A winter view of downtown Massapequa Park, Long Island. Photo: Robert Swanson (Ryssby), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
It is hard to think of another community on Long Island that has produced quite the combination of famous people that Massapequa has. Four brothers from one family became Hollywood actors. Three young musicians who grew up in the area took rockabilly to the top of the record charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Three brothers from another family played in the National Football League. And then, of course, there is Jerry Seinfeld.
Located on the South Shore of Nassau County, within the Town of Oyster Bay, Massapequa was once a very different place from the suburban community we know today. The area was home to farms, country estates and summer hotels. Railroad service arrived in 1867, making the shore accessible to vacationers from New York City. The Floyd-Jones family owned extensive property here, including estates along Merrick Road. The incorporated Village of Massapequa Park was established in 1931.
The years after World War II brought the most dramatic changes. Families moved out from New York City, houses replaced farms and estates, and new schools opened to accommodate the children of the postwar baby boom. Massapequa and Alfred G. Berner high schools would educate an extraordinary collection of future entertainers and athletes. The music stores, neighborhood bands, school auditoriums and athletic fields of the area became part of their stories.
For this article, we are including the greater Massapequa community, including Massapequa Park and North Massapequa. Our selections have local roots through birth, childhood or substantial formative school years, rather than simply owning a home here after becoming famous. The list is not ranked.
1. Jerry Seinfeld
Jerry Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn in 1954 and grew up in Massapequa, graduating from Massapequa High School in 1972. His father worked as a sign maker and had a keen appreciation for jokes. Jerry became fascinated by comedians while still young and eventually studied theater and communications at Queens College after attending SUNY Oswego.
Seinfeld developed his stand-up act in New York comedy clubs before making his breakthrough on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1981. He and Larry David created Seinfeld, which ran from 1989 to 1998 and made the peculiarities of everyday life the basis of one of television’s most influential comedies. He continued performing stand-up and later created Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Long before he became identified with Manhattan apartment living on television, he was growing up on Long Island.
2. Alec Baldwin
Born in neighboring Amityville in 1958, Alec Baldwin grew up in the Nassau Shores section of Massapequa. His father was a teacher and football coach, and Alec attended Alfred G. Berner High School. He initially studied political science at George Washington University before pursuing acting at New York University. His three younger brothers would follow him into the entertainment business.
After early television work on The Doctors and Knots Landing, Baldwin emerged as a major film actor in the late 1980s. His credits include Beetlejuice, The Hunt for Red October, Glengarry Glen Ross and The Cooler, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He won two Emmy Awards for playing network executive Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, demonstrating the comic abilities that became another important part of his career.
3. Daniel Baldwin
Daniel Baldwin was born in Massapequa in 1960, the second of the four Baldwin brothers. He attended McKenna Junior High School and graduated from Alfred G. Berner High School in 1979. Football was an important part of his school years, and he did not initially follow the same professional path as his older brother.
Daniel eventually studied acting in Manhattan and began working in films and television in the late 1980s. His most notable television role came as Detective Beau Felton on NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street. Among his film credits are Mulholland Falls, Trees Lounge and John Carpenter’s Vampires. Although often discussed as part of a famous acting family, Daniel established a substantial career of his own.
4. William Baldwin
William Baldwin, often known as Billy, was born in Massapequa in 1963 and attended Alfred G. Berner High School. He was an accomplished wrestler and continued competing at Binghamton University, where he earned a degree in political science. His association with amateur wrestling continued long after he became a movie star.
Following early modeling and acting work, Baldwin appeared in Born on the Fourth of July, Flatliners, Backdraft, Sliver and Fair Game. His later career included numerous television roles. The National Wrestling Hall of Fame recognized him with its Outstanding American award in 2003. He also supported local students through the Massapequa Fund. You can read more about his fellow alumni in our article on 25 famous people who graduated from Binghamton University.
5. Stephen Baldwin
The youngest of the Baldwin brothers, Stephen was born in Massapequa in 1966. Like his older brothers, he attended Alfred G. Berner High School and took part in wrestling. All four brothers grew up in the same Long Island household, but each developed a different career in film and television.
Stephen appeared alongside his brother William in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July and played William F. Cody on the television Western The Young Riders. His performance as Michael McManus in The Usual Suspects remains one of his best-known roles. He also starred in the comedy Bio-Dome and played Barney Rubble in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.
