James Baird, civil engineer; directed the construction of the Flatiron Building, Lincoln Memorial, Arlington Memorial Amphitheater, and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Bill Barrett (BS 1958, MS, MFA), sculptor and painter
John W. F. Bennett, civil engineer; supervised the construction of the Algonquin Hotel in New York and the Ritz and Waldorf Hotels in London
Dan Dworsky (ARCH: B.Arch. 1950), designed the University's Crisler Arena and the Federal Reserve Bank in Los Angeles; member of varsity football starting team at Michigan, 1945–1948; played professionally for the Los Angeles Dons in 1949; member of Jewish Sports Hall of Fame; all-time 50-year Rose Bowl team
Tristan Meinecke (c. 1942, did not graduate), painter, writer, architect.
Charles Willard Moore (ARCH: B.Arch 1947, Hon Arch D. 1992), designer of Lurie Tower on Michigan's North Campus; winner of the AIA Gold Medal in 1991
Robert Nickle (BA 1943), artist known primarily for his "street scrap" collage work; studied architecture and design at Michigan; worked and taught at the Art Institute of Chicago
Michele Oka Doner, American artist and writer. Stamps School of Art & Design: BFA, 1966; MFA, 1968, Alumna in Residence, 1990, Hon. Dr. Fine Arts, 2016.
Jason Polan, American artist and illustrator. Stamps School of Art & Design: BFA, 2004
Ralph Rapson, head of architecture at the University of Minnesota for many years; one of the world's oldest and most prolific practicing architects at his death at age 93
Raoul Wallenberg (ARCH: B.Arch 1935), Swedish diplomat famous for assisting Hungarian Jews in late World War II; namesake of the Wallenberg Fellowship and Taubman College's Wallenberg Studio
Judd Winick (BA 1992 Drawing and Painting), cartoonist, screenwriter, author
Forman Brown (BA 1922), established Yale Puppeteers upon graduating; opened a puppet theatre in Los Angeles in the 1920s which attracted celebrity attention and support from Greta Garbo, Marie Dressler, Douglas Fairbanks, and Albert Einstein
Hal Cooper (BA 1946), TV producer and director for Maude, Dick Van Dyke Show, Mayberry RFD, That Girl, I Dream of Jeannie, and Empty Nest
Valentine Davies (BA 1927), screenwriter of Miracle on 34th Street
Lillian Gallo (BA), 1978 winner of a Crystal Award, established in 1977 to honor outstanding women who have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry
Josh Greenfeld (1928–2018), author and screenwriter; known for screenplay for the 1974 film Harry and Tonto along with Paul Mazursky, which earned them an Academy Award nomination
David Levien (BA 1989), co-wrote and co-directed The Knockaround Guys; co-wrote Rounders
Jeff Marx (BA 1993), composer and lyricist of musicals; known for creating the Broadway musical Avenue Q with collaborator Robert Lopez; together, they wrote the show's 21 songs
Kevin Boyle His 2004 book, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, won the National Book Award.
Howard Moss won the National Book Award in 1972 for Selected Poems.
Frank O'HaraThe Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, the first of several collections, shared the 1972 National Book Award for Poetry.
Theodore Roethke won the annual National Book Award for Poetry on two occasions: in 1959 for Words for the Wind,[2] and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field.
Keith Waldrop won the National Book Award for Poetry for his 2009 collection Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy
Jesmyn Ward, won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for her second novel Salvage the Bones and the 2017 National Book Award for "Sing, Unburied, Sing". She is the only two-time female winner of the National Book award.
Gloria Whelan won the annual National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2000 for the novel Homeless Bird.
Gabriela Lena Frank (D.M.A.) (born 1972), pianist and composer of contemporary classical music
Joe Henry (B.A.) (born 1960), singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer; has released 13 studio albums and produced multiple recordings for other artists, including three Grammy Award-winning albums
Bob James (M.A.) (born 1939), multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz keyboardist, arranger, and record producer
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931), actor; career has spanned more than 60 years; has won three Grammys
Fred LaBour (M.A.) (born 1948), better known by his stage name Too Slim; Grammy award-winning musician, best known for his work with the Western swing musical and comedy group Riders in the Sky
Madonna (MDNG) (born 1958), singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman; referred to as the "Queen of Pop" since the 1980s; seven-time Grammy award winner
Jessye Norman (MUSIC: MMUS 1968; HSCD 1987), opera and concert singer and 4 time Grammy winner
Gavin James Creel (born 1976), actor, singer, and songwriter; best known for his work in musical theatre; received a Tony Award for his performance as Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly!
