Tina Fey was born and raised in Upper Darby. She attended Cardington Stonehurst Elementary School, Beverly Hills Middle School, and attended and graduated from Upper Darby High School.

Fey graduated from the University of Virginia in 1992 with a BA in drama. Her career took off while performing with The Second City in 1997. She submitted several scripts to Saturday Night Live, and was hired by the show's producer, Lorne Michaels, as a writer. She was an "extra" in a 1988 episode, lost weight and began appearing on screen.

In 2001, Fey and the rest of the writers for SNL won a Writers Guild of America Award for SNL's 25th Anniversary Show. The following year, they won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program.

In 2002, Fey suggested a pilot episode for a sitcom about a cable news network at NBC. Though the pilot was rejected, it gave her the impetus to create another pilot that ended up airing as 30 Rock.

In 2007, Fey received an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series, while 30 Rock won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series.

After receiving 13 Emmy Award nominations in 2012, 30 Rock ended its run and has been hailed as "one of the greatest TV series of all time."

In 2011, Fey landed at the top of Forbe's Magazine's list of highest paid actresses. She continues her acting career, provides voiceovers for animated films, narrates, raps and has become a bestselling author with her book, Bossy Pants.

She is also listed on the Upper Darby High School Wall of Fame.

Robert Churchill Francis, born and raised in Upland, Delaware County, was considered by Robert Frost to be our country's "most neglected poet."

He wrote in "a clear, concise, musical style somewhat reminiscent of Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson”, yet his style was uniquely his own.

He studied at Harvard, and taught at workshops and universities across the country. He wrote a dozen books of poetry and received both the Shelley Memorial Prize and the Rome Prize Fellowship awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  He lived the majority of his life in a small house in Amherst, Massachusetts.

He died in 1987.

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Fair and Unfair

The beautiful is fair.  The just is fair.

Yet one is commonplace and one is rare,

One everywhere, one scarcely anywhere.

So fair unfair a world.  Had we the wit

To use the surplus for the deficit,

We'd make a fairer fairer world of it.

Robert Francis

Thomas Garrett was born to a prosperous family in Drexel Hill, Upper Darby. The house, Thornfield, where he was born and lived until 1822, still stands and is recorded on the National Register of Historic Places.

In a Quaker family already inclined towards abolitionism, Thomas became especially dedicated after a family servant was kidnapped by men, who planned to sell the woman as a slave in the South.

Garrett split with his Orthodox Quaker family and moved to Wilmington in the neighboring slave state of Delaware to pursue his struggle against slavery. While building a prosperous iron and hardware business, he also served as stationmaster on the last stop of the Underground Railroad, the pathway to the North for blacks seeking freedom from slavery.

Facing heavy fines for his activities, Garrett continued his mission until the Civil War ended slavery. He is known for having assisted 2500 slaves to freedom.

Garrett died in 1871 and his body was carried to his internment along the streets of Wilmington, to the Quaker Meeting House on 4th Street by freed slaves.

DoDo Hamilton lived in Wayne, Delaware County. She was an American heiress of the Campbell Soup fortune and was one of the wealthiest Americans according to Forbes Magazine. She was a supporter of many Philadelphia organizations including the University of the Arts, Bryn Mawr Hospital and Thomas Jefferson University.

Following the death of her husband in 1997, DoDo founded the SVB Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve rare breeds of livestock. It is the only private organization in the United States that gathers and stores semen and embryos of the animals in its collection. SVB is located in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the places where the Hamiltons owned a home.

Throughout her life she loved gardens and horticulture and was an annual participant in the Philadelphia Flower Show. After visiting the Williamson College of the Trades in Media, PA, she fostered its horticulture program and donated significantly to its program.

Mrs. Hamilton passed away on April 18, 2017 at her home in Boca Grande, Florida at the age of 89.

Brian Hayes grew up in Upper Darby and graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1967. He never attended college and got his first job after high school as a writer for a bowling newsletter. By age 20 he had secured a job as a copy editor for The Baltimore Sun. A year later he took charge of the newspaper's Sunday book-review section.

