Of Those Born in Chicago

 

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Walt Disney

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Megan McKinney

 

We’ ve rounded up a group of celebrities who have in common that each was born in Chicago.  Among these is Walt Disney, Chicago born in 1901.  There is no reason for us to suppose that Mr. Disney was a native of the city; however, Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner was a natural Chicagoan. He even kept a Playboy Mansion in the Gold Coast.

 

Hugh Hefner, born in Chicago in 1926, died in 2017 at his Los Angeles Playboy Mansion.

 

Although vintage comedian Jack Benny was raised in nearby Waukegan, he was born in Chicago as Benjamin Kubelsky in1894. He died 80 years later in his Beverly Hills, California home. 

 

 

Jason Robards, Jr., Chicago born in 1922, died of lung cancer in 2000 in Bridgeport, Connecticut .   

 

Kim Novak, above as we remember her, was born in 1933. During her midcentury film star heyday, Kim’s Chicago beginnings were heavily publicized.

 

Another native Chicagoan, Raquel Welch, was born in 1940.  She died in 2023 in Los Angeles.

 

 

Chicago born John Belushi lived from 1949 until 1982, when he died suddenly of a drug overdose in Los Angeles.

 

Chicago native Harrison Ford was born in 1942.

 

Hillary Clinton, one of at least three former American first ladies to be a Chicago area native, was born in 1947.  

 

Another former first lady to be a club member is Michelle Obama. She was born in 1964.

 

Betty Ford

As wife of Gerald Ford, United States President in the mid-1970’s, Chicago born Betty Ford was first lady during the 1974-1977 Ford administration.

 

Robin Williams was born in Chicago in 1951; however, he sadly died by suicide in 2014. 

 

Dorothy Kilgallen 

A surprise Chicago native was newspaper columnist and What’s My Line? television regular Dorothy Kilgallen, whose name was virtually synonymous with New York City. Kilgallen—like Garbo, she had no other name to her fellow New Yorkers of the midcentury—Kilgallen was fascinating. She knew everything.  This may have led to her death at 52, when she just didn’t wake up one morning. There she was, in her bed, still dressed, coiffed and made-up from the night before. Officially the cause was an overdose—but we’ll wait for the movie of Kilgallen’s life to learn if possible murder rumors are true. The film will soon be going into production with Jessica Chastain in the lead.   

 

Author Photo: Robert F. Carl