prominent in Hollywood during the 1920s and 30s. Darling received six Academy Award nominations, winning the Oscar three times.
André de Toth - (1913-2002) born Endre Antal Miksa DeToth in Makó, Hungary, was a film director noted for the early 3 D film House of Wax (1953) and numerous westerns and film noir.
Ferenc Molnár - (1887-1952) born Ferenc Neumann in Budapest, Austria-Hungary. Author, stage-director, dramatist, poet and Hungary's most celebrated playwright. His plays continue to be relevant and are performed all over the world. His play, Liliom (1909) was later made into a Broadway musical Carousel (1945), and Hollywood film (1946).
John Albok - (1894-1982) Hungarian born photographer who immigrated to the US and documented street scenes in New York City during the Great Depression and later.
Istvan Banyai - (1948-1922) born in Budapest, Hungary. Banyai was an illustration noted especially for his New Yorker covers and children’s book illustrations.
Elmyr de Hory - (1906-1976) born Elemér Albert Hoffmann. Noted artist and art forger. The 1977 Orson Welles documentary F For Fake is about de Hory.
Andre de Dienes - (1913-1985) born Andor György Ikafalvi-Dienes in Torja, Hungary, today Turia, Romania. Noted photographer of Marilyn Monroe, nudes, fashion and Native American culture.
Sari Dienes - (1898-1992) born as Sarolta Maria Anna Chylinska in Debreczen, Austria-Hungary, today Debrecen, Hungary was a prolific fine artist who studied in Paris with Fernand Léger. She was a significant influence on Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and a pioneer in the Art of Assemblage.
Arnold Eagle - (1909-1992) born in Budapest. Noted New York City documentary photographer, Photo League early member and FSA photographer.
Pál (Paul) Fried - (1993-1976) born in Budapest. He was a Hungarian-American artist best known for his eroticized paintings of female dancers and nudes.
Hugo Gellért - (1892-1985) born Hugó Grünbaum in Budapest was an illustrator and muralist. He was a member of the Communist Party of America and created work for political activism in the 1920s and 1930s. In the US his works were featured prominently in The Masses, The LiberatorThe New Masses, later he was at The New Yorker and was on staff at the New York Times.
Milton Glaser - (1929-2020) born in New York to Hungarian parents. He was a graphic designer and a co-founder of Push Pin Studios. His designs include the I Love New York logo, and the Bob Dylan poster?
André Kertész - (1894-1985) born Andor Kohn in Budapest. Noted for his pre World War II photography of Hungary, then his work in Paris with Brassaï, later for his photos of New York City.
Balthazar Korab - (1926-2013) born Boldizsár Koráb in Budapest, was a noted Architectural Photographer based in Detroit, Michigan.
László Moholy-Nagy - (1895-1946) born László Weisz in Bácsborsód, Hungary. Distinguished painter, designer, photographer and teacher at the Bauhaus School in Weimar, Germany. He was the founder of the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937.
Martin Munkácsi - (1896-1963) born Márton Mermelstein in Kolozsvár, Hungary, now Cluj, Romania. Originally a photojournalist, he became a fashion photographer and was known for shooting models in action. He photographed for all the famous magazines in pre Nazi Germany and left for New York in 1933 where he was signed by Harpers Bazaar.
Nickolas Muray - (1892-1965) born Miklós Mandl in Szeged, Hungary. He became a noted celebrity and fashion photographer in the US and was an Olympic fencer.
Albert Nemethy - painter, noted for being one of the Hudson Valley's most legendary art figures.[9]
Sylvia Plachy - (1943-) born in Budapest is a photographer. Noted for her weekly Untitled Tour series in The Village Voice. She has published many books and has exhibitions worldwide. She is the mother of Academy Award-winning actor Adrien Brody.
William Andrew Pogany - (1882-1955) born Vilmos András Pogány in Szeged was a prolific artist and book illustrator in the Art Novueau style.
Marcel Sternberger - (1899-1956) noted Hungarian born photographer who emigrated to the U.S. in 1938. As a skilled portrait photographer, he photographed the famous of the postwar era. The Roosevelt dime was based on his photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He died suddenly in an automobile accident in 1956.
