21st-century American Jews

Leonard Emanuel Parker (born Leonard Pearlman; in 1938) is a distinguished professor emeritus of physics and a former director of the Center for Gravitation and Cosmology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. During the late 1960s, Parker established a new area of physics—quantum field theory in curved spacetime. Specifically, by applying the technique of Bogoliubov transformations to quantum field theory with a changing gravitational field, he discovered the physical mechanism now known as cosmological particle production. His breakthrough discovery has a surprising consequence: the expansion of the universe can create particles out of the vacuum.
His work inspired research by hundreds of physicists and has been cited in more than 2,000 research papers; it was credited in the memoirs of Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov and helped Stephen Hawking discover the creation of particles by black holes.Along with David Toms of Newcastle University, Parker co-wrote a latest addition to graduate-level textbooks on quantum field theory in curved spacetime, entitled Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime: Quantized Fields and Gravity (Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-87787-9).
He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1967. His advisor was Sidney Coleman.

Eric Anthony Douglas (June 21, 1958 – July 6, 2004) was an American actor and stand-up comedian. Douglas was the youngest son of actor Kirk Douglas and his second wife Anne Buydens. His half brother was actor and producer Michael Douglas. Douglas pursued a career in show business but did not attain the same level of success as his father and siblings. His career was overshadowed by his numerous run-ins with the law and problems with alcohol and drugs.

Phranc (born Susan Gottlieb; August 28, 1957), is an American singer-songwriter whose career began playing in several bands in the late 1970s Los Angeles punk rock scene. Her musical style later shifted during the 1980s as a solo artist, into a self-proclaimed "All-American Jewish lesbian folksinger."

Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947), also known as Gerry Schwarz or Jerry Schwarz, is an American symphony conductor and trumpeter. As of 2019, Schwarz serves as the Artistic and Music Director of Palm Beach Symphony and the Director of Orchestral Activities and Music Director of the Frost Symphony Orchestra at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.

Peter Adolf Serkin (July 24, 1947 – February 1, 2020) was an American classical pianist. He won the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1966, and he performed globally, known for not only "technically pristine" playing but also a "commitment to contemporary music". He taught at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Bard College.

David Alan Ladd (born February 5, 1947)is an American film and television producer and former actor.

Ellen Goodman (born April 11, 1941) is an American journalist and syndicated columnist. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980. She is also a speaker and commentator.

Clancy Sigal (September 6, 1926 – July 16, 2017) was an American writer, and the author of dozens of essays and seven books, the best-known of which is the autobiographical novel Going Away (1961).

Leona Roberts Helmsley (born Lena Mindy Rosenthal; July 4, 1920 – August 20, 2007) was an American businesswoman. Her flamboyant personality and reputation for tyrannical behavior earned her the nickname Queen of Mean.After allegations of non-payment were made by contractors hired to improve Helmsley's Connecticut home, she was investigated and convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989. Although having initially received a sentence of 16 years, she was required to serve only 19 months in prison and two months under house arrest. During the trial, a former housekeeper testified that she had heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes", a quote which was identified with her for the rest of her life.

Joel Barnet Steinberg (born May 25, 1941) is a disbarred New York City criminal defense attorney who attracted international media attention when he was accused of rape and murder, and was convicted of manslaughter, in the November 1, 1987, beating and subsequent death of a six-year-old girl, Elizabeth ("Lisa") Launders, whom he and his live-in partner, Hedda Nussbaum, had illegally adopted.