Bonnie Hunt (born 1961), Golden Globe- and Emmy Award-nominated actress, comedian, writer, director, television producer, and daytime television host, maternal grandparents were Polish
Ryan Hurst (born 1976), actor; mother of Polish descent
Matt Lanter (born 1983), actor and model; of part Polish descent
Téa Leoni (born 1966), film and TV actress; paternal grandmother was of Polish descent[20]
Logan Lerman (born 1992), actor; his maternal grandfather was a Polish Jewish immigrant, and the rest of Logan's ancestry is Russian Jewish, Lithuanian Jewish, and other Polish Jewish
Justin Long (born 1978), film and television actor; his mother, former Broadway actress Wendy Lesniak, is of half Polish descent
Jerry O'Connell (born 1974), TV and film actor; maternal grandfather was of Polish descent[25][26]
Jodi Lyn O'Keefe (born 1978), actress and model; of part Polish descent
Jerry Orbach (1935–2004), Tony Award-winning stage, film, musical theatre and television actor and singer; mother was of Polish-Lithuanian Roman Catholic background; father was a German Jewish immigrant[27]
Frank Oz (born 1944), British-born American film director, actor and puppeteer, father was a Polish Jew
Janelle Pierzina (born 1980), contestant on the sixth and All-Star seasons of the American version of the CBS reality show Big Brother[citation needed]
Mary Kay Place (born 1947), actress and singer; Polish maternal great-grandmother
Natalie Portman (born 1981), actress, part-Polish Jewish descent
Beata Pozniak (born 1960), Polish-born actress, film director, painter, fashion model, and activist who is now based out of the United States (Babylon 5, JFK)[32]
Hedwig Gorski (born 1949), performance poet and avant-garde artist[59]
Frank Kozik, graphic artist who has worked with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Melvins, The Offspring and Butthole Surfers; runs Man's Ruin Records
James Rollins (born 1961; né Czajkowski), bestselling author of fantasy and action-adventure thrillers (Sandstorm, Map of Bones)
Leo Rosten (1908–1997), teacher and academic; best known as a humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism and Yiddish lexicography
Maurice Sendak (1928–2012), Polish Jewish-American writer and illustrator of children's books
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991), Polish-American writer in Yiddish, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.
Maja Trochimczyk (born 1957), music historian, poet, editor, translator and publisher,[76] founder of Moonrise Press[77]
Diane Wakoski (born 1937), poet and essayist in residence at Michigan State University[78]
Shirley Clarke (1919–1997), experimental and independent filmmaker
Tad Danielewski (1921–1993), director/producer;[84] his first wife was Polish-American actress Sylvia Daneel, with whom he emigrated to the United States
Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974), Polish-born U.S. Hollywood motion picture producer and founding contributor of several motion picture studios, of Jewish descent[85]
Gene Gutowski (1925–2016), Polish-born European and U.S. motion picture and theater producer, noted sculptor and author. Producer of several of Roman Polanski's early films. Co-producer of The Pianist.
Janusz Kamiński (born 1959), two-time-Oscar-winning cinematographer and film director who has photographed all of Steven Spielberg's movies since Schindler's List (1993)[86]
Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999), US/UK filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and photographer, of Jewish descent
Roman Polanski (born 1933), filmmaker born in France; at age 3 moved to Poland; fled from the U.S. to France in 1978 due to allegations of statutory rape, of Jewish descent[88]
Albert Warner (1883–1967), co-founder of Warner Bros. Studios, of Jewish descent[92]
Harry Warner (1881–1958), one of the founders of Warner Bros. and a major contributor to the development of the film industry, of Jewish descent[92]
Jack L. Warner (1892–1978), president and driving force behind the highly successful development of Warner Bros. Studios in Hollywood, of Jewish descent[92]
