Famous Presbyterians

Film and Television:

- John Wayne - actor, movie star
- Will Hays - led Hollywood's self-censorship: Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 ("Hays Code")
- Christopher Reeve - actor, movie star famous for his role as "Superman" (lapsed)
- David Letterman - late night talk show host
- Gower Champion - Broadway director, choreographer
- Dick Van Dyke - actor
- Roy Rogers - cowboy TV star
- Richard Burton - actor, movie star
- Jimmy Stewart - a.k.a. James Stewart; actor; star of such films as It's a Wonderful Life; Mr. Krueger's Christmas
- Shirley Temple - child star
- Fred Rogers - host of influential children's show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" (ordained Presbyterian minister)
- Debbie Reynolds - actress, singer
- Greer Garson - Academy Award-winning actress
- Carol Lawrence - actress
- Frank Gifford - football player and sportscaster
- Sandra Knight - TV and film actress who was married Jack Nicholson
- Colleen Townsend - Hollywood actress who became the wife of a Presbyterian minister and an author of religious books
- Brian DePalma - film director (born Catholic; raised Presbyterian; lapsed)
- Ralph Winter - movie producer: X-Men; Fantastic Four; Star Trek; etc. (devout Presbyterian)

Literature:

- Mark Twain - influential American author
- William Faulkner - influential American author
- Lucy Maud Montgomery - Canadian novelist; Anne of Green Gables, etc.
- Beverly Cleary - children's book author (Ramona, Henry Higgins, Ralph the Mouse, etc.)
- Ralph Connor - early 1930s Canadian novelist; The Man from Glengarry; Glengarry School Days; The Foreigner; etc. (ordained)
- Frederick Buechner - author of fantasy novels and non-fiction religious books
- Sherwood Anderson - prominent American short story writer
- Margaret Wise Brown - influential children's book author: Goodnight Moon; The Runaway Bunny; etc. (non-churchgoer; Presbyterian father; Episcopalian mother)

Comics:

- Clifford K. Berryman (1869-1949) - influential political cartoonist
- Curt Swan - influential comic book artist best known for drawing Superman (lapsed)

Journalism:

- David Brinkley - journalist, broadcaster
- E. L. Godkin - founder of influential weekly journal of political opinion The Nation

Science:

- James Watt - developed the steam engine (lapsed)
- Joseph Priestley - influential chemist, noncomformist minister
- Arthur Holly Compton - Nobel Prize-winning physicist who studied x-rays, gamma rays and nuclear energy
- Sally Ride - astronaut; first American woman in space

- John Glenn - astronaut, Senator 

Religious Leaders:

- John Knox - the founder of Scottish Presbyterianism
- Billy Sunday - popular American preacher
- Billy Graham - one of most popular Protestant preachers in 20th Century (raised Presbyterian, converted to Southern Baptist)
- Ruth Graham - wife of Billy Graham
- Henry Sloane Coffin - clergyman, author; moderator of General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (1943-44)
- Daniel Defoe - influential English novelist; author of Robinson Crusoe
- Richard G. Butler - pastor and founder of Aryan Nations (white supremacist group)
- Peter Marshall - popular minister; U.S. Senate Chaplain; portrayed in book/movie A Man Called Peter
- Carl McIntyre - minister; anti-Communist; co-founded American and International Council of Churches in order to protest liberalism in National and World Councils of Churches
- Alexander Campbell - Former Presbyterian who became co-founder of the Churches of Christ (Stone-Campbell Restoration movement)
- John Glas - Scottish Presbyterian clergyman who was the founder of the offshoot denomination Sandemanianism (also known as "Glasites")
- Thomas Cartwright - father of English Presbyterianism
- Charles Stelzle - "apostle to labor"; American labor reformer; laid groundwork for National Council of Churches

Activists:

- Donaldina Cameron - missionary, social activist; broke Chinese slave trade in the U.S.
- Elijah Lovejoy - an American who was martyred for the abolitionist cause (the effort to free the slaves)
- William Sheppard - African-American missionary; helped end terror and extortion used by rubber companies in the Belgian Congo

Business:

- Andrew Carnegie - American businessman, philanthropist; at one time the wealthiest man in the world
- Ross Perot - billionaire businessman; third-party U.S. Presidential candidate
- Sam Walton - founder of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer
- Philip Anschutz - billionaire businessman, founder of Qwest (regularly attends an Evangelical Presbyterian church)