His major interests had always been in science, and still in his early 20s, by skill, talent and hubris he landed a job on the editorial staff of Scientific American, which at that time was the most distinguished monthly journal of discovery. He became chief editor of and column writer for the magazine, and remained with the publication into the early 1980s.

Since 1993 he has been writing the Computing Science column for American Scientist, a renowned magazine among scientific scholars. His work has also appeared in many other publications including The American Scholar, The Norton Reader, Discover and Natural History. He is also the author of two books: Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape, and Group Theory in the Bedroom, and Other Mathematical Diversions.

Though Lee Iacocca was born in Allentown, his legacy began in the Ford Motors Chester plant. After earning his Masters Degree from Princeton University he secured a much sought-after engineering trainee job with Ford in 1946.

Engineering trainees did a stint working on the floor at the Rouge, but he wanted to sell cars, not build them. In 1949, he transferred back East as fleet sales manager for Ford's Chester, Pennsylvania zone office. One promotion he brainstormed while in Chester is still known in Ford folklore as the Iacocca Plan. In 1956, buyers in the Chester territory were offered a new 1956 Ford for $56 a month. It was thunderously successful. Iacocca was yanked back to Dearborn, Michigan and became head of the Ford Division in 1961.

While at Ford, Iacocca pioneered the building of the ever-popular Mustang. In 1970 he rose to the presidency of Ford and earned a reputation for being one of the greatest salesmen in U.S. history.

Iaccoca went from Ford to Chrysler in 1978 and turned Chrysler around from losses to posting huge profits in 1984.

In 1999, Iacocca ventured into E-bikes, and still worked at the age of 90. He died on July 2, 2019.

Harry Norbert Kalas was born in 1936 in Naperville, Illinois, but became the beloved voice of the Philadelphia Phillies from 1971 until his death in 2009.

He was a long time resident of Media and made his mark in Delaware County as he did with fans throughout the Philadelphia region.

Kalas graduated from the University of Iowa in 1959, was drafted into the US Army and stationed in Hawaii, and after discharge began calling minor-league game baseball games for the Hawaii Islanders team.

He made his major-league debut in 1965 with the Houston Astros and called the first game at the Astrodome in 1965. In 1971 Kalas came to Philadelphia as the replacement for Bill Campbell, calling the first game at Veterans Stadium. He also called the last game at Veterans Stadium in 2003 and the first game at Citizens Bank Park in 2004.

Kalas also worked with NFL Films following the passing of John Facenda.

Harry Kalas received many awards throughout his lifetime including the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Person of the Year by the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia in 2004. He was also inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Only 21 others have received this distinction.

Anna Moffo was born in Wayne, Pennsylvania to first generation Italian parents. After graduating from Radnor High School where she performed in school shows and plays, she turned down an offer from Hollywood to attend the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

Moffo continued her education in Rome where she studied with Mercedes Llopart and Luigi Ricci. She made her official operatic debut in 1955 at Spoleto as Norina in Don Pasquale. With very little experience, she was offered the challenging role of Cio-Cio in an Italian TV production of Madame Butterfly and became an overnight sensation in Italy.

After many roles overseas, Moffo returned for her American debut as Mimi in La Boheme at the Lyric Opera House in Chicago. Her Metropolitan Opera debut took place in 1959 when she appeared as Violetta in La Triviata, a part that would become her signature role. She performed at the Metropolitan Opera for 17 years, appeared in both movies and TV, and toured throughout the world.

Moffo's heavy workload led to physical exhaustion and a serious vocal breakdown in 1968 from which she never fully recovered. Her last performance at the Met was during the 1983 Centennial celebrations, where she sang the Sigmund Romberg duet Will you Remember with Robert Merrill.

Anna Moffo died in 2006 at the age of 73.

Alice Neel was an American painter and considered "one of the greatest portrait artists of the 20th century”.

She was born in Merion Square, Philadelphia in 1900 and moved to Colwyn, Delaware County in mid-1900. After graduating from Darby High School, Neel took a civil service exam and got a high-paying clerical position. While working, she enrolled in the Fine Arts program of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.

