L&B Spumoni Gardens on 86th Street, a longtime Brooklyn landmark associated with Bensonhurst. Photo by Brian Kachejian.
Bensonhurst has always been more than a name on a Brooklyn street map. Its blocks of brick houses, apartment buildings, storefronts, schools, churches, and synagogues have been home to generations of New Yorkers whose families arrived with different languages, traditions, and ambitions. During much of the twentieth century, Italian American and Jewish communities were especially prominent here. More recent waves of immigration, including families from China and other parts of the world, have continued to reshape the neighborhood.
There is also a remarkable show-business and sports history connected to these streets. New Utrecht High School and the former Lafayette High School educated young people who went on to major careers. The Jewish Community House, neighborhood playing fields, local theaters, and the routines of everyday Brooklyn life were parts of the childhoods of performers, athletes, and future broadcasters. Some of the people on this list stayed in Bensonhurst for years; others moved away while still young.
Bensonhurst’s boundaries have not always been described in exactly the same way. Nearby Bath Beach, Gravesend, and Borough Park also have close historical connections to the area. For this list, the important question is whether someone was born in Bensonhurst, grew up here, or spent a meaningful part of childhood or adolescence in the neighborhood. Being born somewhere else in Brooklyn does not rule a person out, but being from Brooklyn alone is not enough.
From the rock singer who eventually fronted Journey to a scientist whose experiments helped change modern genetics, these 25 people show just how far a life that began on the streets of Bensonhurst could travel.
1. Steve Augeri
Steve Augeri grew up in Bensonhurst and has spoken vividly about the neighborhood’s Italian American community. Long before he performed on major concert stages, he was a young Brooklyn musician surrounded by local businesses, family traditions, and the sounds of the city. In a recollection of his early years, Augeri described making bicycle deliveries for a neighborhood dairy and walking past homes where Sunday cooking filled the air.
Augeri eventually became the lead singer of Journey in 1998, taking on a difficult assignment after Steve Perry’s departure. He recorded and toured with the band during a period when fans were eager to hear its familiar songs performed live. After leaving Journey in 2006, he continued performing and recording under his own name. His story adds a particularly strong rock-and-roll connection to Bensonhurst’s long musical history.
2. Scott Baio
Scott Baio was born in Brooklyn in 1960 and grew up in Bensonhurst in an Italian American family. He attended Xaverian High School in Bay Ridge, but his early home life was rooted in Bensonhurst. Acting became a possibility when his family saw that relatives were finding work in television commercials and encouraged him to audition.
Baio’s first major film role came in Bugsy Malone in 1976. Television audiences soon knew him as Chachi Arcola on Happy Days, followed by Joanie Loves Chachi and the sitcom Charles in Charge. The enormous teen-idol fame that followed could easily obscure the simpler beginning: a Brooklyn kid who entered show business while still young.
3. Seymour Benzer
Seymour Benzer was born in the South Bronx in 1921, not Bensonhurst, but he had a genuine Bensonhurst childhood. In an oral-history interview preserved by the California Institute of Technology, Benzer recalled that his family moved to Brooklyn when he was four and settled on the edge of a housing development in Bensonhurst. His parents were Jewish immigrants, and education was central to the life he built in New York.
At thirteen, Benzer received a microscope as a bar mitzvah gift, helping turn his curiosity toward science. He studied physics at Brooklyn College and earned his doctorate at Purdue University. His early work involved semiconductor physics, but he later became a pioneer of molecular genetics, using experiments to investigate the fine structure of genes. At Caltech, his research with fruit flies helped establish new ways to study the relationship between genes and behavior. Few Bensonhurst childhoods led to scientific accomplishments of such international importance.
4. Abe Burrows
Broadway writer and director Abe Burrows was born Abram S. Burrows in New York City in 1910. He graduated from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and was part of the Bensonhurst world that produced a striking number of entertainers. His path toward the theater was not direct: he studied in college, worked in business, and spent time entertaining audiences in the Catskills before writing became his principal career.