Sam Warner (1887–1927), co-founder and chief executive officer of Warner Bros. film company, of Jewish descent[92]
Billy Wilder (1906–2002), journalist, screenwriter, film director, and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films, of Jewish descent[93]
Florian Chmielewski (born 1927), Minnesota musician; politician; former legislator; former President of the Minnesota Senate
John Curulewski (1950–1988), one of the original members of Styx
Dick Dale (1937–2019), pioneer of surf rock and one of the most influential guitarists of the early 1960s; experimented with reverb and made use of custom made Fender amplifiers
Neil Diamond (born 1941), singer-songwriter, born to a Jewish family descended from Russian and Polish immigrants
Benny Goodman (1909–1986), jazz musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as "King of Swing", "Patriarch of the Clarinet", "The Professor", and "Swing's Senior Statesman; of Polish Jewish descent
Christine Baranski, stage, film and television actress (Tony, Emmy, Drama Desk award winner)
Walter Bobbie (né Wladysław Babij), Broadway director
Pesach Burstein (1896–1986), Polish-born Israeli-American actor, comedian, singer; director of Yiddish vaudeville/theatre (husband of Lillian Lux and father of Mike Burstyn)
Chloe Lukasiak (born 2001), dancer and reality television personality
Lillian Lux (1918–2005), singer, author, songwriter and actress in Yiddish theater and Yiddish vaudeville; wife of Pesach Burstein; mother of Mike Burstyn
Leo J. Dulacki (1918–2019), U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant general whose last assignment was as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower[119]
Gabby Gabreski (1919–2002), Francis Stanley "Gabby" Gabreski was a U.S. Army Air Corps and later U.S. Air Force officer who was a fighter ace in World War II, and again in Korea[120]
Ralph Ignatowski (1926–1945), awarded the Purple Heart with Gold Star, Presidential Unit Citation with Star, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal
Donald J. Kutyna (born 1933), General, commander in chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the United States Space Command from 1990 to 1992, and commander of Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado from 1987 to 1990
Stanislaw Mlotkowski (1829–1900), military officer in the 1846 Wielkopolska uprising. Captain of the Pennsylvania Light Artillery in Fort Delaware.[124]
Robert J. Modrzejewski (born 1934), U.S. Marine and Medal of Honor Recipient for conspicuous gallantry in Vietnam
Richard F. Natonski (born 1951), U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant general whose last assignment was as the Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command.
Kazimierz Pułaski (1745–1779), Polish soldier and politician; has been called "the father of American cavalry"; from 1777, until his death, he fought in the American Revolutionary War for the independence of the U.S. Awarded honorary U.S. citizenship in 2009.
Hyman G. Rickover (1900–1986), U.S. Navy Admiral; known as the "father of the Nuclear Navy"; first Director of Naval Reactors
Edward Rowny (1917–2017), U.S. Army General and ambassador, Chief U.S. Negotiator for Arms Control
John Shalikashvili (1936–2011), U.S. Army general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; born in Warsaw, Poland and emigrated to the U.S. as a teenager; became the first draftee to rise to rank of General and first JCS Chairman after General Colin Powell
Frank Murkowski (born 1933), former U.S. Senator and Governor (Republican); father of Lisa Murkowski
Lisa Murkowski (born 1957), junior U.S. Senator from Alaska; first U.S. Senator born in Alaska; Alaska's first female senator (Republican); daughter of Frank Murkowski
Chris Murphy (born 1973), U.S. Senator (D-CT); mother of Polish descent
Edmund Muskie (1914–1996), Democratic politician from Maine, served as Governor of Maine, a U.S. Senator, as U.S. Secretary of State, and ran as a candidate for Vice President of the United States
Jan Nowak-Jeziorański (1914–2005) Polish patriot, journalist, resistance fighter, and security adviser under Carter, and Reagan.
