Correction: Actress Sarah Jessica Parker attended the School for Creative and Performing Arts during her elementary school years. A previous version stated that she had attended SCPA during high school.
Cincinnati has had a lot of famous high schoolers over the years.
Students who would go on to become pro football players, World Cup winners, actors, baseball players and singers walked the halls of area schools before finding fame.
Here are some of the famous people who went to high school in Cincinnati:
Andy Williams, a six-time Grammy nominated singer, attended Western Hills High School for ninth and tenth grade from 1941-1942. In 2000, Larry Nager interviewed Williams for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Williams reminisced about West Hi, saying, “They were the best years of my life. There were fraternities and sororities in high school. We had a handshake and a clubhouse. And football was great and the girls were great, and I was discovering both.” He would eventually have his own show, “The Andy Williams Show.”
Barry Larkin graduated from Moeller in 1982, where he played baseball, basketball and football. Larkin was selected for the 1985 Reds draft. He became the first shortstop in Major League history to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season and was part of the 1990 World Champion Reds. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2012.
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Ken Griffey Jr. played baseball at Moeller in his junior and senior years, 1986 and 1987. Griffey would become the No. 1 overall draftee by Seattle in 1987. By 1989, Griffey was in the major leagues with the Mariners at age 19, and spent nine seasons with the Reds. Griffey was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016.
Roger Staubach, a 1960 Purcell graduate, went on to the U.S. Naval Academy where he won the Heisman Trophy, followed by a decade-long Hall of Fame career as quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.
Don Zimmer, a 1949 Western Hills graduate, was enshrined into the Cincinnati Public Schools Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014. According to CPS, he was named the Most Outstanding football player at Western Hills for the school's first 50 years (1928-78). Zimmer played in the minors for a couple of years before being called up to Brooklyn in 1954 to start his 12-year major league career.
Jerry Rubin graduated from Walnut Hills High School in 1956, where he edited the school newspaper, the Chatterbox. He helped found the Youth International Party, known as Yippies, in the 1960s, and was among the demonstrators known as the Chicago Eight charged with conspiracy to incite the riots that disrupted the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Theda Bara, born Theodosia Goodman, graduated from Walnut Hills High School in 1903 before becoming a silent film star. She was cast as the lead in “A Fool There Was” (1915), portraying a seductress who would popularize the term “vamp.” To make her seem exotic, Fox studio claimed she was born “in the shadow of the Sphinx” in Egypt to an Italian father and French actress mother.
Ruth Lyons, a 1923 graduate of Withrow High School, was a television talk show pioneer as host of “The 50-50 Club” every weekday at noon on WLWT-TV in the 1950s and ’60s.
Kyle Rudolph, a 2008 Elder grad, is now a tight end for the Minnesota Vikings. He was the Minnesota Vikings nominee for the 2017 and 2018 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award. In 2018, Rudolph was the main donor of Elder’s new fitness center.
Carmen Electra graduated from Princeton High School in 1990 when she was still known as Tara Leigh Patrick. She moved to Los Angeles later in 1990 and met Prince while auditioning for his all-girl band. He wrote a song for her, changed her name and made her a star, according to WVXU.
Nick Lachey, a 1992 graduate of the School for Creative and Performing Arts, was part of the band 98 Degrees in the 1990s. He was recently the host of the Netflix series, “Love Is Blind.”
William Howard Taft graduated from Woodward High School in 1874. In 1908, he was elected President of the United States, and the next day laid the cornerstone for the new school building of his alma mater. He was also a Chief Justice of the United States.
Pete Rose graduated from Western Hills High School in 1960. The Hit King was part of the legendary Big Red Machine in the 1970s and set the all-time record for hits in 1985.
Rosemary Clooney attended four Cincinnati high schools: Hughes, Withrow, Our Lady of Mercy academy and Western Hills. Clooney was a successful singer and actress whose first big hit was "Come On A My House" in 1951.
Doris Day, born Doris von Kappelhoff, attended Our Lady of Angels High School in St. Bernard but left to start her performance career.
Greg Hamilton, whose birth name was Greg Hutson, was a 1997 graduate of Hamilton High School. He became an announcer for WWE in 2015.
Ezzard Charles was a 1942 Woodward High School graduate. The “Cincinnati Cobra” was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1949 to 1951 and has a street named after him in Over-the-Rhine.
Luke Kuechly was a 2009 St. Xavier graduate and was the fourth St. X grad to make a Super Bowl roster when he played for the Carolina Panthers.
Rose Lavelle graduated from Mount Notre Dame in 2013. The soccer star was part of the U.S. Women’s National Team and helped win a World Cup in 2019.
George Clooney graduated from Augusta Independent High School in 1979. The actor has won two Oscars and four Golden Globes for his work.
David Justice graduated from Covington Latin in 1982. The former right fielder played for the Atlanta Braves (1989-96), Cleveland Indians (1997-2000), New York Yankees (2000-01), and the Oakland Athletics (2002).
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