Suzanne Szász - (1915-1997) born in Budapest. Photographer of children, cats and family life, she published about a dozen books and is best known for The Silent Miaow: A Manual For Kittens, Strays, And Homeless Cats (1964) with author Paul Gallico. She was a founding member along with her husband Ray Schorr of the American Society of Magazine Photographers.
George Tscherny - (1924-2023) Budapest born graphic designer, photographer and educator. He establish the graphic design department at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and designed a series of posters to appear in the subways, and the school's current logo among other projects.
Béla Károlyi – born in Kolozsvár, Hungary (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania); coached Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci; trained gymnasts alongside his wife Marta in the US at the National Team Training Center in Huntsville, Texas until the center's closing in 2018
Erno Laszlo – (1897-1973) born Ernő László in Nyitrazsámbokrét, Hungary, now Žabokreky nad Nitrou, Slovakia. He studied skin pathology and skin disease, founded The Erno Laszlo Institute in Budapest in 1927 and after emigrating to the U.S. in 1939 he continued with his Institute on Fifth Avenue and became one of the first celebrity dermatologists.
Thomas Stephen Szasz – (1920-2012) born Szász Tamás István in Budapest was an academic, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Noted for his books The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) and The Manufacture of Madness (1970).
Hugh David Politzer – physicist, Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics
Authors, scholars, editors
Arcadius Avellanus – (1851-1935) born Mogyoróssy Arkád in Esztergom, Hungary was a Hungarian American scholar of Latin and a proponent of Living Latin. He emigrated to the US in 1878 where he adopted a Latin translation of his original name.
Randolph Lewis Braham – (1922-2018) born Adolf Ábrahám to Hungarian speaking parents in Bucharest, Romania. A noted American historian and political scientist, he was a founding board member of the academic committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. He published dozens of books most of which deal with the Holocaust in Hungary.
Ladislas Farago – (1906-1980) born László Faragó in Csurgó, Hungary was a journalist, author and WWII era military historian. Author of numerous books on espionage.[32][33]
Ben Ferencz – (1920-2023) born Benjamin Berell Ferencz in Hungarian Transylvania now Romania. He is an American lawyer and pacifist and was chief prosecutor for the U. S. Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the 12 post World War II military trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany.
Raphael Patai – (1910-1996) born in Budapest, Hungary as Ervin György Patai. He was a noted historian, folklorist and ethnographer of the Jewish people publishing dozens of books on the subject. Most notable are Apprentice in Budapest: Memories of a World That Is No More (1988) and The Jews of Hungary: History, Culture, Psychology (1996).
John Simon – (1925-2019) born John Ivan Simmon in Hungarian speaking Szabadka, in the former Yugoslavia, now Subotica, Serbia); American author and literary, theater, and film critic[36]
Imre Czomba – (1972-) composer, orchestrator, and musician. Imre is a voting member of the Hungarian Film Academy, Grammy Recording Academy, Emmy Television Academy, and the American Society of Composers and Lyricists.
Peter Cetera – singer, bassist, composer, and producer, formerly of the band Chicago; has stated his Hungarian heritage in interviews and on his website, but has not revealed his mother's birth/maiden name
George Feyer – (1908-2001) born György Fejér in Budapest. He studied classical piano at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. In the US he switched to lighter music and was house pianist for decades at the Cafe Carlyle and later at the Stanhope Hotel's Rembrandt Room both in New York.
John Németh – soul and blues singer-songwriter and harmonicist; father is from Hungary
Eugene Ormandy – (1899-1985) born Jenő Blau in Budapest, was a world renowned conductor best known for his 44 years with the Philadelphia Orchestra as its music director.
Suzi Quatro – American singer-songwriter, musician, and actress; Hungarian mother
Tommy Ramone – (1949-2014) born Tamás Erdélyi in Budapest was the drummer for the influential punk rock band the Ramones. He was a 1956 Hungarian refugee with his parents.
Miklós Rózsa – (1907-1995) born in Budapest. The three time Oscar winning film composer was trained in Germany. He composed over one hundred film scores.