Gene Pelowski (born 1952), Representative in the Minnesota State Legislature for District 31A; schoolteacher (Winona Senior High School, Winona, Minnesota)
Franciszek Chalupka (died 1909), Polish priest, graduate of Orchard Lake Seminary, founder of the first Polish parishes in New England, started from 1887
Walter Ciszek (1904–1984), Jesuit priest held by the Soviet Union for 23 years, between 1941 and 1963[131]
David Miscavige (born 1960), chairman of the board of Religious Technology Center (RTC), a corporation that controls the trademarked names and symbols of Dianetics and Scientology, and controls the copyrighted teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard[135]
Stanley Dudrick (1935–2020), surgeon behind total parenteral nutrition
Elonka Dunin (born 1958), game developer, writer, and amateur cryptographer; maintains a website dedicated to the Kryptos sculpture/cipher located at the CIA's headquarters[140]
Andrzej Ehrenfeucht (born 1932), mathematician and computer scientist; formulated the Ehrenfeucht–Fraïssé game and Ehrenfeucht–Mycielski sequence
Kazimierz Fajans (1887–1975), pioneer in the science of radioactivity; created Fajans' rules; discovered the element protactinium
Joanna Hoffman, part of the original Apple Macintosh developer team; acted as the team's only marketing person for more than a year; wrote the first draft of the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines
Roald Hoffmann (born 1937), chemist and writer, Nobel Prize winner (1981)[144]
Josef Hofmann (1876–1957), inventor of windshield wipers, shock absorbers for vehicles, and oil-burning furnace
Tomasz Imieliński (born 1954), computer scientist, most known in the areas of data mining, mobile computing, data extraction, and search engine technology
Gerhard Lenski (1924–2015), sociologist known for contributions to the sociology of religion, social inequality, and ecological-evolutionary social theory
Richard Lenski (born 1956), evolutionary biologist, proved evolution with the E. coli long-term evolution experiment
Henryk Magnuski (1909–1978), inventor of the first walkie talkie the SCR-300
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), one of the most important 20th-century anthropologists
Krzysztof Matyjaszewski (born 1950), polymer chemist best known for the discovery of atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP)
Albert Abraham Michelson (1852–1931), Polish-born American physicist; awarded the Nobel Prize in physics (1907) for work done on the measurement of the speed of light; the first American to receive the Nobel in the sciences
Jan Mycielski (born 1932), mathematician whose work includes the Ehrenfeucht–Mycielski sequence, The Mycielskian, The Mycielski–Grötzsch graph and Mycielski's theorem
Bohdan Paczyński (1940–2007), astronomer, leading scientist in theory of the evolution of stars[152]
Scott E. Parazynski (born 1961), NASA astronaut, performed a dangerous EVA never performed before to repair a live solar array on the International Space Station[118]
James A. Pawelczyk (born 1960), astronaut, associate professor of Physiology and Kinesiology at Penn State; the first Pole in outer space (1980)
Sidney Pestka (1936–2016), geneticist and biochemist who discovered how mRNA is translated into proteins through a small ribosomal subunit
Frank Piasecki (1929–2008), aviation engineer, developed vertical lift aircraft
Piotr Piecuch (born 1960), physical chemist, best known for his work in theoretical and computational chemistry, particularly ab initio quantum-mechanical methods based on coupled-cluster theory
Marek Pienkowski (born 1945), medical researcher and clinician known for innovations in diagnosis and treatment of immunological deficiencies and asthma/allergic disorders
Nikodem Poplawski, physicist described as next Einstein, whose theory is every black hole contains another universe.
Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898–1988), emigrated to the U.S. in 1899; awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (1944) for work on molecular-beam magnetic-resonance detection method.
Ronald T. Raines (born 1958), chemical biologist known for his research on proteins
Wojciech Rostafiński (1921–2002), worked for NASA; contributed to the theory of aeronautics and applied mathematics; listed in Scientific Citation Index
Tadeusz Sendzimir (1894–1989), engineer and inventor of international renown with 120 patents in mining and metallurgy, 73 of which were awarded to him in the United States[154]
Maria Siemionow, Polish surgeon who performed the first face transplant surgery in the U.S.
Igor Sikorsky (1889–1972), helicopter engineer who founded the first helicopter industry in the U.S.