6. Brian Setzer
Brian Setzer was born in Massapequa in 1959. He developed an interest in guitar and the sounds of early rock and roll while growing up on Long Island, at a time when rockabilly was far removed from the prevailing trends in popular music. Before the Stray Cats, he played with the Bloodless Pharaohs, a band associated with the New York new wave scene.
In 1979, Setzer formed the Stray Cats with Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom. The three musicians headed to England the following year and eventually enjoyed international hits with songs including “Runaway Boys,” “Rock This Town” and “Stray Cat Strut.” In the 1990s, the Brian Setzer Orchestra helped bring big-band swing back into popular music. Setzer’s guitar work, particularly his association with Gretsch instruments, made him a major influence on subsequent generations of rock guitarists.
7. Lee Rocker
Born Leon Drucker in Massapequa in 1961, Lee Rocker grew up in a household where professional musicianship was part of everyday life. His father, Stanley Drucker, played clarinet with the New York Philharmonic, and his mother, Naomi Drucker, was also a classical clarinetist. Lee became friends with Brian Setzer and Slim Jim Phantom during his youth.
With the Stray Cats, Rocker made the upright bass a central part of the group’s sound and stage show. His approach helped a new generation of listeners discover the rhythmic possibilities of an instrument rarely seen in contemporary rock bands. He later worked with Slim Jim Phantom and guitarist Earl Slick in Phantom, Rocker & Slick and developed a solo career that included the albums Racin’ the Devil and Black Cat Bone.
8. Slim Jim Phantom
Drummer James McDonnell, better known as Slim Jim Phantom, grew up in Massapequa after being born in Brooklyn in 1961. His parents’ jazz records introduced him to drummers such as Max Roach and Art Blakey. He began taking drum lessons as a child and studied with Mousey Alexander, a musician whose own career included work with major jazz artists.
Phantom brought an unusually compact, often stand-up drumming setup to the Stray Cats, giving the band both a distinctive visual style and a propulsive sound. After the band’s initial period of success, he worked with artists including Lee Rocker, Earl Slick and members of other rockabilly and rock bands. His early friendship with Rocker and Setzer makes the Stray Cats one of the clearest examples of a band whose identity grew out of a shared Massapequa upbringing.
9. Elliot Easton
Elliot Easton was born in Brooklyn in 1953. After living in Forest Hills, his family moved to Massapequa when he was about six. In an interview with guitarist Tom Guerra, Easton recalled learning instrumental rock songs as a child, playing in a high school band and earning money to purchase left-handed guitars. One of his bands won a prize in a Nassau County battle of the bands that helped him acquire a new instrument.
Easton studied at Berklee College of Music and became the lead guitarist of The Cars. His melodic, concise solos were integral to songs such as “Just What I Needed” and “My Best Friend’s Girl.” He released a solo album, Change No Change, in 1985 and later played with Creedence Clearwater Revisited. In 2018, Easton was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with The Cars.
10. Steve Guttenberg
Steve Guttenberg was born in Brooklyn in 1958 and grew up in the North Massapequa area, attending Plainedge High School. In a 2023 interview with Patch, he recalled performing in the school’s production of Applause and heading to Hollywood shortly after graduating. He had wanted to act since childhood but kept his ambitions relatively private during his school years.
Guttenberg became one of the most familiar faces in American comedy during the 1980s. After appearing in Diner, he starred in the first four Police Academy films, as well as Cocoon, Short Circuit and Three Men and a Baby. Decades later, he adapted his memoir into the stage production Tales from the Guttenberg Bible, revisiting the journey that began with his departure from Long Island.
11. Ron Kovic
Ron Kovic was born on July 4, 1946, in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, and was raised in Massapequa. A gifted athlete who competed in wrestling and track, he graduated from Massapequa High School in 1964 and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. His childhood dreams of military service were shaped by the wartime experiences of his parents’ generation.
During his second tour of duty in Vietnam, Kovic was severely wounded in January 1968 and left paralyzed. His experiences during the war and in veterans’ hospitals led him to become an outspoken antiwar activist and advocate for disabled veterans. In 1976, he published Born on the Fourth of July. Oliver Stone adapted the memoir into the 1989 film starring Tom Cruise, bringing Kovic’s story and his Massapequa childhood to millions of viewers.