Gregory Jbara (born 1961), film, television and stage actor, and singer
James Earl Jones (born 1931), actor; career has spanned more than 60 years
Michael L. Maguire (born 1955), actor, best known for his role as Enjolras in the original Broadway production of the musical Les Misérables; this role won him a Tony Award in 1987
Jeff Marx (born 1970), composer and lyricist of musicals; winner of two Tony Awards
Arthur Asher Miller (1915–2005), playwright, essayist, and figure in twentieth-century American theater
Jack O'Brien (born 1939), director, producer, writer and lyricist is a winner of three Tony Awards
Paul Osborn, playwright and screenwriter best known for writing the screen adaptation of East of Eden; won 1980 Tony award for best Broadway revival for his play about four sisters, Morning's at Seven, which originally opened on Broadway in 1939
Martin Pakledinaz (1953–2012), costume designer for stage and film; winner of two Tony Awards
Pasek and Paul, known together as Pasek and Paul, are an American songwriting duo and composing team for musical theater, films, and television
James Kibbie (DMA 1981), concert organist, recording artist, Professor of Organ at U-M
Timothy McAllister (BM 95, MM 97, DMA, 2002), Grammy award-winning classical saxophonist; member of PRISM Quartet; current Professor of Saxophone at U-M
Valentine Davies Miracle on 34th Street earned him an Academy Award for Best Story in 1947
Charles Crawford Davis (COE: 1916), won 1948 Oscar for his invention of the Davis Drive System, a system for merging sound with pictures and driving the film through movie cameras and projectors
Michael Dunn (MDNG), nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1966 for Ship of Fools
John M. Eargle (MM 1954), Oscar and Grammy-winning audio engineer; musician (piano, church and theater organ)
Arthur Miller (BA 1938), nominated for The Crucible; the play was adapted for film twice, by Jean-Paul Sartre as the 1957 film Les Sorcières de Salem and by Miller himself as the 1996 film The Crucible; his adaptation earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay based on Previously Produced Material, his only nomination
Dudley Nichols, nominated for Best Screenplay for The Long Voyage Home in 1941, for Best Original Screenplay for Air Force in 1944, and for Best Story and Screenplay (Written Directly for the Screen) for The Tin Star in 1958; he won Best Screenplay for The Informer in 1936, but initially refused the honor due to an ongoing writer's strike
Pasek and Paul Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, known together as Pasek and Paul, are an Academy and Tony Award-winning American songwriting duo and composing team for musical theater, films, and television
Donald Alan "Don" Diamond (BA 1942), radio, film, and television actor; known for his comic portrayal as Crazy Cat on the 1960s television sitcom F Troop
Michael Dunn, aka Gary Neil Miller (MDNG), actor, known for his recurring role as mad scientist Dr. Miguelito Loveless in the 1960s TV series The Wild Wild West
Nancy Kovack, film and TV actress; attended U-M at age 15 and graduated by 19; appeared on Star Trek and Bewitched; in 1969 she was nominated for an Emmy for an appearance on Mannix
Ellen Sandweiss (MA in Theatre Management), B-movie actress; has performed in musical theatre as a dancer and pop singer, and in a one-woman show of Jewish music
Heléne York (BFA 2007), actress known for her role in The Other Two
Writers of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction
Daniel Aaron (BA 1933), author of many articles and books, including Men of Good Hope: A Story of American Progressives, The Unwritten War: Writers of the Civil War and, with Richard Hofstadter and William Miller, The Structure of American History
Uwem Akpan (MFA 2007), Nigerian author; Jesuit priest; won Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book and the PEN/Beyond Margins Award for Say You're One of Them
Max Apple (BA 1963), author of The Oranging of America (1976, short stories), Zip: A Novel of the Left and the Right (1978, novel), Three Stories (1983, short stories), Free Agents (1984, novel), The Propheteers: A Novel (1987, novel), and Roommates: My Grandfather's Story (1994, biography of his grandfather)
Meg Waite Clayton (LAW: JD), The Language of Light was a finalist for Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize; The Wednesday Sisters became a national bestseller and a book club favorite
Neal Gabler (LAW: JD) author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (1989), Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity (1994), Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (1998), and Walt Disney: Triumph of the American Imagination (2006)
Mary Gaitskill, author of Bad Behavior (1988), Two Girls, Fat and Thin (1991), Because They Wanted To (1997) (stories), Veronica (2005)
Gabrielle Hamilton (MFA), owner and manager of Prune restaurant in Manhattan; author of Blood Bones and Butter; recipient of the James Beard award for best chef
Steve Hamilton (AB 1983), wrote Blood is the Sky, an Alex McKnight mystery; his 1999 novel A Cold Day in Paradise won an Edgar Award; his 2010 novel The Lock Artist won an Edgar for Best Novel; one of only five authors to win the award twice
Robert Hayden (MA 1944), Professor of Poetry 1969–1980
Raelynn Hillhouse (HHRS: MA, PhD 1993), author of spy novels; national security expert; blogger (The Spy Who Billed Me); political scientist
Matthew Hittinger (MFA 2004), author of the poetry collection Skin Shift (2012), and the chapbook Pear Slip (2007); winner of the Spire Press 2006 Chapbook Award
Jessica Hollander (BA 2004), author of Katherine Anne Porter Prize winning story collection In These Times the Home is a Tired Place (2013) and the chapbook Mythical Places (2019) Sonders Press
James Avery Hopwood (AB 1905), playwright, established the U-M Hopwood Awards; one of the premier playwrights of the jazz age; at one time had four plays running simultaneously on Broadway
Brad Meltzer (BA 1992), wrote The Zero Game, The Tenth Justice, Dead Even, The First Counsel, and The Millionaires; creator of TV series Jack and Bobby
Walter Miller (MA 1844), classics scholar; first to translate the Iliad into English in the native dactylic hexameter
Sara Moulton (BA 1974), author of Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals, and Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners
Nami Mun (MFA), Korean American novelist and short story writer
Davi Napoleon (AB 1966, AM 1968), wrote Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater
Heather Neff, (BA 1978), African American novelist and professor
Bich Minh Nguyen (MFA), novelist; American Book Award for Short Girls
Frank O’Hara (MA 1951); author of A City Winter and Other Poems, Oranges: 12 Pastorals, Second Avenue, Odes, Lunch Poems, Love Poems
Maritta Wolff (BA 1940), author of Whistle Stop, called by Sinclair Lewis "the most important novel of the year;" also wroteAbout Lyddy Thomas (1947), Back of Town (1952), The Big Nickelodeon (1956) and Buttonwood (1962)
Sarah Zettel (BA), science fiction, fantasy, and mystery author
^"Kathryn O. Galbraith (1945-)." Something About the Author, vol. 347, Gale, 2019, pp. 88-91. Gale Literature: Something About the Author. Accessed 5 May 2023.