List of Austrian Americans
Encyclopedia
This is a list of notable Austrian Americans, including both original immigrants who obtained American citizenship and their American descendants.
To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article showing they are Austrian American or must have references showing they are Austrian American and are notable.
To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article showing they are Austrian American or must have references showing they are Austrian American and are notable.
List
- Fred AstaireFred AstaireFred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
- dancer/actor - Bibi BeschBibi BeschBibiana "Bibi" Besch was an Austrian/American actress.-Early life:Besch was born in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of theater actress Gusti Huber, who starred in German films during World War II and left Austria in the mid 1940s. Besch had a stepfather, Joseph Besch, a radio executive and former...
- actress - Ricardo CortezRicardo CortezJacob Krantz , known by his stage name Ricardo Cortez, was an American film actor who began his career during the silent era.-Life and career:...
- silent film actor - Robert von DassanowskyRobert von DassanowskyRobert von Dassanowsky FRHistS, FRSA is an Austrian-American academic, writer, film and cultural historian, and producer...
- academic, writer and film producer - Henry EllenbogenHenry EllenbogenHenry Clayton Ellenbogen was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.Henry Ellenbogen was born in to a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. He attended the University of Vienna Law School in Vienna, Austria. He immigrated to the United States and settled in...
- US Congressman from PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to... - Max FleischerMax FleischerMax Fleischer was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios...
- cartoonist - Felix FrankfurterFelix FrankfurterFelix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter...
- US Supreme Court Justice - Friedrich von Hayek - Austrian-born economist and philosopher
- Eric Kandel - neuroscientist
- Hans Kelsen - jurist
- Greta KemptonGreta KemptonGreta Kempton born Martha Greta Kempton in Vienna, Austria. American artist. She served as the White House artist during the Truman administration....
- artist - Joseph Keppler - cartoonist, best known for the illustrated magazine PuckPuck (magazine)Puck was America's first successful humor magazine of colorful cartoons, caricatures and political satire of the issues of the day. It was published from 1871 until 1918.-History:...
- Erich Wolfgang KorngoldErich Wolfgang KorngoldErich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
- composer - Hedy LamarrHedy LamarrHedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
- actress - Elissa LandiElissa LandiElissa Landi was an Italian born actress who was popular in Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s. Rumoured to be a descendant of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, she was noted for her aristocratic bearing....
- actress - Fritz LangFritz LangFriedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
- director - Erich LeinsdorfErich LeinsdorfErich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
- conductor - Peter LorrePeter LorrePeter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
- actor - Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises - Austrian economist, philosopher, author and classical liberal
- Arthur MurrayArthur MurrayArthur Murray was a dance instructor and businessman, whose name is most often associated with the dance studio chain that bears his name....
- dancer, entrepreneur - Richard NeutraRichard NeutraRichard Joseph Neutra is considered one of modernism's most important architects.- Biography :Neutra was born in Leopoldstadt, the 2nd district of Vienna, Austria Hungary, on April 8, 1892. He was born into both-Jewish wealthy family...
- architect - Frederick Burr OpperFrederick Burr OpperFrederick Burr Opper is regarded as one of the pioneers of American newspaper comic strips, best known for his comic strip Happy Hooligan...
- cartoonist - Wolfgang PauliWolfgang PauliWolfgang Ernst Pauli was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after being nominated by Albert Einstein, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his "decisive contribution through his discovery of a new law of Nature, the exclusion principle or...
- physicist - Karl PopperKarl PopperSir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
- Austrian and British philosopher - Otto PremingerOtto PremingerOtto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
- director - Wolfgang PuckWolfgang PuckWolfgang Johannes Puck is an Austrian-American celebrity chef, restaurateur, businessman and occasional actor. Wolfgang Puck restaurants, catering services, cookbooks and licensed products are run by Wolfgang Puck Companies, with three divisions...
- celebrity chef, restaurateur - Wilhelm ReichWilhelm ReichWilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
- psychiatrist - Martin RoscheisenMartin RoscheisenR. Martin Roscheisen is an Austrian-American technology entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley.-Background and Education:According to a profile in German business journal Handelsblatt. Martin Roscheisen was born and raised in Munich, Germany, as an Austrian citizen. Attending Feodor Lynen high...
- entrepreneur - Bobby SchayerBobby SchayerBobby Schayer was born on December 23, 1966 in Los Angeles, California. He was the drummer for Bad Religion from 1991 to 2001. He was a resident of Encino, a suburb in the San Fernando Valley...
