Sports · born 1958Viacheslav Fetisovice hockey defensemanLegendary Soviet defenseman who helped break the barrier keeping Soviet players out of the NHL, then anchored the Red Wings' "Russian Five" to back-to-back Stanley Cups.DETROIT / A living lexicon / ¼
Famous Detroiters
People who were born here, moved here or built their careers in Detroit: musicians, carmakers, athletes, writers, inventors, civil-rights leaders and a few notorious names. With their dates, their Detroit story and the places where they lived, worked and played, closed ones included.
- 1,940 famous people
- 366 Detroit places
- 8 fields
Hungarian ties 22 Detroiters with Hungarian ties →
Field
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Born in
A–Z (family name)
9 people
Clear filtersSports · born 1958Viacheslav Fetisovice hockey defensemanLegendary Soviet defenseman who helped break the barrier keeping Soviet players out of the NHL, then anchored the Red Wings' "Russian Five" to back-to-back Stanley Cups.
Music · 1952–2010Doug Fiegersinger, guitarist, songwriterDetroit-born, Oak Park-raised frontman of the Knack, who co-wrote and sang “My Sharona,” the biggest U.S. hit of 1979.
Auto industry · born 1957Bill Ford Jr.executive chair of Ford Motor CompanyHenry Ford's great-grandson, Ford's executive chair since 1999, who bought and restored Michigan Central Station as the heart of a Corktown tech campus.
Literature · born 1950Carolyn Forchépoet, translator, human-rights advocateDetroit-born poet of The Country Between Us and The Colonel, a leading voice of the 'poetry of witness', raised in a Slovak-American family in the Detroit suburbs.
Music · 1958–2023Amp Fiddlerkeyboardist, singer, songwriter, producerDetroit keyboardist of Parliament-Funkadelic and mentor of J Dilla, who lent the young producer his MPC and introduced him to Q-Tip.
Sports · 1954–2009Mark Fidrychbaseball pitcherEccentric rookie pitcher who talked to the ball and packed Tiger Stadium during a magical 1976 season before arm injuries cut his career short.
Politics · born 1952Robert Ficanolawyer, Wayne County sheriff, county executiveDetroit-born lawyer who served twenty years as Wayne County sheriff (1983–2003) and twelve as county executive (2003–2015), a tenure ending amid scandals and the unfinished Gratiot jail project.The lexicon keeps growing. Every entry lists its sources at the bottom. Dates were checked against Wikidata and Wikipedia. The texts are our own. Famous people's places among the sights ↗