12. Peggy Noonan
Peggy Noonan was born in Brooklyn in 1950 and spent part of her childhood in Massapequa Park before her family moved to Rutherford, New Jersey. She later attended Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her early interest in national events and writing led to a career in broadcast news, including work as a writer and producer at CBS.
Noonan became nationally known as a speechwriter in Ronald Reagan’s White House. She helped craft Reagan’s address commemorating the D-Day landings at Pointe du Hoc and his televised response to the Challenger disaster in 1986. She subsequently became an author and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, receiving the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2017. Her books include What I Saw at the Revolution and When Character Was King.
13. Charlie Kaufman
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was born in New York City in 1958 and spent much of his childhood in Massapequa before his family moved to Connecticut. He has spoken directly about his Long Island upbringing in interviews, including one with Vanity Fair. After studying film at New York University, he eventually found work writing for television.
Kaufman became one of Hollywood’s most distinctive screenwriters with Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. He shared the Academy Award for original screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His work as a director includes Synecdoche, New York, Anomalisa and I’m Thinking of Ending Things. His films frequently explore the gap between the lives people imagine and the ones they actually inhabit.
14. William Gaddis
One of the most celebrated experimental novelists in American literature spent part of his early life in Massapequa long before the postwar suburban building boom. William Gaddis was born in Manhattan in 1922 and was raised by his mother after his parents separated. Although he attended boarding school in Connecticut for several years, he returned to Long Island and graduated from Farmingdale High School in 1941. He subsequently attended Harvard.
Gaddis published his first novel, The Recognitions, in 1955. His later books J R and A Frolic of His Own both received National Book Awards. The Long Island setting of J R drew in part on the environment he knew from his early life. His novels, with their overlapping voices, complex structures and investigations of money and art, earned him a distinguished place in 20th-century American literature.
15. Candy Darling
Actress Candy Darling was born in Queens in 1944 and grew up in Massapequa Park. Fascinated by classic Hollywood movies and screen actresses, she developed an interest in performance while living on Long Island. She and her childhood friend Tony Ingrassia, who later worked in underground theater, became associated with the experimental arts community in downtown Manhattan.
Darling appeared in the Andy Warhol-associated films Flesh and Women in Revolt, as well as Tennessee Williams’ play Small Craft Warnings. Her friendship with artists and musicians brought her into the cultural world that also produced the Velvet Underground. Lou Reed immortalized her in “Walk on the Wild Side.” Although she died in 1974 at only 29 years old, Darling remains an important figure in the history of underground cinema and transgender representation.
16. Brian Kilmeade
Brian Kilmeade grew up in Massapequa, graduating from Massapequa High School in 1982. Sports played an important part in his early life. He attended LIU Post, where he played soccer and earned a communications degree in 1986. Before his national television career, he worked in sports reporting and radio and spent time performing stand-up comedy.
Kilmeade became widely known as a co-host of Fox & Friends and subsequently developed a nationally syndicated radio program. He has also written or co-written several books about American history, including George Washington’s Secret Six, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates and Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans. His official biography identifies Massapequa as the community where he grew up.
17. Helen Slater
Helen Slater, born on Long Island in 1963, was raised in Massapequa according to published biographical accounts. She attended New York City’s High School of Performing Arts, graduating in 1982, and appeared in the television special Amy & the Angel before auditioning for the lead in a major superhero film.
Slater played the title character in Supergirl in 1984, followed by leading roles in The Legend of Billie Jean, Ruthless People and The Secret of My Success. She returned to the world of Superman-related productions with appearances in Smallville and the later Supergirl television series. Beyond acting, Slater is a singer-songwriter who has recorded several albums and co-founded the theater company Naked Angels.
18. Matt Bennett
Matt Bennett grew up in Massapequa Park and attended Massapequa High School. Born in 1991, he entered acting through commercials and television work before landing the role that would make him familiar to a generation of Nickelodeon viewers.
From 2010 to 2013, Bennett played Robbie Shapiro on Victorious alongside Victoria Justice, Ariana Grande and Elizabeth Gillies. His other credits include Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and The Big Bang Theory. A musician as well as an actor, he released Terminal Cases in 2016 and subsequently developed a career as a DJ, performing events built around the music of the Disney and Nickelodeon era.
19. Jessica Hahn
Jessica Hahn grew up in Massapequa and attended Massapequa High School. She discussed her childhood in the community during a 2005 interview with Larry King. Hahn worked as a church secretary before becoming a public figure during one of the most widely reported controversies involving American television evangelism.
