When Wilmette police announced Monday that singer Sinead O’Connor was missing, it caused a strange kind of shock: Hardly anyone knew she was living in the north suburb in the first place. The troubled performer was soon located, but that got us thinking about the celebrities who have resided here briefly, establishing little association with Chicago.
We’re not talking about people like Martin Luther King Jr., whose stay on the West Side in 1966 was well covered, or the many comedians such as Tina Fey who came through Second City and whose biographies are tied to the city. We’re talking about less well-known connections such as …
GONE BEFORE YOU KNEW THEY WERE HERE
Marlon Brando: The actor was born in Nebraska but spent his early teens in Evanston and then Libertyville. He struggled so badly at Libertyville High School that his father sent him to a military school in Minnesota.
Golda Meir: The future Israeli prime minister was a Chicagoan for a brief time when she was a young woman, working at a library in the Lawndale neighborhood.
Amelia Earhart: The aviation pioneer spent most of her youth in Kansas, Iowa and Minnesota but moved to Chicago as a teen and graduated from Hyde Park High School on the South Side.
Sir Edmund Hillary: The conqueror of Mount Everest and his family moved into a Park Ridge home in 1963 and lived there about a year while he was paid by Chicago-based Field Enterprises to travel around the country giving speeches.
Charlie Chaplin: The film star lived briefly in Chicago in 1915 while working for Essanay Studios.
Orson Welles: The film director, born in Wisconsin, attended the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Ill., from age 10 to 15. He then took a painting course at the Art Institute of Chicago before setting off to establish himself as an international “boy wonder” of drama and film.
Don Novello: The comic who played Father Guido Sarducci on “Saturday Night Live” grew up in Ohio and worked at advertising firm Leo Burnett in Chicago before leaving town for a comedy career.
The Marx Brothers: In the 1910s, the young comic team lived on the South Side and then moved to a farm southwest of the city, near La Grange. The brothers’ mother, Minnie, chose the more rural home because farmers could be exempted from the military draft during World War I.
BORN HERE, DIDN’T STAY
Raquel Welch, actress
Dorothy Hamill, figure skater
Robin Williams, comic actor
Patti Smith, singer
Warren Zevon, singer
Frances McDormand, actress
Quincy Jones, musical producer
Bobby Fischer, chess champion
Maria Shriver, journalist and activist
Walter Koenig, Chekov of “Star Trek”
Grace Slick, singer
ATTENDED COLLEGE HERE, DIDN’T STAY
University of Chicago:
Bernie Sanders, presidential candidate
Ed Asner, actor
Adam Silver, NBA commissioner
Carl Sagan, cosmologist
Northwestern University:
Warren Beatty, actor
Zach Braff, actor
Charlton Heston, actor
Fred Williamson, actor
We could list many, many more, but we’re trying to highlight people whose Chicago connection is little known. Want to share more? Email mjacob@tribpub.com.
Mark Jacob is the Tribune’s associate managing editor for metropolitan news.