 Notables & Celebrities
"I was ambitious and knew I would not have children. I wanted total freedom."
--Katharine Hepburn
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The Long List of
Childfree (and Childless)
in History: Part 2
People [A-M] /
People [N-Z]
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- Ralph Nader
Activist
"Not having a family was clearly a choice, a sacrifice," Nader has admitted. "If you want to deal with these corporate abuses, you have to give up things."
- Taslima Nasrin
Author
- Alla Nazimova
Actress
- Noel Neill
Actress, "Lois Lane" on TV's Superman
- Bebe Neuwirth
Actress, Star of Cheers
- Sir Isaac Newton
Scientist
- Stevie Nicks
Singer, Fleetwood Mac
"For me, the price was that I never married and never had children because there was never time. And if I had ever decided to do any of that it would have taken Fleetwood Mac off for two years and the band would have broken up. So that wasn't even acceptable. That wasn't even a choice."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Philosopher
- Florence Nightingale
Nurse
- Ursula Nordstrom
Childrens' Book Editor/ Harper & Row
"During her 40-year career as children's editor at Harper & Row, Nordstrom published most of the best and the brightest writers and illustrators for children: Margaret Wise Brown, E.B. White, Maurice Sendak, Garth Williams, Charlotte Zolotow, Louise Fitzhugh, Russell Hoban and Shel Silverstein. Once asked by a critical librarian what qualified her to publish children's books, Nordstrom pointedly replied: 'Well, I am a former child, and I haven't forgotten a thing.'"
- Jessye Norman
Opera Singer
- Hermione Norris
Actress
- Kim Novak
Actress
- Rudolph Nureyev
Dancer
"They wouldn't be as good as I am, and then I wouldn't know what to do with the little imbeciles."
- Anita O'Day
Jazz Singer
“Ethel Kennedy dropped 11. There are enough people in the world. I did my part by raising dogs.”
- Georgia O'Keeffe
Artist
- Frederick D. O'Neal
Actor/ Playwright
- Joyce Carol Oates
Author
- Beth Ostrosky
Actress, Model
- Claire Parker
Director, Animator
"Having no children of their own, which had been part of their marriage agreement, Claire and Alosha welcomed into their animation family a young Canadian animator, Jacques Drouin."
- Dorothy Parker
Author
Having no children, Dorothy Parker left the NAACP the rights to her literary estate.
- Suzanne-Lori Parks
Playwright
- Rosa Parks
Activist
- Dolly Parton
Singer / Actress
"I was feeling guilty about not having kids, about having a career, that I'm not the woman I should be because I don't have a desire to have them, that I was selfish."
- Julia Pascal
Playwright
"I’ve never wanted children..."
- Ann Patchett
Author
"The thing in my life that is most extraordinary is that I have always known what I have wanted to do...I have never wavered. I never wanted to get married, I never wanted children, I never wanted to be rich, I never wanted a big house… everything was designed for this one thing: I wanted to write."
- Alicia Patterson
Editor
- Wolfgang Pauli
Physicist
- Linus Pauling
Winner of Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace
- Michelle Paver
Author
- Anna Pavlova
Dancer
- Molly Peacock
Poet/ President Emerita of the Poetry Society of America, Wrote a memoir called Paradise, Piece by Piece about her decision not to have a child.
"We live in a pronatalist culture, so when you decide not to have children, you find yourself at the far edge of the bell curve. How do you live happily there? Well, you live happily there if you are comfortable with your own nature. And that requires talking about how to separate motherhood from female identity. It's still a taboo subject -- not even discussed in women's studies programs. And endlessly fascinating to me, especially as the Census Bureau tells us we will be seeing increasing numbers of people making this decision."