Neel's life was troubled and difficult. Her world was composed of artists. intellectuals and political leaders in the Communist party. Her paintings were predominately of friends, family and lovers she had met along the way. She lived in a mansion in Cuba and then became an impoverished single mother during the 1930s and 1940s.

Toward the end of the 1960s, the feminist movement brought intensity in the interest in Neel's work, and in 1970, Alice was commissioned to do a portrait of the feminist activist Kate Millet for Time magazine.

At the age of 79, Neel received the National Woman Caucus for Art award for outstanding achievement from President Jimmy Carter. She was given a retrospective of her work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1974, and in 2001 a retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since then she has hailed with retrospect at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, the Whitechapel Gallery in London and the Moderna Museet Malmo in Sweden, and interest in her art and life continues to grow thirty years after her death at age 84.

Though Nero has lived in Media, Delaware County for several years, he began life in Brooklyn, New York as Bernard Nierowin in 1934. Despite the fact that his family was non-musical, Nero showed remarkable natural ability on the piano after beginning lessons at age 7. While attending New York's High School of Music and Art, he won a scholarship to study part-time at the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan.

In 1951 he won a contest sponsored by New York radio station WQXR that was judged by an illustrious jury that included pianist Vladimir Horowitz. From there he went on to win several contest including Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts.

By the 1960s he became a sought after pianist of popular music and recorded more than twenty albums for RCA Victor in the 60s including a Grammy winning recording for Best Performance by an Orchestra or Instrumentalist with an Orchestra for The Colorful Peter Nero.

Since the early 1950s Nero made numerous appearances as a pianist in concert halls, theatres, and night clubs and on television throughout North America and Europe; has also appeared as a guest artist with various orchestras, including the Boston Pops. Conductor and music director for the Philly Pops since 1979; pop music director and conductor for the Florida Philharmonic since 1981, and for the Tulsa Philharmonic since 1987; has been guest conductor for dozens of other orchestras. He also was the composer of Sunday in New York (film score); Blue Fantasy and Improvisations; His World; 70 & Suite in Four Movements; The Diary.

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He died in Eustis, Florida, on July 6, 2023, at the age of 89.

Alex North (Isadore Soifer) was born to Russian immigrant parents in Chester, Delaware County in 1910.

He is best known for the 1955 song made famous by the Righteous Brothers in 1965, Unchained Melody. But beyond his success as a popular composer, he was revered for his scores for many Hollywood blockbusters including: Spartacus, Cleopatra, The Misfits, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Good Morning Vietnam, and A Streetcar Named Desire.

He was nominated for an Oscar 15 times, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy in 1986.

North was also recognized for his classical pieces and his television scores.

The American Film Institute ranked North's score for A Streetcar Named Desire No. 19 on its list of greatest film scores.

North passed away in 1991.

William Claude Dukenfield, better known as W.C. Fields, was born in Darby, Delaware County in 1880. As a child, he ran away from home repeatedly beginning at the age of nine. His education was sporadic and he did not get beyond grade school. At the age of 12 he worked selling produce for his father, followed by a stint at Strawbridge and Clothier, and then at an Oyster House. At 17 he performed a juggling act at church and theater shows.

Fields entered vaudeville as a "tramp juggler" in 1898, transforming into The Eccentric Juggler in 1900, and touring as "the world's greatest juggler". Broadway followed and then the movies where he adopted a persona as a "misanthropic and hard drinking egotist”. Among his trademarks were his raspy drawl and grandiloquent vocabulary. The character he played became synonymous with the person he appeared to be off screen.

Fields appeared in thirteen feature films for Paramount Pictures and achieved a career ambition in 1935 when he played Mr. Micawber in MGM's David Copperfield. He made numerous short films and in later life joined ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy on The Chase and Sanborn Hour for weekly comedy routines. His last performance was in 1946 on a spoken-word album recorded at Les Paul's studio where he reenacted some of his old routines.

W.C. Fields died on Christmas in 1946.

