by Tom Ontis

Created on: July 28, 2008

How much time do you have? I'm a proud native of California and I have no plans to ever leave, for good. Vacations and trips to out of state events don't count. I've lived, I've loved, I've eaten, I've drank, I've gone to school and many, many other things in California. I've never invented anything, have never run for political office, have never written the great American novel, but I can always brag that I am from California. I don't consider myself famous, but...

With all this in mind, California has produced thousands of people who at some point in their lives became literal household names for a variety of reasons.

Probably the most famous of all Californians is Ronald Reagan, who before serving as governor in the 1960's and 1970's was an actor of some repute, though I confess I have only seen one or two of his pictures. My mother used to call him "the 'B' Errol Flynn." After serving 8 years as governor, he bided his time and landed this pretty important post as the leader of the free world: President of the United States. No matter how you feel about his politics, he is famous.

We have a family story: My uncle Dutch grew up in a variety of towns and villages in northern California. One of them was Santa Rosa, about 60 miles north of San Francisco. The entire family bounced between Napa, Santa Rosa and San
Francisco, though my uncle was born not to far from Placerville, in El Dorado County. In one of their times in Santa Rosa, they settled next to a rancher who was working on breeding different kinds of fruit, mostly citrus fruit. My uncle liked to sneak over the fence and take lemons. One day he was caught by the rancher, who told him that if wanted lemons, just to ask and he would get them. That rancher was the famed Luther Burbank. That was my uncle's 15 minutes of fame.

Many, many stars are from California, more specifically southern California. Michelle Pffeifer grew up in Orange County. Richard Dreyfuss grew up in the shadow of Hollywood, as did Harrison Ford, both of whom would became very recognizable and very well paid movie stars. Staying with the movie genre, George Lucas, of 'Star Wars' fame grew up in Modesto, in the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley. His breakout movie 'American Grafitti,' while filmed largely in San Rafael, north of San Francisco, was about his youth in Modesto.

There are a plethora of professional athletes from California: Bob Mathias, who won a gold medal in the Olympic Decathalon and later served as a United States Congressman

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