- Minnie Pearl
Singer
- Samuel Pepys
Author
- Bernadette Peters
Actress, Star of Impromptu
- Arthur Phillip
First British Administrator Sent to Australia
- Wendell Phillips
Orator and Reformer
- William Phillips
Cofounder and Editor of Partisan Review , Writer, Critic
- Marge Piercy
Author/ Poet
- Plato
Philosopher
- Edgar Allan Poe
Author
- Katherine Ann Porter
Author
- Parker Posey
Actress
- Beatrix Potter
Children's Book Author
- Charles Edward Potter
Politician/ Philanthropist/ Administrator of the Cheboygan County Bureau of Social Aid from 1938 to 1942
- Joyce Purnick
Former New York Times Metro Editor, Journalist
"Dedicated to the principle of fairness, Purnick, decreed that all reporters would have to work their share of weekends and holidays. She further fanned the flames when she gave a graduation speech at Barnard College in which she had the temerity to suggest that it wasn't necessarily possible to have it all. According to Burkett, Purnick said, "If I had left the Times to have children and then come back to work a four-day week the way some women reporters on my staff now do, or if I had taken long vacations and leaves to be with my family, or left the office at six o'clock, instead of eight or nine, I wouldn't be metro editor. Should women and men who have taken the detour of the Mommy-Daddy track be as far along as those who haven't? Would that be fair? I reluctantly have to say that it would not be fair."
- Edna Purviance
Silent Movie Actress
- Colin Quinn
Comedian
- Robin Quivers
Radio Host
- Raffi
Childrens' Musician
- Bonnie Raitt
Singer / Songwriter
- Joey Ramone
Musician
- Ayn Rand
Writer / Philosopher, Author of Atlas Shrugged
- A. Philip Randolph
Politician
- Jeanette Rankin
1st Female US Representative
- Man Ray
Artist
- Rachel Ray
Celebrity Chef
"I don't have time. I work too much to be an appropriate parent. I feel like a bad mom to my dog some days because I'm just not here enough. I just feel like I would do a bad job if I actually took the time to literally give birth to a kid right now and try and juggle everything I'm doing."
- Lou Reed
Singer, Musician
- George Reeves
Actor, Star of the Superman television series
- Frances Reid
Soap Opera Actress
"But thanks to her father, Reid didn't follow the conventional social wisdom. Although she was married to the late actor Phillip Bourneuf for 43 years, the couple never had children. Most people might find it hard to believe, considering she epitomizes matriarchy on Days of our Lives...When not acting, Frances is an inveterate traveler. Her vacations find her in such exotic locales as South Africa, Peru, China and Egypt and the more mundane but no less exciting cities of Europe, most recently those in Italy."
- Leni Riefenstahl
Filmmaker
- Janet Reno
Former U.S. Attorney-General
- Judith Resnick
Astronaut
- Jennifer Rhodes
Actress, T.V. Show Charmed
"I was in my dentist’s office in the waiting room and somebody walked by and said, ‘Hi, Grams.’ Having never had children, that always sort of startles me."
- Condoleezza Rice
National Security Advisor
- Cliff Richards
Musician
"Well, there was a time, when… you know, everybody goes through that thing about, 'Oh, I'd like to be a father and make sure that the bloodline goes on', but, you know, as I've got older, I thought, 'Perhaps that's the wrong reason to have children. Maybe that's why we do have a lot of children who are out in the streets, because that's wanting a child for my sake, whereas a couple who give birth to a child, they should be doing it not only for their sake but mostly for the fact that they are bringing another human being into the world. And that other human being needs to be grown-up sensible, balanced, sane and… you know, in the mad world, but nevertheless able to combat it. So, less and less now do I feel that feeling of 'Well, I've never had a child and I regret it.' I've enjoyed having children around, but, you know, it's wonderful, they all go home and I can eat my porridge and watch the telly!"
- Miranda Richardson
Actress
- Alan Rickman
Actor / Director
"Not having had children has given me more space to work, I'm sure that's true, and when I work I'm very driven, but otherwise I don't sit around missing acting."