Iwona Stroynowski (born 1950), immunologist, discovered the process of gene expression control called attenuation, the first example of a riboswitch mechanism
Andrzej Walicki (1930–2020), economist; in 1998 he won Balzan Prize for his contribution to the study of the Russian and Polish cultural and social history, and also the study of European culture in the 19th century
Edmund Zalinski (1849–1909), invented pneumatic dynamite torpedo-gun, invented an electrical fuse, Other inventions included a modified entrenching tool, a ramrod-bayonet, and a telescopic sight for artillery and the Zalinsky boat, one of the earliest submarines in the United States
Wojciech H. Zurek (1900–1992), pioneer in information physics; co-author of a proof stating that a single quantum cannot be cloned; coined the terms "einselection" and "quantum discord"
Barney McCosky (1917–1996), center fielder/left fielder in Major League Baseball[170]
Doug Mientkiewicz (born 1974), former first baseman for the Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox, and several other MLB teams[171]
Dave Mlicki (born 1968), former right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball
Stan Musial (1920–2013), Major League Baseball player who played 22 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1941 to 1963[172]
Joe Niekro (1944–2006), starting pitcher in Major League Baseball; younger brother of Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro; father of first baseman Lance Niekro[173]
Phil Niekro (1939–2020), former pitcher in Major League Baseball and member of the Baseball Hall of Fame[174]
C. J. Nitkowski (born 1973), left-handed former professional baseball pitcher
Tom Paciorek (born 1946), Major League outfielder and first baseman for 18 seasons between 1970 and 1987[175]
Freddie Patek (born 1944), Major League Baseball player for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, and California Angels[176]
Ted Wilks (1915–1989), relief pitcher (aka "The Cork") with the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians; coach of the Kansas City A's (now Oakland)
Richie Zisk (born 1949), Major League Baseball player for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago White Sox, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners from 1971 to 1983[188]
Basketball
Carol Blazejowski (born 1956), women's professional basketball player
Vince Boryla (1927–2016), former NBA player for the New York Knicks, first ever NBA All-Star player of Polish descent, coach, and Denver Nuggets executive
Mike Krzyzewski (born 1947), head coach of the Duke University men's basketball team and the 2008 gold medal-winning U.S. men's Olympic basketball team
Steve Kuberski (born 1947), former NBA player and NBA Champion, last ever Boston Celtic to wear no 33 jersey before the arrival of Larry Bird
Bruce Kuczenski (born 1961), former basketball and NBA player
Leo Kubiak (born 1926/1927), former BAA and minor league baseball player
Mitch Kupchak (born 1954), former 9-year NBA veteran, NBA Champion and former general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers
Ed Sadowski (1917–1990), former BAA and NBA player
Jeremy Sochan (born 2003), Polish-American professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA. He is also a member of Poland men's national basketball team.
Bob Sura (born 1973), former NBA player for the Cavaliers, Warriors, Pistons, Hawks and Rockets.
Wally Szczerbiak (born 1977), former 10-year NBA veteran, NBA All-Star. Although his father claimed the family is of Ukrainian descent, Szczerbiak is a 100% Polish surname. Considering that most of the western part of today's Ukrainian territory was for centuries a part of the Polish empire, Polish roots of Szczerbiak's family are obvious.[citation needed]
Walter Szczerbiak (born 1949), Wally Szczerbiak's father, former ABA player
A.J. Slaughter (born 1987), professional basketball player in the Poland national team
Kelly Tripucka (born 1959), former 10-year NBA veteran for the Detroit Pistons, Utah Jazz, and Charlotte Hornets, two-time NBA All-Star
Dave Twardzik (born 1950), former NBA and ABA player, ABA All-Star and 1977 NBA Champion
Jayson Williams (born 1968), former NBA player for the 76ers and New Jersey Nets, NBA All-Star in 1998. He is of Polish, Italian and African-American descent
Lou Michaels, former pro defensive lineman, 1958–1971, with the Colts, Steelers, Rams, and Packers[198]
Walt Michaels (1929–2019), former player and coach, remembered for his six-year tenure as head coach of the New York Jets from 1977 to 1982
Dick Modzelewski (1931–2018), former college and pro football player with the Redskins, Steelers, Giants and Browns; coach for the Cleveland Browns; member of the College Football Hall of Fame[199]
Gene Mruczkowski (born 1980), offensive lineman for the New England Patriots of the NFL
Scott Mruczkowski (born 1982), center, San Diego Chargers, Bowling Green
Mike Munchak (born 1960), former pro offense with the Houston Oilers; Pro Football Hall of Fame[200]
Bronko Nagurski (1908–1990), former NFL player and professional wrestler
Ray Nitschke (1936–1998), former Hall of Fame NFL linebacker for the Green Bay Packers[201]
Bill Osmanski (1915–1996), College and Pro Football Hall of Fame; former player with Chicago Bears[202]
Walt Patulski (born 1950), former defensive end for the University of Notre Dame, Buffalo Bills, and St. Louis Cardinals
Jason Pociask (born 1983), tight end for the New York Jets
Paul Posluszny (born 1984), linebacker for the Jacksonville Jaguars
Bill Romanowski (born 1966), former football player for the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders
Paul Stankowski (born 1969), professional golfer with two PGA Tour wins; finished tied for 5th at the 1997 Masters as well as a tie for 17th at the 1997 U.S. Open
John Wayne Gacy (1942–1994), serial killer, of Polish and Danish ancestry. His paternal grandparents (family name spelled "Gatza" or "Gaca") were from what is now Poland, then part of the German Empire.[222][223]