Burrows established himself as a radio comedy writer and later became one of Broadway’s most respected craftsmen. He helped write the book for Guys and Dolls and worked on productions including How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. His Broadway career brought him major theatrical honors, including Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama shared by the creative team of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Behind that remarkable résumé was a young man educated in southwestern Brooklyn.
5. Vic Damone
Vic Damone was born Vito Farinola in Brooklyn in 1928 and grew up in Bensonhurst. Music was already part of family life: his mother taught piano, and he sang while attending local schools. He later attended Lafayette High School, but a workplace injury suffered by his father forced him to leave school and help support the family. One of the jobs he found was at Manhattan’s Paramount Theatre.
That job put Damone near professional entertainers, including Perry Como, who encouraged his singing ambitions. Damone found success on radio and records during the late 1940s, becoming one of the best-known traditional pop vocalists of his generation. His recordings included “You’re Breaking My Heart” and “On the Street Where You Live.” Although his career took him to concert halls, television studios, and nightclubs far from Brooklyn, Bensonhurst was where his voice and ambitions first developed.
6. Vincent D’Onofrio
Vincent D’Onofrio was born in Brooklyn in 1959; biographical listings identify Bensonhurst as his birthplace. His childhood, however, was not spent entirely in the neighborhood. His family moved during his early years, and he has described growing up in Florida and spending time in Hawaii while returning to Brooklyn for summers with relatives. His Bensonhurst connection is therefore primarily a birthplace and family-root story rather than the story of a lifelong neighborhood resident.
D’Onofrio eventually became known for unusually intense and varied acting performances. His portrayal of Private Leonard Lawrence in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket brought him wide recognition. He later played Detective Robert Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Wilson Fisk, also known as Kingpin, in Marvel television productions. Those roles reveal an actor capable of moving from psychologically demanding drama to television crime stories and comic-book adaptations.
7. Joey Fatone
Joey Fatone was born in Brooklyn in 1977 and spent his early years in Bensonhurst. His family lived in the neighborhood before relocating to Orlando, Florida, when he was thirteen. Music was part of the household; his father had performed in a doo-wop group. Fatone’s adolescence and professional training took place largely in Florida, but his childhood began on the Brooklyn streets his family knew.
In Orlando, Fatone attended Dr. Phillips High School and eventually performed at Universal Studios Florida, where connections helped lead to the formation of *NSYNC. With Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick, and Lance Bass, he became part of one of the biggest pop groups of the late 1990s and early 2000s. After the group’s peak years, he expanded into television presenting, theater, and other entertainment work. His career offers an unlikely connection between Bensonhurst and the international boy-band phenomenon.
8. Jerry Ferrara
Jerry Ferrara grew up in Bensonhurst and graduated from New Utrecht High School. Unlike entertainers who left Brooklyn during early childhood, Ferrara spent the school years that shaped his adolescence in the neighborhood. He later began studying theater in college, where an instructor encouraged him to take acting seriously. A move to Los Angeles followed as he pursued professional opportunities.
Ferrara became widely known for playing Turtle, the loyal friend and driver in HBO’s Entourage. The role brought him national attention and became one of the show’s most recognizable characters. He later portrayed attorney Joe Proctor on Power, demonstrating that his acting career extended well beyond the comedy associated with Turtle. His New Utrecht background gives Bensonhurst a direct connection to a familiar face from two major television series.
9. Lou Ferrigno
Lou Ferrigno was born in Brooklyn in 1951 and grew up in Bensonhurst. As a child, he experienced significant hearing loss and a speech impediment, which contributed to bullying and feelings of isolation. Comic-book superheroes offered inspiration, and he began lifting weights as a teenager. He attended St. Athanasius School and later Brooklyn Technical High School, turning a personal interest in strength into a serious athletic pursuit.