- Elizabeth Riddell
Journalist
"I never wanted children. I wanted to have my own life and then I wanted my life with Blue...when my relatives had children and sometimes bring them round, I say, 'Look I'll give them money, and when they're older, we'll talk', but they're bored stiff and so am I."
- Sally Ride
First American Female Astronaut
- Bridget Riley
Artist
- John Ringling
Founder, Ringling Brothers Circus
- Morgan Andrew Robertson
Author
- Debbie Rochon
B Movie Actress
- Norman Perceval Rockwell
Illustrator
- Eric Rohmann
Author, Winner of the 2003 Caldecott Medal for Best Illustrated Children's Book
- Joey Ramone
Musician
- Ginger Rogers
Actress
- Richard Roeper
Film Reviewer, Chicago Sun-Times
"Lately it seems as if everybody I know is having a baby, thinking about having a
baby, talking about their babies, e-mailing digital photos of their babies to
the world, or consulting with their babies about having more babies. ('Dylan, I
know you're only 7 months old but you're the smartest boy who ever lived. Would
you like a little brother named Tyler, or a sister named Hunter?') Except me, of course."
- Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
Actress
"I have nine horses. Whenever I think I might want to have a child, I buy a horse instead."
- Wilhelm Rontgen
Awarded the first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901, discoverer of X-Rays
- Mickey Rourke
Actor/ Boxer
- Patricia Routledge
Actress
- Joan Ruddock
Activist
- John Ruskin
Author
- Winona Ryder
Actress
- Dr. Lee Salk
Child Psychologist
- Renu Saluja
Indian Film Editor
- Diana Sands
Actress
- Aligi Sassu
Artist
- John Sayles
Director
- Jean-Paul Sartre
Existential Philosopher
- Diane Sawyer
TV News Anchor
- Rosika Schwimmer
Author, Activist
- Ed and Thelma Schoenberger
Co-founders of the Indiana Flower & Patio Show
"Ed recently donated $1 million to the St. Vincent Foundation, designating the money to be used to create and maintain gardens of flowers and trees at St. Vincent Hospice in Indianapolis. Schoenberger viewed the gift as a tribute to his wife, Thelma, who died at the hospice in 1997. The Schoenbergers began dating at Broad Ripple High School -- a budding romance that grew into more than 50 years of marriage. They had no children, so they poured their love into an event that brought hope and joy to millions of people. In 1958, the Schoenbergers started the Flower & Patio Show, which runs through Sunday at the Indiana State Fairgrounds."
- Ellen Browning Scripps
Newspaper Columnist, Philanthropist
"She picked a cause or institution she found deserving of her support, set the level of her gift, and stuck to her decision. In accordance with her wishes, no public record was kept of her gifts, so the entirety of her philanthropy will probably never be known."
- Joel Schumacher
Film Director
- Maurice Sendak
Children's Book Author, Where the Wild Things Are
"He chose not to have children of his own, fearing that "to fail as a parent is to fail on the highest level."
- George Bernard Shaw
Playwright
- Lionel Shriver
Author
"For me, establishing myself as a writer was so important, and took so long, that it consumed my entire reproductive lifetime ... I didn't feel I could afford the distraction and emotional energy that it would have taken to try and raise a family at the same time."
- Michael Sinelnikoff
Actor
- Siouxsie
Singer/ Musician, Siouxsie and the Banshees
"I've never wanted children, only cats. I'll cross the street to stroke one."
- Robert Smith
Singer/ Musician, The Cure
"I'm big in the uncle department...I like having kids for weekends...I just like taking them out and teaching them bad tricks...I hate the idea of being a dad. I'm too undisciplined and too selfish to be a father."