Frank Heyling Furness was born in Philadelphia in 1839. He designed more than 600 buildings, most of which were in the Philadelphia area. He is remembered for his eclectic, "muscular" and strangely scaled buildings. Surviving works include the University of Pennsylvania Library, Merion Cricket Club, and the Baldwin School.

Idlewild, located on Idlewild Circle in Media, was his summer home. It's just a short walk from the Moylan-Rose Valley train station, which enabled Furness to commute to his architectural office in Philadelphia.

Though much of his work was destroyed for being "out of fashion with the times”, his legacy remains strong. The 2012 centenary of Furness' death was observed with exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, and the Delaware Historical Society.

Idlewild was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

Bill Haley (William John Clifton Haley) was born in Highland Park, Michigan in 1925, and moved with his family to Boothwyn, Pennsylvania when he was 7. Both of his parents were musicians, and Haley began playing on a cardboard guitar he made himself.

Haley had his first professional job at the age of 13, playing and entertaining at an auction for $1 a night. He left home at 15, working at whatever jobs were presented and became known for his yodeling and his western swing style.

Moving back to Pennsylvania, Haley became music director of Chester radio station WPWA (later designated WCZN), a job that he held for six years while also playing at clubs around Philadelphia, in a group known as Bill Haley's Saddlemen. The group recorded Rocket 88 in 1951, a song that predated Rock Around the Clock and is thought by some historians as the first rock and roll record.

He renamed the group Bill Haley with Haley's Comets in 1953 (changing it to Bill Haley & His Comets), and recorded Rock Around the Clock in 1954. Though unsuccessful on its release, the song became a number one hit around the world after appearing as the theme song for the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle starring Glenn Ford.

Though historically significant, Haley and his group had few hits in the U.S. His success was eclipsed in 1956 by a younger and sexier Elvis Presley, who soon owned the Rock and Roll brand created by Haley.

Bill Haley continued to perform throughout the world until his death in 1981 at the age of 55.

Brendan Joseph Hansen was born in 1981 and grew up in Havertown, Delaware County. He is a competitive swimmer who specializes in breaststroke events. He is a six-time (three gold, one silver, two bronze) Olympic medalist, and is also a former world record-holder in both the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke.

He has won a total of twenty-five medals in major competitions spanning the Olympics, the World Championships and the Pan Pacific Championships. He has been competing since 2001 and is known for his unique style of breaststroke, which incorporates a kick that is much narrower than other swimmers.

Most recently, Brendan was a member of the 2012 United States Olympic team and won the bronze medal in the 100-meter breaststroke and a gold medal in the 4x100-meter relay.

Hansen is also a former record holder of the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke, as well as the 4x100-meter medley, long and short course.

Best known as Amy MacDougall-Barone, girlfriend then wife of Raymond's brother Robert, on the TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, Horan grew up in Darby and attended Archbishop Pendergast High School in Upper Darby. She credits her acting career and motivation on her participation in the Delaware County Center of the Performing Arts where she performed during High School.

She attended Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, graduating with a degree in Theater Performance in 1984 and then moved to New York City where she performed in off-off Broadway theatre while working as a telephone sales agent for Telecharge.

Her career includes stints on TV shows, L.A. Law, In Living Color, The Bold and the Beautiful, and most recently The Middle.

She met and married married the Executive Producer of Everybody Loves Raymond, and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

Joan Jett was born Joan Marie Larkin in Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood in 1958. Her parents lived in Lansdowne, Delaware County.

Joan had her first guitar lesson at the age of 14, but quit soon after because her instructor taught folk music rather than rock.

She and her parents moved to Los Angeles where she was exposed to "glam rock" music and its style of performance.

In the early '70s she became a founding member of The Runaways, alongside drummer Sandy West and Jackie Fox, Lita Ford, and Cherie Currie. Jett shared some lead vocals, played rhythm guitar, and co-wrote songs for the group.

In the 1980s Joan performed with the Blackhearts and released the hit albums, Album (1983) and Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth (1984) with a string of Top 40 hits following. She performed in sell out tours with The Police, Queen and Aerosmith.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts continue to perform to sell out crowds around the world with groups such as Nirvana, Aerosmith and the Foo Fighters. She and Hot Topic released Joan's first line of clothing in 2014.

