Finland for Thought
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26.10.2006

Famous Finnish-Americans

Tags: Uncategorized — Author: @ 11:14 pm

Check out the list from Wikipedia, here’s a few highlights…

# Pamela Anderson (b. 1967) actor
# Matt Damon (b. 1970) award-winning screenwriter and actor
# Renny Harlin (b. 1959) producer/director
# Jessica Lange (b. 1949) two-time Academy Award-winning film actress
# David Lynch (b. 1946) director
# Jorma Kaukonen (b. 1940) blues, folk and rock guitarist (Jefferson Airplane)
# John Morton (1724–1777) delegate who cast the deciding vote in favor of the United States Declaration of Independence
# Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) architect and product designer of the 20th century, famous for his simple, sweeping, arching structural curves

…and here’s a free online documentary about Finnish-American life.

  • http://fredfryinternational.blogspot.com/ Fred Fry

    Gus Hall is my favorite. Most (older) Americans recognize his name, at least those who vote.

  • a lamb with no guiding light

    I wish folks would refrain from adding facts about famous people’s distant Finnish relatives on their Wikipedia pages. The world really does not need to know that Pamela Anderson’s paternal grandfather was Hermanni Hyytiäinen from Saarijärvi or that Matt Damon’s maternal great grandmother was Impi Nieminen. In fact, it’s kind of embarrassing that someone felt the need to add such pointless facts on their pages out of a woefully misguided sense of patriotic boosterism.

  • http://www.funkybrownchick.com funkybrownchick

    I thought Matt Damon was like hardcore Irish-American …

  • Erik

    There is also more embarrassing cases, like Aileen Wuornos or George W. Bush.

    And in Sweden Pamela Anderson is called “Swedish-American” because she also has Swedish roots.

  • kylmä totuus

    Excellent post, lamb. I quite agree, it is rather pathetic, and only Kaukonen and maybe Saarinen are worth having anyway.

  • pi

    Could Finns be as addicted to the cult of personality as the Americans?

    How about Finnish-Americans VS American-Finns in perhaps mud wrestling or snooker?

  • http://www.finlandforthought.net Phil

    How about Finnish-Americans VS American-Finns in perhaps mud wrestling or snooker?

    Ok. Round 1, me vs. Pamela Anderson.

  • Aaron

    Danish Americans have a much more appetizing stock. Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Eliza Dushku, Olsen twins…

  • ourson

    How come Al Aho is not included?

  • J

    Could D.Lynch be the long lost American cousin of A. Kaurismäki?

  • Antti (the redneck one)

    Hey, Maila Nurmi aka Vampira is missing too…

  • Antti (the redneck one)

    Oops, Maila was on the Wikipedia list. How about Willian Niska of the CATO institute.

  • kylmä totuus

    Tom of Finland, anyone? Looks like he’s not been invited to the party.

  • Anonymous

    Could D.Lynch be the long lost American cousin of A. Kaurismäki?

    I seem to remember David Lynch said in an interview that his ancestors were Finlandswedes.

  • Anonymous

    #13

    I don’t think ToF ever lived in the US.

  • kylmä totuus

    He spent quite some time there in the 1980s. “Still, throughout the Eighties, the trips to America continued to increase until Tom was spending six months in L.A. with Durk Dehner for every six he spent back in Helsinki.”

    But I’ll grant you it was a surprise to me to realise he never emigrated. I’d somehow imagined he was there for decades.

  • iJusten

    Thanks Phil for the documentary link. It was very interesting.

    Also; this is the worst example of streaming I have ever witnessed. Not only can you not download it to your hard drive, the stream is so high quality that my bandwidth (100 kb/s in) was not good enough to roll it without some very heavy grade lagging.

    I watched it, but it was very annoying how it skipped now and then and the picture would vanish and what not.

    Very poorly executed.

    But the document itself was very interesting. I wonder how the community in Michigan fares this day. Back at lukio we had a exchange student from there, and she understood Finnish well enough to attend classes – but was she expection or regular case…

  • Lala

    Danish Americans have a much more appetizing stock. Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Eliza Dushku, Olsen twins…

    Not to mention Viggo Mortensen.

  • Jane Doe-Ryynänen

    Add MIKE MARKKULA one of the founders and later
    CEO of APPLE in late 1970′s and early 1980′s.

  • Nipsu

    Wikipedia left out Christine Lahti.

  • Fat Bastard

    I find most of these genealogy “studies” amusing. I once took a weekend off my other hobbies and trawled the net for genealogy pages and family trees. It seems about 50% of all the people in USA and Europe are direct descendants of the ancient Finnish king Fornjotur. (Vanha Jotuni)

    Maybe I’m one of those too. My father is from Karelia and my mother from Bothnia, so the odds are in my favor.

  • ihqubeibe
  • ihqubeibe
  • PePe

    Hollywood make a movie about Lauri Törni!

  • Antti (the redneck one)

    “Hollywood make a movie about Lauri Törni!”

    But they already made one with John Wayne playing Törni. Surely it would make a great movie, if they also covered his life before Vietnam, but I guess Törni’s brief adventure with waffen-SS would probably be too much for the American audiences.

    Of course, the Hollywood version would begin with a scene of a ship approaching New York and Lauri jumping off and swimming to the shore. If I remember, he spent his first years as an illegal immigrant.

  • Erik

    If Renny Harlin ever makes his Mannerheim movie I’m sure Törni will make an appearance. (I have no idea if they ever met in the real world,though).

  • saempy

    “If Renny Harlin ever makes his Mannerheim movie I’m sure Törni will make an appearance.”

    Oh barf. Can we have another Renny and Geena gala?

  • http://www.palun.blogspot.com giustino

    Excellent post, lamb. I quite agree, it is rather pathetic, and only Kaukonen and maybe Saarinen are worth having anyway.

    Kaukonen is actually half Finnish, although his website – http://www.jormakaukonen.com – shows him to look one hundred percent.

    But his mother was of Russian Jewish stock and he’s embraced that a lot more in recent years, as this recent post on his site attests.

    Yesterday a rare choice was made. I did not even turn on the computer once. Holy cow! Was I sick or something? I guess it had a lot to do with the New Year, *5767* which came in yesterday along with the first day of Fall, so I’ll take this moment to wish all a peaceful and fulfilling new year in which your dreams come true. This weekend has afforded me some serene moments. These are rare in such troubled times so they are muchly appreciated.

  • meh

    lamb, #2: maybe it’s not appropriate on wikipedia, but it’s interesting for finnish-americans. (for me, it’s about heritage, history, and diaspora. patriotism-schmatriotism — it’s just interesting.)

    phil: nice post in linking to the folkstreams documentary. i’ve actually seen that before, while studying a ‘music in the multi-cultural u.s.’ course.

  • Mysterious figure from shadows

    True finn is always shamed about his/hers nationality

  • Mysterious figure from shadows

    ^^ My comment was longer?!?! Well I just pointed out that finn tryes not to do remarkable achievement work of art, science etc. because that might reveal their true self (as being finn).

  • inFINNdel

    check out http://www.charleswuorinen.com
    Charles Wuorinen is one of the great finnish american modern composers.

  • http://dsarjfwnia.com dsarjfwnia

    Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! emqepckzkwqv

  • Finlander

    What about Warren Casey/

  • Matt Karhu

    I recall reading many years ago the U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt had some Finnish ancestors. Can anyone help me find the source of this information?

  • http://www.sixdegreeskb.com David Johansen

    um, What about Warren Casey?

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  • 553909118

    um.I liked this.

  • Clp19900101

     I  liked Finnish-Americans . Is good!

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