In 1987, Hahn’s allegation that televangelist Jim Bakker had sexually assaulted her in 1980, and the disclosure of a payment intended to keep the matter private, became national news. Bakker resigned from his ministry. He disputed the allegation of assault. Hahn subsequently appeared in television productions and on The Howard Stern Show. Her story became part of the history of the relationship between religion, celebrity and American mass media during the late 20th century.
20. Brian Baldinger
Brian Baldinger moved with his family from Minnesota to Massapequa in 1975, when he was 16. He played football at Massapequa High School and worked as a lifeguard at Tobay Beach. After attending Nassau Community College, he played at Duke University. His younger brothers Rich and Gary also developed into outstanding football players during their Massapequa school years.
Although he went undrafted, Baldinger earned a place in the NFL and played for the Dallas Cowboys, Indianapolis Colts and Philadelphia Eagles between 1982 and 1993. After retiring as a player, he became a football analyst. His detailed breakdowns of individual plays, particularly the work of offensive and defensive linemen, have become a familiar feature of modern football coverage.
21. Rich Baldinger
Rich Baldinger attended Massapequa High School and continued his football career at Wake Forest University. He emerged as an offensive lineman and followed his older brother Brian into professional football. The two brothers entered the NFL in the same year, an unusual accomplishment for any family.
Rich played for the New York Giants, Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots during a professional career that lasted from 1982 to 1993. His years with the Chiefs constituted a substantial portion of that career. Together with Brian and Gary, he was part of an extraordinary Massapequa family achievement when all three brothers held places on active NFL rosters at the same time.
22. Gary Baldinger
The youngest of the three Baldinger brothers, Gary graduated from Massapequa High School in 1982. He was an outstanding high school football player and went on to Wake Forest University, where his older brother Rich had also played. Unlike his brothers, Gary established himself primarily on the defensive side of the line.
He played in the NFL from 1986 to 1992, with the Kansas City Chiefs, Indianapolis Colts and Buffalo Bills. Gary and his brothers were inducted into the Massapequa High Schools Hall of Fame in 1993 and were selected for the Nassau County High School Athletics Hall of Fame’s class of 2026. The family produced three professional football careers from the same local school system.
23. Christie Welsh
Christie Welsh grew up in Massapequa Park and graduated from Massapequa High School in 1999. One of the school’s most distinguished soccer players, she was part of its state championship team in 1997. Her success continued at Penn State, where she became one of the most accomplished players in the university’s women’s soccer program.
Welsh won the MAC Hermann Trophy in 2001 as the country’s leading collegiate women’s soccer player. She represented the United States at the senior international level, scoring 20 goals in 39 appearances. Her professional career included the New York Power and teams in Europe and the United States. Massapequa’s local high school Hall of Fame honored her in 2010.
24. Sonny Milano
Sonny Milano was born in Massapequa in 1996 and started skating when he was very young. His family helped build a practice area in the basement, where he developed the stickhandling skills that eventually attracted attention from hockey scouts. His early experiences included street hockey and playing in the United States National Team Development Program.
The Columbus Blue Jackets selected Milano with the 16th overall pick in the 2014 NHL Draft. He went on to play for Columbus, Anaheim and Washington. In 2021, while with the Ducks, he scored one of the NHL’s most memorable goals of the season after teammate Trevor Zegras lifted the puck over the net from behind the goal line. Milano’s creative approach to the game began taking shape during his childhood on Long Island.
25. Kristin Juszczyk
Fashion designer Kristin Juszczyk grew up in Massapequa and graduated from Massapequa High School in 2012 as Kristin Arceri. She attended Towson University, graduating with a business degree in 2016. She developed her sewing and design skills independently rather than through formal fashion school training.
Juszczyk, who married NFL fullback Kyle Juszczyk, began creating original outfits from football apparel. Her work gained enormous attention in January 2024 when Taylor Swift wore one of her customized Kansas City Chiefs jackets. An NFL licensing agreement followed. Her rise represents a different kind of celebrity from many of the older names on this list, combining fashion, professional sports and the reach of social media.
For more on the history of Long Island and the remarkable people who grew up here, check out our articles on 25 Famous People You Didn’t Know Were From the Town of Oyster Bay, New York, 25 Famous People You Didn’t Know Were From Nassau County, and 25 Famous People You Didn’t Know Were From Suffolk County, New York.