Ferrigno won major bodybuilding titles, including Mr. Universe honors, and became one of the sport’s most recognizable figures. His appearance in the documentary Pumping Iron introduced him to a wider audience, but television made him a household name when he played the Hulk on The Incredible Hulk. The physical power viewers saw on the screen had roots in a Bensonhurst teenager’s determination to become stronger.
10. Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Fierstein grew up in Bensonhurst in a Jewish family and has spoken openly about feeling different from the expectations around him. Art and performance offered important outlets during his youth. He studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, initially pursuing visual art rather than planning the theatrical career that would eventually make his voice and writing famous.
Fierstein became a major American playwright and actor through Torch Song Trilogy, which brought stories about gay relationships and family into mainstream theater. He later wrote the book for the musical La Cage aux Folles and appeared in Hairspray, winning Tony Awards for both writing and performance over the course of his career. His success grew from a willingness to turn personal experience into theater that could reach people far beyond the community where he was raised.
11. John Franco
John Franco’s childhood reveals how complicated Brooklyn neighborhood borders can be. He grew up in the Marlboro Houses on the Gravesend side of Stillwell Avenue, but his family identified closely with Bensonhurst, and they attended Most Precious Blood Church nearby. Franco graduated from Lafayette High School and was a devoted Mets fan long before he ever wore the team’s uniform.
After starring at St. John’s University, Franco began his major-league career with the Cincinnati Reds and joined the New York Mets before the 1990 season. He became the club’s longtime closer, one of baseball’s most successful left-handed relief pitchers, and eventually a Mets team captain. His story reaches from the housing developments and playing fields of southwestern Brooklyn to the mound at Shea Stadium, where he became a favorite of New York baseball fans.
12. Daniel Franzese
Daniel Franzese was born in Bensonhurst and lived there during his earliest childhood. In an interview about his Italian American background, he recalled attending an elementary school where Italian heritage was so common that he barely thought about it. His family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when he was eight, making the change of surroundings especially striking for him.
Franzese became a familiar movie face as Damian in the 2004 comedy Mean Girls. He later played Eddie in the HBO series Looking and built a career that included acting, comedy, and advocacy. Although much of his schooling and professional development took place outside New York, his own recollections make clear that Bensonhurst was a meaningful part of his childhood identity.
13. Vincent Gardenia
Vincent Gardenia was born in Italy and came to the United States with his family as a small child. They settled in Brooklyn, where his father organized an Italian-language theatrical company. Gardenia began performing while still young and maintained a long connection to Bensonhurst, living on 16th Avenue even after he became a successful stage and screen actor.
Gardenia earned Academy Award nominations for Bang the Drum Slowly and Moonstruck, and his stage work brought him a Tony Award. His ability to portray irritable, affectionate, and thoroughly believable New Yorkers made him particularly memorable in character roles. Bensonhurst eventually honored him by giving a stretch of 16th Avenue the ceremonial name Vincent Gardenia Boulevard. Unlike a celebrity connection that survives only in a biography, this one remains visible on a neighborhood street.
14. Elliott Gould
Elliott Gould was born Elliott Goldstein in Brooklyn in 1938 and grew up in Bensonhurst. A contemporary profile in Time described his childhood in a Bensonhurst apartment, while a later oral-history interview preserved his memories of growing up around Bay Parkway. His mother encouraged him to take dancing and performance lessons, helping a shy child discover the confidence needed to work onstage.
Gould emerged as an important actor during the late 1960s and 1970s, appearing in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H and The Long Goodbye. He received an Academy Award nomination for Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and later reached new generations through Friends and the Ocean’s films. His unconventional screen presence helped define an era of American filmmaking, but his earliest lessons in performance began in Brooklyn.
15. Gabe Kaplan
Gabe Kaplan grew up in Bensonhurst and attended New Utrecht High School, although he did not graduate. His experiences as a Brooklyn student later helped inspire a comedy routine about school life and a group of teenagers whose behavior challenged their teachers. That personal material became the foundation for one of the most recognizable sitcoms of the 1970s.