Gene Simmons – (1949-) born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel to Hungarian born parents and known professionally as Gene Simmons, was the bassist and co-lead singer of the rock band Kiss.
Paul Simon – (1941-) born in New York to Hungarian parents. World famous musician, singer and composer and half of the duo Simon and Garfunkel.
Irving Szathmary (1907-1983) born Isidore Szathmary in Quincy, Massachusetts he was a Hungarian-American musical composer and arranger and best known for scoring the Get Smart television series. He was musical arranger for Benny, Goodman, Artie Shaw, Paul Whiteman, Frank Sinatra and Jack Teagarden. He was the youngest brother of comedian Bill Dana.
George Szell – (1897-1970) born György Széll in Budapest, he was a noted conductor, composer and musical director of The Cleveland Orchestra.
André Watts – (1946-) born in Nuremberg, Germany to a Hungarian pianist mother and an African American father. A pianist, he is a professor at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.
Politicians
Antony Blinken – (1962-) born in Yonkers, NY. He’s the 71st U.S. Secretary of State (2021-)
Alan G. Hevesi – (1940-) both parents were Holocaust survivors born in Hungary. Hevesi is a former New York politician and a convicted felon currently in prison.
Ernest Istook – former Congressman from Oklahoma (1993–2007)
Tom Lantos – (1928-2008) born Tamás Péter Lantos in Budapest was a noted American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1981 until his death in 2008.
Tibor P. Nagy – (1949-) born in Budapest, Hungary. He was the 19th Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (2018-2021) and US Ambassador to Ethiopia (1999-2022)
Julie Kirchner – Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman
Ernie Konnyu – former Congressman from California (1987–1989)[42]
Thomas Vajda – U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar since 2021
Arts, fashion, design, architecture, hospitality industry
André Balazs – (1957-) American-born businessman and hotelier son of Hungarian parents. His top properties include The Mercer Hotel in SoHo, NY, the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, and The Standard hotel in West Hollywood. Along with his father, Endre Balazs, he co-founded a biotechnology company called Biomatrix in 1988.
Marcel Breuer – (1902-1981) born in Pécs, Hungary. Bauhaus educated Modernist architect and furniture designer. Noted works; The Whitney Museum of American Art (currently the Met Breuer) 1966, the Wassily chair 1925.
Leo Castelli – (1907-1999) born Leo Krausz in Trieste, Austria-Hungary. Prominent art collector, dealer and New York gallerist.
Tibor de Nagy – (1908-1993) born in Debrecen, Hungary. Noted art collector and New York gallerist.
Jolie Gabor, Countess de Szigethy (1896-1997) born Janka Tilleman in Budapest was a Hungarian-born American jeweler and socialite, known as the mother of actresses and fellow socialites Magda, Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor. Jolie Gabor was the aunt of Annette Tilleman (1931-daughter of Jolie's brother Szebasztian Tilleman, and wife of Hungarian-American U.S. Representative Tom Lantos.
Magda Gabor – (1915-1997) born Magdolna "Magda" Gábor was an actress and socialite, and the elder sister of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor.
Agoston Haraszthy – (1812-1869) born in Pest (before it was united with Buda), Kingdom of Hungary. Founder of the Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma, California. He wrote a two volume book in 1844, Utazás Éjszakamerikában (Travels in North America).
Theodore Hardeen – Harry Houdini's brother, illusionist, magician, escape artist.
George Lang (1924-2011) born György Deutsch in Székesfehérvár, Hungary. Lang wrote a memoir, Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen, 1998 and The Cuisine of Hungary 1971. He was the owner of the Café des Artistes (1975-2009) and in 1992 restored the famous Budapest restaurant Gundel.
M. Lincoln (Max) Schuster – (1897-1970) born in Kałusz Austria Hungary, now Kalush, Ukraine was an American book publisher and the co-founder of the publishing company Simon & Schuster.
George Soros – speculator, investor, philanthropist, and political activist
Adam D. Tihany – (1948-) born in Transylvania the former Hungarian territory of present-day Romania. A designer of some of the best hotels and restaurants throughout the world.
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