Montessorians You May Know

Notable Former Montessori Students

Larry Page: Co-Founder of Google
Sergey Brin: Co-Founder of Google
Peter Drucker: Management Guru
Prince William & Prince Harry: English Royal Family
George Clooney: Academy Award-Winning Actor
Jeff Bezos: Founder of Amazon
Mark Zuckerberg: co-founder of Facebook – apparently educated at a Montessori school
Anne Frank: Famous Diarist from World War II
Friedensreich Hundertwasser: Austrian Painter and Architect
Bill Gates: Founder of Microsoft, Richest Man in the World
Jimmy Wales: Founder of Wikipedia
Will Wright: Designer of The Sims, Super Mario Brothers
Katherine Graham: Former Owner and Editor of the Washington Post
John and Joan Cusack: Actor and screenwriter, and Academy award-nominated actress, respectively
Sean Combs: Sean “P. Diddy” (aka “Puffy”) Combs, RAP Mega-Star
Julia Child: Famous Chef – Star of many TV cooking shows and author of numerous cookbooks Chef
Helen Hunt: Academy Award-Winning Actress
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Nobel Prize Winner for Literature
Joshua Bell: American Violinist, Owner of Stradivarius violin
Lea Salonga: Multi-Award Winning Filipino-American Singer and Broadway Actress
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: Former Editor and First Lady of the United States (President John F. Kennedy)
Berry Brazelton: Noted Pediatrician and Author
Kami Cotler: Actress – Youngest child on long-running series The Waltons
Melissa & Sarah Gilbert: Actors
Hugh Grant: Actor
Andrew Lloyd Webber: British Composer
Taylor Swift: Award winning musician
Devi Sridhar: youngest ever American Rhodes Scholar, author, oxford research fellow, oxford lecturer on global health politics
Alan Rickma : Actor
Anne Hathaway: Actress
HM Queen Noor of Jordan: U.N. Advisor, humanitarian activist, memoirist and wife of the late king hussein of Jordan
Beyonce Knowles: Singer, songwriter, actress and fashion designer,16-time Grammy award-winner
Helen Keller: Political activist, author, lecturer, awarded the presidential medal of freedom, one of gallup’s most widely admired people of the 20th century
Dakota Fanning: Actor
Erik Erikson: Psychologist & author
David Blaine: Illusionist & magician
Andrew McAfee: Co-director of the Initiative on the Digital Economy in the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Anthony Doerr: Author
Chelsea Clinton: Daughter of Bill & Hillary Clinton

Notable Individuals Who Chose Montessori for Their Children

Stephen J. Cannell: TV Writer, Producer, and Director – The Rockford Files and Many Other
Patty Duke Austin: Actress
Bill & Hillary Clinton: Former President and First Lady of the United States
Cher Bono: Singer and Actress
John Bradshaw: Psychologist and Author
Yul Brynner: Former Actor
Marcy Carcy: TV Producer
Michael Douglas: Actor
Shari Lewis: Former Puppeteer
Yo Yo Ma: Cellist
Willie Nelson: Musician – Has a Montessori school on his ranch
Elizabeth Berridge: Actress
David Blaine: Street Magician
Jennifer Granholm & Daniel Mulhern: Governor of Michigan
Gordon Ramsay: celebrity chef and author
Duke and Duchess of Canterbury: Prince George

Others With a Montessori Education Connection

Bruno Bettelheim: Noted Psychologist and Author – Married to a Montessori Teacher
Thomas Edison: Noted Scientist and Inventor – Helped Found a Montessori School
President Woodrow Wilson’s Daughter: Trained as a Montessori Teacher – There was a Montessori classroom in the basement of the White House during Wilson’s presidency.
Erik Erikson: Anthropologist and Author – Had a Montessori Teaching Certificate
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 many years.
Mister Rogers: Children’s TV Personality – Strong Supporter of Montessori Education
Alexander Graham & Mabel Bell: Inventor – Founded the Montessori Education Association in 1913. They also provided financial support directly to Dr. Maria Montessori and helped establish the first Montessori class in Canada and one of the first in the United States.
Alice Waters: Restaurateur and Writer – Former Montessori Teacher
Robert Frost: Poet Laureate. One of America’s best read poets.
Virginia Lee Burton: Author and Illustrator – Author of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, converted barn to Montessori School