Kaplan co-created and starred in Welcome Back, Kotter, playing a teacher who returns to his Brooklyn high school to instruct the Sweathogs. New Utrecht High School appeared in the show’s opening credits as the fictional James Buchanan High. The series also helped launch John Travolta’s national fame. Kaplan later developed another public career as a professional poker player and television poker commentator, but the Bensonhurst years remained central to his best-known creation.
16. Larry King
Long before he became one of America’s best-known interviewers, Larry King was Lawrence Zeiger, a Brooklyn boy whose family faced serious hardship after his father’s death. King recalled that he moved to Bensonhurst when he was about nine years old. In a PBS documentary, he revisited the neighborhood, describing a cramped family apartment, the Jewish Community House, and the friends who spent their days together on nearby streets.
King later went to Miami, where he entered broadcasting, before building a national career in radio and television. His CNN program Larry King Live ran for a quarter century, bringing him face to face with presidents, entertainers, athletes, and other prominent figures. The relaxed conversational style that became his trademark had an early setting in Bensonhurst, where he was already known among friends for talking constantly.
17. Sandy Koufax
Sandy Koufax was born in Brooklyn in 1935, but his childhood included time outside Bensonhurst, including a period in Rockville Centre on Long Island. After ninth grade, his family returned to Bensonhurst. He attended Lafayette High School and was particularly talented at basketball, a sport that initially attracted as much attention as his pitching. Youth athletics in and around southwestern Brooklyn gave him opportunities to develop both skills.
Koufax signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers and made his major-league debut in 1955. His most dominant seasons came after the franchise moved to Los Angeles, when he won three Cy Young Awards, threw four no-hitters, including a perfect game, and earned a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His name is still closely tied to a Brooklyn that produced one of the greatest left-handed pitchers the sport has ever seen. For a broader borough-wide perspective, see our article on 25 famous people from Brooklyn.
18. Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Milano was born in Bensonhurst in 1972, but her family moved to Staten Island while she was still young. She has recalled that a frightening incident of neighborhood violence helped prompt the move. Her later childhood, early auditions, and schooling therefore belong largely to a different part of New York, even though her family’s story began in Bensonhurst.
Milano entered show business as a child in a touring production of Annie and became famous as Samantha Micelli on the sitcom Who’s the Boss?. She later starred in Charmed and took on additional acting and advocacy work. Her example is a reminder that a person can have a genuine Bensonhurst birthplace without having spent all of their formative years there.
19. Rhea Perlman
Rhea Perlman was born in Coney Island in 1948 and grew up in nearby Bensonhurst with her family. She attended Lafayette High School before studying drama at Hunter College. Her younger sister, Heide Perlman, also went into television writing and production, giving the family an unusually strong connection to the entertainment business.
Perlman became famous as Carla Tortelli, the sharp-tongued waitress on Cheers, winning four Emmy Awards for her performance. Her later work included the film Matilda and many television and movie roles. She also married actor Danny DeVito, whom she met through the theater world. The confidence and timing audiences came to associate with Carla were developed over years of acting experience, but Perlman’s story started with a childhood in Bensonhurst.
20. Leah Remini
Leah Remini grew up in Bensonhurst and has described the neighborhood’s Italian American atmosphere in interviews about her childhood. She remembered feeling that other families had signs of prosperity her own household lacked. After family changes, Remini lived in Florida and then moved to Los Angeles at thirteen, where she began pursuing acting professionally.
Remini became a leading television actress through The King of Queens, playing Carrie Heffernan opposite Kevin James. She later gained attention for her memoir and the documentary series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, which examined experiences within the Church of Scientology and won television awards. Her Bensonhurst years were brief compared with the length of her career, but she has spoken about them in notably personal terms.
21. Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan was born in Bensonhurst in 1934 to a working-class Jewish family. He grew up in Brooklyn before his family later moved to Rahway, New Jersey. As a child he visited libraries and developed questions about stars, planets, and the wider universe. The American Museum of Natural History has described how learning that stars were distant suns helped awaken his scientific imagination.
