Famous Montessori Personalities

Below is a list of many familiar people who were Montessori educated:

  • Sergey Brin & Larry Page, founders of Google
  • Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, editor, former First Lady (John F. Kennedy)
  • Taylor Swift, singer and songwriter
  • Beyoncé Knowles, singer, songwriter and actress
  • Sean 'P.Diddy' (formerly known as Puffy) Combs, RAP mega-star
  • Anne Frank, famous diarist from World War II
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize winner for Literature
  • Jeff Bezos, financial analyst, founder of amazon.com
  • Prince William and Prince Harry, English royal family
  • T. Berry Brazelton, noted paediatrician and author
  • Helen Keller, author, activist, lecturer
  • Julia Child, famous chef, star of many TV cooking shows and author of numerous cookbooks
  • Kami Cotler, actress (youngest child on long-running series The Waltons)
  • Melissa and Sarah Gilbert, actors
  • Friedensreich Hundertwasser, austrian painter and architect
  • Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
  • Will Wright, designer of The Sims
  • Helen Hunt, Academy Award-winning actress
  • George Clooney, Academy Award-winning actor, producer
  • Joshua Bell, American violinist, owner of Stradivarius Violin
  • Lea Salonga, Filipino-American singer and Broadway actress
  • Katharine Graham, former editor of the Washington Post
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber, musician, conductor
  • Luc Longley, international basketball player

Famous people who chose Montessori schools for their own children:

  • Stephen J. Cannell, TV writer-producer-director (The Rockford Files and many others)
  • Patty Duke Astin, actress
  • Cate Blanchett, actress
  • Cher Bono, singer and actress
  • John Bradshaw, psychologist and author
  • Yul Brynner, actor
  • Marcy Carcy, TV producer
  • Bill & Hillary Clinton, former president/senator, NY
  • Michael Douglas, actor
  • Shari Lewis, puppeteer
  • Yo Yo Ma, cellist
  • Elizabeth Berridge, actress
  • David Blaine, street magician
  • Gordon Ramsay, celebrity chef

Others with a Montessori connection:

  • Alexander Graham Bell, noted inventor, and his wife Mabel, founded the Montessori Education Association in 1913. They also provided financial support directly to Dr. Montessori and helped establish the first Montessori class in Canada and one of the first in the United States.
  • Mister Rogers, children's TV personality, strong supporter of Montessori education.
  • Thomas Edison, noted scientist and inventor, helped found a Montessori school.
  • President Wilson's daughter trained as a Montessori teacher. There was a Montessori classroom in the basement of the White House during Wilson's presidency.
  • Jean Piaget, noted Swiss psychologist, made his first observations of children in a Montessori school. He was also head of the Swiss Montessori Society for 25 years.
  • Willie Nelson, musician, has a Montessori School on his ranch.
  • Erik Erikson, anthropologist and author, had a Montessori teaching diploma.
  • Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, CA, attended Montessori Teacher Training in London.
  • Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company, advocated Montessori Education.
  • Sigmund Freud, considered the father of modern psychoanalysis, physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and influential thinker of the Twentieth Century, was a contemporary of Montessori and promoted her work.
  • Princess Diana attended Montessori Teacher Training in London.