- David Shogren
Bassist, Doobie Brothers
- Betty Smith
Author
- Dodie Smith
Playwright, Author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians
- Howard Worth Smith
Politician
- Kate Smith
Singer
- Lemony Snicket (Real Name: Daniel Handler)
Childrens' Book Author
- David Souter
Supreme Court Justice
- Jill St. John
Actress
- Mabel Stark
World's Greatest Female Tiger Trainer
- Gertrude Stein
Author, Patron of the Arts
- Victor Strauss
WWII Journalist
- Gloria Steinem
Activist/ Writer
- Maria W. Stewart
Author, Activist
- Lily Strickland
Composer, Writer, Artist
- Patrick Swayze
Actor, Star of Donnie Darko
- Loretta Swit
Actress
- Wanda Sykes
Stand Up Comic
- Henrietta Szold
Holocaust Heroine
During the 1930s, Szold involved Hadassah in a program to rescue
Jewish youth from Germany, and later from all of Europe. It is
estimated that the program she created, Youth Aliyah, saved some
22,000 Jewish children from Hitler's concentration camps.
- Wislawa Szymborska
Nobel Prize Winning Poet
"There are people who say, 'Let more people be born, because the earth can sustain them all.' I don't agree with that. We all know how many people die of malnutrition and diseases that should be extinct."
- Quentin Tarantino
Director of Pulp Fiction
- Sara Teasdale
Poet
- Toni Tennille
Singer, Captain and Tennille
- Nikola Tesla
Scientist, Inventor
- Theodora
Empress and wife of Justinian I
- Marlo Thomas
Actress
- Susanna Thompson
Actress
- Georgianne Thon
Actress
- M. Carey Thomas
President of Bryn Mawr College
- Willie Mae Thornton
Singer/ Songwriter
- Jennifer Tilly
Actress
- Wendy Tokunaga
Author
- Lily Tomlin
Actress, Playwright
- Ann Turkel
Model
- Randy Travis
Singer
- Edward Tylor
Anthropologist
- Andrew Vachss
Novelist
- Vivian Vance
Actress, Star of I Love Lucy
- Zebulon Baird Vance
Politician
- Luthur Vandross
Singer
- Ann Van Dyk
Cheetah Preservationist
- Reginald VelJohnson
Actor
- Mariska Veres
Singer, The Shocking Blue
- Amerigo Vespucci
Navigator
- Carl Vinson
Politician
- Monica Vitti
Actress
- Larry Wachowski
Film Director
- Christopher Walken
Actor, Star of Pulp Fiction
"I'm too selfish to have children," Walken once said. "Besides, my wife has enough trouble with me."
- Bob Wallace
Computer Shareware Pioneer, Philanthropist, Founding Employee of Microsoft
- Nina Wang
Ranked by Forbes Magazine as Asia's 35th Richest Person and Asia's Richest Woman
- Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
Author
- Ethel Waters
Actress, Evangelist, Singer
- John Waters
Director
- Alberta Watson
Canadian Actress
"Watson, who has no children but "lots of animals, dogs and cats," grew up in Toronto and came to the United States about 13 years ago."
- Bill Watterson
Cartoonist, Creator of Calvin and Hobbes
- Dawn Wells
Actress, Gilligan's Island
Recently she took a trip to Africa, joining climbers on an excursion to the lair of mountain gorillas. "I climbed from eight thousand to twelve thousand feet in one day, hacking through the jungle, and I got ten feet from the silverback gorilla and the whole family. Even now I get goose bumps - it's like taking yourself back to prehistoric times. This five-hundred pound creature looking you in the eye - no hostility - gentleness, curiosity, total trust. It was really something, it almost changes your life. I've traveled a lot, to Russia and all of that, but Africa - that was a real experience for me."
- Eudora Welty
Author
- Mae West
Actress, Comedian
"I never wanted children. I thought it would change me--mentally, physically and psychologically. I was always too absorbed in myself and I didn't have time for anybody else. I was talked into marriage once and maybe it was a good thing--I might have gotten married 10 times if I had been free all those years. But you know, a woman becomes a different person when she gets married. She lives for her husband and her family. I wanted to live for myself."