- musician - Fritzi ScheffFritzi ScheffFritzi Scheff was an American actress and vocalist.-Biography:Born in Vienna, Austria, she studied at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and made her début in Munich in the title röle of Martha...
- actress - Joseph SchildkrautJoseph SchildkrautJoseph Schildkraut was an Austrian stage and film actor.-Early life:Born in Vienna, Austria, Schildkraut was the son of stage actor Rudolph Schildkraut. The younger Schildkraut moved to the United States in the early 1900s. He appeared in many Broadway productions...
- actor - Arnold SchoenbergArnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
- composer - Kurt von Schuschnigg - Austrian federal Chancellor 1936-1938 and professor of political sciences at St. Louis University 1948-1967
- Alfred SchützAlfred SchützAlfred Schütz was an Austrian social scientist, whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions to form a social phenomenology, and who is gradually achieving recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the [twentieth] century.-Life:Schütz was born in...
- philosopher/sociologist - Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
- actor and 38th Governor of CaliforniaGovernor of CaliforniaThe Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced... - Lilia SkalaLilia Skala-Early life:Skala was born Lilia Sofer in Vienna, Austria. Her mother, Katharina Skala, was Catholic, and her father, Julius Sofer, was Jewish and worked as a manufacturers representative for the Waldes Koh-i-noor Company. In the late 1930s, she was forced to flee her Nazi-occupied homeland with...
- actress - Walter SlezakWalter SlezakWalter Slezak was a portly Austrian character actor who appeared in numerous Hollywood films. Slezak often portrayed villains or thugs, most notably the German U-boat captain in Alfred Hitchcock's film Lifeboat , but occasionally he got to play lighter roles, as in The Wonderful World of the...
- actor - Georg Ludwig von Trapp - headed the Austrian singing family portrayed in The Sound of MusicThe Sound of MusicThe Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
. His exploits at sea in World War I earned him numerous decorations, including elevation to the Austrian nobility - Agathe von TrappAgathe von TrappAgathe Johanna Erwina Gobertina von Trapp was the eldest daughter of Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead. She was a member of the Trapp Family Singers, whose lives were the inspiration for the play and film The Sound of Music...
- the eldest daughter of Baron Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, The von Trapp Family from The Sound of MusicThe Sound of MusicThe Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers... - Maria F. von TrappMaria F. von TrappMaria Agatha Franziska Gobertina von Trapp is the second-oldest daughter of Georg Ludwig von Trapp and Agatha Whitehead von Trapp. She was a member of the Trapp Family Singers, whose lives were the inspiration for the musical play The Sound of Music...
- the second-oldest daughter of Baron Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, The von Trapp Family from The Sound of MusicThe Sound of MusicThe Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers... - Werner von TrappWerner von TrappWerner Ritter von Trapp was the second-oldest son of Georg Ritter von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead. He was a member of the Trapp Family Singers, whose lives were the inspiration for the play and movie The Sound of Music...
- second-oldest son of Georg Ritter von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, The von Trapp Family from The Sound of MusicThe Sound of MusicThe Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers... - Ken UstonKen UstonKen Uston was a famous blackjack player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack...
- blackjack player, strategist, and author - Joseph WarkanyJoseph WarkanyJoseph Warkany was an Austrian American pediatrician known as the "father of teratology".-Early life:Warkany was born in Vienna and this is where he completed his medical studies...
- pediatrician - Victor Frederick WeisskopfVictor Frederick WeisskopfVictor Frederick Weisskopf was an Austrian-born Jewish American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr...
(1908 - 2002) physicist. During World War II, he worked at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, and later campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons; medal received in 1979 - Billy WilderBilly WilderBilly Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
- director - Ernst Florian WinterErnst Florian WinterErnst Florian Winter is an Austrian-American historian and political scientist, first director of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna after World War II and chairman of the International Council of the Austrian Service Abroad....
- diplomat - Joe ZawinulJoe ZawinulJosef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...
- jazz pianist - Fred ZinnemannFred ZinnemannFred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director. He won four Academy Awards and directed films like High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons.-Life and career:...
- director - Matthew Winter - journalist
- Natalie PortmanNatalie PortmanNatalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
, actress, maternal grandparents Jewish immigrants from Austria and Russia.