Sagan became a planetary scientist, author, and one of the most influential popularizers of science in modern American history. He contributed to research and public discussion about planetary exploration and the possibility of life beyond Earth. His television series Cosmos brought astronomy into homes around the world, inspiring viewers who had never taken a formal science course. For Bensonhurst, his story is a remarkable example of childhood curiosity growing into a career of international influence.
22. Robert Sapolsky
Robert Sapolsky was born in Brooklyn in 1957 and raised in an Orthodox Jewish household in Bensonhurst. While still a student, he became fascinated with primates and began reading about animal behavior. He attended John Dewey High School in Brooklyn and pursued his interests with unusual intensity, even teaching himself Swahili while preparing for the possibility of studying animals in Africa.
Sapolsky studied at Harvard and earned his doctorate at Rockefeller University before building a distinguished career at Stanford. His research has examined stress, hormones, the brain, and behavior, including long-term field studies of baboons in Kenya. He has also written widely read books such as Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Behave, and Determined. His work connects neuroscience and human behavior, making him another scientist with significant Bensonhurst roots.
23. Steve Schirripa
Steve Schirripa was born in Bensonhurst in 1957 and grew up in a working-class household. He attended Lafayette High School and later Brooklyn College. His route into acting was unconventional: before becoming nationally known on television, he worked in Las Vegas entertainment, including a position at the Riviera Hotel. That experience gave him contact with performers and eventually opportunities in front of the camera.
Schirripa became familiar to millions as Bobby Baccalieri on HBO’s The Sopranos. He later played Leo Boykewich on The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Detective Anthony Abetemarco on Blue Bloods, which ended in 2024. He has also written books and co-hosted a podcast about The Sopranos. Of all the actors on this list, Schirripa is among those whose public persona most openly recalls the Bensonhurst he knew.
24. Tony Sirico
Tony Sirico was born in Brooklyn in 1942 and spent parts of his youth in East Flatbush and Bensonhurst. His neighborhood connection was not a later publicity invention. In a 1990 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he drove a reporter through Bensonhurst, speaking about its restaurants, its codes of loyalty, and the complicated world he had known there. His early adult life included serious legal trouble and prison sentences before acting gave him another direction.
Sirico eventually became internationally known for playing Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri on The Sopranos. The character’s mix of comic absurdity, loyalty, menace, and vulnerability helped make him one of the show’s most memorable figures. Sirico also appeared in films including Goodfellas and Mighty Aphrodite. He died in 2022, leaving behind a career closely associated with the distinctive voice and rhythms of Brooklyn.
25. Paul Sorvino
Paul Sorvino was born in Brooklyn in 1939 and grew up in Bensonhurst. He attended Lafayette High School and came from a family in which music mattered: his mother taught piano, and Sorvino developed a serious interest in singing. He initially imagined a future as a vocalist, took voice lessons, and later attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy as his ambitions broadened.
Sorvino developed a long career onstage and in film and television. He is especially remembered as Paulie Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, although his roles ranged far beyond gangsters, including work on Law & Order and in historical dramas. He was also a singer and sculptor. Sorvino died in 2022, but his connection to Bensonhurst and Lafayette High School remains an important part of the story of Brooklyn’s entertainment talent.
Bensonhurst’s famous sons and daughters came from different generations, backgrounds, and professions. What connects them is not a single personality or a claim that the neighborhood made everyone successful in the same way. It is that this corner of Brooklyn was a real part of their early lives. The same streets that sent performers toward Broadway, Hollywood, concert tours, and television also helped raise scientists whose ideas reached universities and research laboratories around the world.
For more stories about the people and neighborhoods of New York City, explore our 25 Famous People You Didn’t Know Were From Brooklyn, our look at how Brooklyn neighborhoods got their names, and our companion article on 25 famous people from Astoria, Queens.