- Edith Wharton
Author
- Raymond Milner Wheeler
Civil Rights Activist
- Alan Whicker
TV Host/ Documentarian
"...I think what you’ve never had you never miss and I’ve never had a family Christmas...it’s always been a twosome. I know it’s a naughty thing to say but I don’t feel deprived. I’ve been asked in the past and said I’m sure I’ll regret it some day but I must confess I haven’t. I don’t think the world would be a better place if there were lots of little Whickers running about."
- Baroness White
Former UK Labour Government Minister
- Betty White
Actress, Star of The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- Margaret Bourke-White
Photographer
- Sarah Helen Power Whitman
Poet, Essayist, Transcendentalist
- Walt Whitman
Poet
- Richard (Dick) Whittington
English Philanthropist made famous by the children's book, Dick Whittington
- Ann Widdecombe
UK Member of Parliament
- Toyah Wilcox
Punk Rocker, Activist
- Thornton Wilder
Playwright
- Barry Williams
Actor, The Brady Bunch
- Lucinda Williams
Musician
- Robbie Williams
Musician
"I don't believe that to be fulfilled you have to have kids. What's the point? I can't guarantee my child won't suffer pain because that kid's going to be in pain at some point in their life. I don't want to see that. It's too much."
- Wendy O. Williams
Singer, The Plasmatics
- August Wilson
Pulizer Prize Winning Playwright
- Bill W. (Wilson)
Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous
- Oprah Winfrey
Talk Show Host
"Balance? That's why I don't have children...With a net worth of more than $1 billion, Oprah says she is focusing her resources to help "the world's children." Oprah is devoting her private time to help build 12 schools for girls in Africa within the next two years."
- Barbara Windsor
Actress: Eastenders
"I never wanted children," she says. "My aunt said that whenever a new baby arrived in the family, I was nowhere to be seen. I got into showbiz young and that became my family. I've given 101 per cent to my career, there wasn't any room left for children."
- Simpson Windsor
Duchess of Windsor
- Edgar Winter
Musician
"On one hand, I can see how that would be a wonderful rewarding thing, but I think there are enough people in the world. I think we have a great relationship and it's enough for us."
- Jeanette Winterson
Author
- Estelle Winwood
English Actress
- Kim Woodburn
Co-Star of TV Cleaning Duo Kim and Aggie
- Robert Winship Woodruff
Former CEO of Coca Cola/ Philanthropist
"Mr. Woodruff gave anonymously to many institutions, a number of which owe their very existence to his generosity. Much of his philanthropy was directed through the Trebor Foundation, established in 1937 (renamed the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation following his death). The Foundation received funds from the estate of Mr. Woodruff's wife, Nell Hodgson Woodruff, who died in 1968, and from Mr. Woodruff's estate. The Woodruffs had no children."
- Leonard Woolf
Having a child is problematic. It concerns the "new human being" as much as its parents, since this new human being is born without having given its consent. One should think twice, "from the point of view of the hypothetical child."
- Virginia Woolf
Author, Mrs. Dalloway
- Orville Wright
Aviator
- Stephen J. Wright
College President/ Fisk University
- Wilbur Wright
Aviator
- Yanni
Composer
- Dwight Yokam
Singer, Actor
- Marguerite Yourcenar
Author/ First Woman To Be Elected To The Academie Francaise
"Leaving behind books is even more beautiful -- there are far too many children.."
- David Young
Almanac Maker, Astronomer, Poet
- YuPen
Chinese Actor, Singer
"Because my parent's marriage was an unhappy one that resulted in a divorce because of their difference of personality, I've decided not to have children when I marry." [But what if his future wife wants children?] "Then I guess I won't marry and will just leave the duty of producing grandchildren on my younger brother!"
- Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Olympic Athlete/ Greatest female athlete in the first half of the 20th Century
- Billy Zane
Actor
- Renee Zellweger
Actress
- Stephanie Zimbalist
Actress
- Émile Zola
Author
A Course in Miracles was initially scribed and edited during the years of 1965–1972 by two professors of medical psychology at Columbia University: Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford. Follow a course in miracles
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