The Crozer Theological Seminary was a multi-denominational religious institution located in Upland, Delaware County. The seminary mostly served as an American Baptist Church School for the training of students for entry into the Baptist Ministries.

Of its many notable students, the most famous was Martin Luther King, Jr. who entered the institution in 1948 and graduated in 1951. King later studied and earned his doctorate at Boston University.

Needless to say, this graduate from the seminary became one of the most celebrated American figures of the 20th century. In 1964, King received the Nobel Prize Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through non-violence. He helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches, worked on the issue of housing segregation in Chicago, and expanded his focus to include poverty and the Vietnam War.

King was assassinated in 1968 and posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986.

A native of Chester, Pennsylvania, Danny Murtaugh played during nine seasons for the Philadelphia Phillies (1941–43, 1946), Boston Braves (1947) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1948–51).

Most notable is that Murtaugh became the second winningest manager in Pittsburgh Pirates history behind Hall of Famer Fred Clarke and is one of two managers to spend four or more stints with one club.

Murtaugh took over the helm of the Pirates big club in 1957 and turned around the Pittsburgh franchise to finish 7th the season he took over for Bobby Bragen and then beat the heavily favored New York Yankees in the 1960 World Series. The 1960 World Series is the only Fall Classic to end on a walk off home run as Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski blasted a home run off New York’s Ralph Terry in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7.

Health issues forced Murtaugh to resign following the 1964 season, but he would manage three more times with the Pirates. In 1970 and 1971, Danny led the Pirates to the National League East title and his second World Series title. Danny Murtaugh compiled a 1,115-950 record over 15 seasons with the Pirates (1957-1064, 1967, 1970-1971, 1973-1976).

Born in 1982, Jameer Nelson is an American professional basketball player from Chester, PA who attended Chester High School in Chester and was a letterman in basketball. In 2000, he helped lead his team to the PIAA AAAA State championship.

Nelson led the Saint Joseph's Hawks to a 27–0 regular season record in 2003–04 and ecause of his extraordinary accomplishments as a senior, he won the 2004 Wooden Award, the 2004 Naismith Award, the 2004 Bob Cousy Award, the Rupp Trophy, the Oscar Robertson Trophy and many more accolades, including being featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Nelson was the first Atlantic 10 athlete to be on the cover of the magazine since Mark Macon in 1988.

Over his career, he has played for the Dallas Mavericks, the Boston Celtics, the Denver Nuggets and most recently the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Saint Joseph's Hawks, where he was named national college player of the year in 2004. Drafted 20th overall in the 2004 NBA draft, Nelson spent the first ten years of his NBA career with the Orlando Magic. In 2009, he was named an All-Star and helped lead the Magic to the NBA Finals. He has also played for the Dallas Mavericks, Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets.

On October 22, 2017, Nelson signed with the New Orleans Pelicans.

Agnes Nixon is a writer and producer best known for her soap operas, All My Children, One Life to Live, and Loving. She lived in Radnor for more than 28 years.

She began her career in "soaps" as a writer on Woman in White, As the World Turns, Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light and Another World, where she created the character of Rachel Davis, an early prototype of one of her more lasting creations, Erica Kane played by Susan Lucci.

Agnes Nixon began addressing social issues in 1962 after a friend died of cervical cancer. She wrote the struggle into Guiding Light and had difficulty with certain words that could not be used on TV such as "uterus", "cancer" or "pap test”. Despite this limitation, the number of women who took a pap smear surged dramatically.

In 1970, Nixon got the green light for All My Children, a soap opera that addressed social issues such as the anti-war movement, homosexuality, AIDS and American television's first onscreen abortion, by character Erica Kane.

In 1983, Nixon began a series called Loving, a show that ended its run in 1997.

In 1992, Agnes Nixon was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, and in 2010 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Ms. Nixon died in September 2016 in Haverford, PA from pneumonia resulting from Parkinson’s disease.