California

Val Joe "Rudy" Galindo (born September 7, 1969) is an American former competitive figure skater who competed in both single skating and pair skating. As a single skater, he is the 1996 U.S. national champion, 1987 World Junior Champion, and 1996 World Bronze medalist. As a pairs skater, he competed with Kristi Yamaguchi and was the 1988 World Junior Champion and the 1989 and 1990 U.S. National Champion. He is the first openly gay skating champion in the United States, though US, World and Olympic champion Brian Boitano came out long after his career was over.

Helen Newington Wills (October 6, 1905 – January 1, 1998), also known by her married names Helen Wills Moody and Helen Wills Roark, was an American tennis player. She won 31 Grand Slam tournament titles (singles, doubles, and mixed doubles) during her career, including 19 singles titles.
Wills was the first American woman athlete to become a global celebrity, making friends with royalty and film stars despite her preference for staying out of the limelight. She was admired for her graceful physique and for her fluid motion. She was part of a new tennis fashion, playing in knee-length pleated skirts rather than the longer ones of her predecessors, and was known for wearing her hallmark white visor. Unusually, she practiced against men to hone her craft, and she played a relentless predominantly baseline game, wearing down her female opponents with power and accuracy. In February 1926 she played a high-profile and widely publicised match against Suzanne Lenglen which was called the Match of the Century.
Wills had a 180-match win streak from 1927 until 1933. In 1933, she beat the eighth-ranked US male player in an exhibition match. Her record of eight wins at Wimbledon was not surpassed until 1990 when Martina Navratilova won her ninth. She was said to be "arguably the most dominant tennis player of the 20th century", and has been called by some (including Jack Kramer, Harry Hopman, Mercer Beasley, Don Budge, and AP News) the greatest female player in history.

Amanda Ray Beard (born October 29, 1981), also known by her married name Amanda Brown, is an American swimmer and a seven-time Olympic medalist (two gold, four silver, one bronze). She is a former world record holder in the 200-meter breaststroke (long course).Beard's success has earned her the American Swimmer of the Year Award twice. She has won a total of twenty-one medals in major international competition, five gold, thirteen silver, and three bronze spanning the Olympics, the World Championships, the Pan Pacific Championships, and the Summer Universiade.

Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born William Bruce Jenner; October 28, 1949; known as Bruce Jenner until 2015) is an American media personality and former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete.
Jenner played college football for the Graceland Yellowjackets before incurring a knee injury that required surgery. Convinced by Olympic decathlete Jack Parker's coach, L. D. Weldon, to try the decathlon, Jenner had a six-year decathlon career, culminating in winning the men's decathlon event at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, setting a third successive world record and gaining fame as "an all-American hero". Jenner established a career in television, film, writing, auto racing, business, and as a Playgirl cover model.Jenner has six children with three successive wives – Chrystie Crownover, Linda Thompson, and Kris Jenner – and from 2007 to 2021 appeared on the reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians with Kris, their daughters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, as well as Kris's other children from her previous marriage, Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and Rob Kardashian.
Jenner publicly came out as a trans woman in April 2015, announcing her new name in July of that year. From 2015 to 2016, she starred in the reality television series I Am Cait, which focused on her gender transition. At the time of her coming out, she had been called the most famous trans woman in the world. Jenner is a transgender rights activist, although her views on transgender issues have been criticized by many other LGBTQ+ activists.A member of the Republican Party, Jenner ran in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, finishing 13th with one percent of the vote. Six months after the election, Jenner was hired by Fox News as an on-air contributor.

Richard Darryl Zanuck (; December 13, 1934 – July 13, 2012) was an American film producer. His 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Zanuck was also instrumental in launching the career of director Steven Spielberg, who described Zanuck as a "director's producer" and "one of the most honorable and loyal men of our profession."

Edwin Lee Mathews (October 13, 1931 – February 18, 2001) was an American professional baseball third baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for 17 seasons for the Boston / Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves (1952–1966); Houston Astros (1967) and Detroit Tigers (1967–68). Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978, he is the only player to have represented the Braves in the three cities they have called home. He played 1,944 games for the Braves during their 13-season tenure in Milwaukee—the prime of Mathews' career.
Mathews is regarded as one of the best third basemen ever to play the game. He was an All-Star for nine seasons. He won the National League (NL) home run title in 1953 and 1959 and was the NL Most Valuable Player runner-up both of those seasons. He hit 512 home runs during his major league career. Mathews coached for the Atlanta Braves in 1971, and he was the team's manager from 1972 to 1974. Later, he was a scout and coach for the Texas Rangers, Milwaukee Brewers, and Oakland Athletics.

Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( JERR-əld; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He previously served as the leader of the Republican Party in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 to 1973, and as the 40th vice president under President Richard Nixon from 1973 to 1974. Ford succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned in 1974, but was defeated for election to a full term in 1976. Ford is the only person to become U.S. president without winning an election for president or vice president.
Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, where he played for the school's football team before eventually attending Yale Law School. Afterward, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1946. Ford began his political career in 1949 as the U.S. representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district, serving in this capacity for nearly 25 years, the final nine of them as the House minority leader. In December 1973, two months after Spiro Agnew's resignation, Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. After the subsequent resignation of President Nixon in August 1974, Ford immediately assumed the presidency.
Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession. In one of his most controversial acts, he granted a presidential pardon to Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. Foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, and by the corresponding curb on the powers of the president. Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, which marked a move toward détente in the Cold War. With the collapse of South Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War essentially ended. In the 1976 Republican presidential primary, Ford defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, but narrowly lost the presidential election to the Democratic challenger, Jimmy Carter.
Following his years as president, Ford remained active in the Republican Party, but his moderate views on various social issues increasingly put him at odds with conservative members of the party in the 1990s and early 2000s. He also set aside the enmity he had felt towards Carter following the 1976 election and the two former presidents developed a close friendship. After experiencing a series of health problems, he died in Rancho Mirage, California in 2006. Surveys of historians and political scientists have ranked Ford as a below-average president, though retrospective public polls on his time in office were more positive.

James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military officer. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality, which he portrayed both on and off the screen, he epitomized the "American ideal" in the mid-twentieth century. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors. He received numerous honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1980, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1983, as well as the Academy Honorary Award and Presidential Medal of Freedom, both in 1985.
Born and raised in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Stewart started acting while at Princeton University. After graduating, he began a career as a stage actor making his Broadway debut in the play Carry Nation (1932). He landed his first supporting role in The Murder Man (1935) and had his breakthrough in Frank Capra's ensemble comedy You Can't Take It with You (1938). Stewart went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in George Cukor romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story (1940). His other Oscar-nominated roles were in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Harvey (1950) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).
Stewart played darker, more morally ambiguous characters in movies directed by Anthony Mann, including Winchester '73 (1950), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), and The Naked Spur (1953), and by Alfred Hitchcock in Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Vertigo (1958). Stewart also starred in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) as well as the Western films How the West Was Won (1962), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).
He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, deputy commanding the 2nd Bombardment Wing and commanding the 703d Bombardment Squadron from 1941 to 1947. He later transferred to the Air Force Reserve, and held various command positions until his retirement in 1968 as a brigadier general. Stewart remained unmarried until his 40s and was dubbed "The Great American Bachelor" by the press. In 1949, he married former model Gloria Hatrick McLean. They had twin daughters, and he adopted her two sons from her previous marriage. The marriage lasted until McLean's death in 1994, and Stewart died of a pulmonary embolism three years later.

Michael Te-pei Chang (born February 22, 1972) is an American former professional tennis player and coach. He is the youngest man in history to win a singles major, winning the 1989 French Open at 17 years and 109 days old. Chang won a total of 34 top-level professional singles titles, (including seven Masters titles) was a three-time major runner-up, and reached a career-best ranking of world No. 2 in 1996. Since he was shorter than virtually all of his opponents, he played a dogged defensive style utilizing his quickness and speed.
In 2008, Chang was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He began coaching Kei Nishikori in 2014.

Jeffery Michael Gordon (born August 4, 1971) is an American stock car racing executive and former professional stock car racing driver, who currently serves as the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports. He raced full-time from 1993 to 2015, driving the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series and Sprint Cup Series (now called NASCAR Cup Series), and also served as a substitute driver for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports in select races during the 2016 season. He is regarded as one of the best and most influential drivers in NASCAR history, helping the sport reach mainstream popularity.
Gordon started his professional racing career in the Busch Series with Hugh Connerty Racing, followed by Bill Davis Racing, winning three races, and began racing full-time in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series for Hendrick Motorsports in 1993. He is a four-time Cup Series champion, having won the title in 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2001. He also won the Daytona 500 three times in 1997, 1999, and 2005. Gordon has completed three career Grand Slams and has won a total of sixteen Crown Jewel races (three Daytona 500s, four Talladega 500s, three Coca-Cola 600s, and six Southern 500s), both of which are all-time records.
He is third on the all-time Cup wins list with 93 career wins, while having the record for the most wins in NASCAR's modern era (1972–present) and the most wins in one modern era season, with 13 during the 1998 NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Gordon's 81 pole positions led all active drivers and is third all-time, and also a modern era record; Gordon won at least one pole in 23 consecutive seasons, making this a NASCAR record. Other records include the most restrictor plate track wins with 12 and the most road course wins with 9, and he was the active "iron man" leader for consecutive races participated in with 797 through the 2015 season.In 1998, NASCAR named Gordon to its 50 Greatest Drivers list. Ten years later in a 2008 article, ESPN's Terry Blount ranked him 10th in the 25 Greatest Drivers of All-Time. Foxsports.com named him as the fifth best NASCAR driver of all time. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019. As of 2016, Gordon was considered the highest-paid NASCAR driver ever and the 18th highest-paid athlete of all-time with $515 million in career earnings, per Forbes.Gordon, along with Rick Hendrick, co-owns the No. 48 Chevrolet previously driven by Jimmie Johnson, who won seven Cup championships from 2006 to 2010, 2013, and in 2016. Gordon also has an equity stake in the No. 24 team. Gordon also owned a Busch Series team between 1999 and 2000, Gordon/Evernham Motorsports (co-owned with Ray Evernham; later solely owned as JG Motorsports), winning twice.