Famous Finnish-Americans
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.
Gus Hall is my favorite. Most (older) Americans recognize his name, at least those who vote.
Comment by Fred Fry — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 1:10 am
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.
Comment by a lamb with no guiding light — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 1:20 am
I thought Matt Damon was like hardcore Irish-American …
Comment by funkybrownchick — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 1:43 am
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.
Comment by Erik — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 2:22 am
Excellent post, lamb. I quite agree, it is rather pathetic, and only Kaukonen and maybe Saarinen are worth having anyway.
Comment by kylmä totuus — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 2:48 am
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?
Comment by pi — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 3:16 am
How about Finnish-Americans VS American-Finns in perhaps mud wrestling or snooker?
Ok. Round 1, me vs. Pamela Anderson.
Comment by Phil — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 7:57 am
Danish Americans have a much more appetizing stock. Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Eliza Dushku, Olsen twins…
Comment by Aaron — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 10:37 am
How come Al Aho is not included?
Comment by ourson — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 10:38 am
Could D.Lynch be the long lost American cousin of A. Kaurismäki?
Comment by J — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 10:43 am
Hey, Maila Nurmi aka Vampira is missing too…
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 12:18 pm
Oops, Maila was on the Wikipedia list. How about Willian Niska of the CATO institute.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 12:22 pm
Tom of Finland, anyone? Looks like he’s not been invited to the party.
Comment by kylmä totuus — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
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.
Comment by Anonymous — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 1:14 pm
#13
I don’t think ToF ever lived in the US.
Comment by Anonymous — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 1:21 pm
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.
Comment by kylmä totuus — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
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…
Comment by iJusten — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 1:43 pm
Danish Americans have a much more appetizing stock. Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Eliza Dushku, Olsen twins…
Not to mention Viggo Mortensen.
Comment by Lala — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
Add MIKE MARKKULA one of the founders and later
CEO of APPLE in late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
Comment by Jane Doe-Ryynänen — Fri, Oct 27th, 2006 @ 3:47 pm
Wikipedia left out Christine Lahti.
Comment by Nipsu — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 1:40 am
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.
Comment by Fat Bastard — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 7:44 am
Finnish ancestry by city
http://www.epodunk.com/ancestry/Finnish.html
Comment by ihqubeibe — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 9:26 am
The Delaware Finns
http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article298fe.htm
Comment by ihqubeibe — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 9:29 am
Hollywood make a movie about Lauri Törni!
Comment by PePe — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 11:29 am
“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.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 2:58 pm
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).
Comment by Erik — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 4:09 pm
“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?
Comment by saempy — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 5:32 pm
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.
Comment by giustino — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 7:22 pm
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.
Comment by meh — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 10:54 am
True finn is always shamed about his/hers nationality
Comment by Mysterious figure from shadows — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 10:41 pm
^^ 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).
Comment by Mysterious figure from shadows — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 10:47 pm
check out http://www.charleswuorinen.com
Charles Wuorinen is one of the great finnish american modern composers.
Comment by inFINNdel — Fri, Nov 3rd, 2006 @ 4:22 am
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! emqepckzkwqv
Comment by dsarjfwnia — Tue, Jul 3rd, 2007 @ 6:43 pm
What about Warren Casey/
Comment by Finlander — Sat, Feb 23rd, 2008 @ 6:22 am