This list of famous deaf people is part of our series on famous people with disabilities. These 200+ successful deaf people include inventors, authors, entrepreneurs, models, musicians & more.
Note: This is a dynamic list, and I will keep adding to it! If I missed a famous deaf person, you’d like us to add, email heather@ongig.com.
Famous Deaf Actors and Actresses
This list of celebrities with hearing loss includes hearing impaired actresses, deaf movie stars, and famous deaf actors:
Deaf Actress List
- Michelle Banks – deaf actress
- Rhondee Beriault — deaf actress who also played Helen Keller
- Halle Berry — deaf actress (her deafness is a result of domestic violence from an abusive former partner)
- Millie Bobby Brown — deaf actress from Stranger Things
- Linda Bove — famous deaf actress from Sesame Street
- Deanne Bray — famous deaf actress
- Amy Ecklund — one of the most famous people with cochlear implants
- Phyllis Frelich — Tony award-winning deaf actress
- Whoop Goldberg — actress and one of the most famous people with hearing aids
- Holly Hunter — deaf actress with hearing loss in one ear
- Jane Lynch — deaf actress, singer, and comedian
- Marlee Matlin — only deaf actress and performer to have won an Academy Award
- Kelly Monaco — deaf actress and TV personality
- Millicent Simmonds — deaf actress
- Jean St. Clair — deaf actress
- Shoshannah Stern — deaf actress
Deaf Actors List
- Bernard Bragg — deaf actor and producer
- Julian Peedle-Calloo — British actor, writer, director and TV presenter
- Brian Duffy — deaf actor from Scotland
- Gaius Lee DuPree – first deaf baby actor, at 9 months old, to work in a film
- Daniel Durant — deaf actor and YouTuber
- David Ellington — deaf TV personality and actor
- Russell Harvard — deaf actor (his parents and his paternal grandmother are also deaf)
- Lou Ferrigno — deaf actor best-known as The Hulk
- Emilio Insolera — deaf actor and producer
- Jonathan Kovacs — former child actor
- Rob Lowe — deaf actor (completely deaf in his right ear from an infection as a baby)
- Ace Mahbaz — deaf actor and writer
- Chella Man — deaf actor, activist, and model
- Leslie Nielsen — deaf actor from Canada
- Terry Ruane — deaf actor and director
- Joseph Sarpy — first known Black deaf actor & first to join the National Theatre of the Deaf
- Michael Spady — deaf actor and Broadway star
- Kiefer Sutherland – hearing-impaired actor (has issues hearing after playing so many roles with gun-shots and explosions)
- Matthew Watkins — actor deaf in real life and on TV
- Bruce Willis — actor with hearing loss in one ear
Famous Deaf Leaders, Professionals, and Activists
These successful deaf individuals are activists, leaders, and professionals:
- Dr. Shirley Allen — first deaf African-American Female with Ph.D.
- Dr. Glenn B. Anderson — first deaf African-American with Ph.D.
- Doug Alker — former chair of the British Deaf Association and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf
- Kelby Brick — Director at Governor’s Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (ODHH), State of Maryland
- Kathleen L. Brockway — deaf activist, author, and historian
- Bill Clinton — diagnosed with a high-frequency hearing loss while he was serving the second term as the President of the United States
- Andrew Foster — Father of Deaf Education in Africa
- Angeline Fuller Fischer — deaf activist and author
- Claudia Gordon — first deaf Female African-American Lawyer
- Dr. Ernest Hairston — deaf activist and author
- Casar Jacobson — Disability rights and deaf activist
- Aarron Loggins — deaf activist and actor
- Nathie Marbury — first Black deaf woman to serve on the National Association of the Deaf board
- Lawrence R. Newman — deaf activist, educator, and author
- Sara Nović — deaf activist and author
- Roger D. O’Kelly — first deaf African-American lawyer
- Linwood Smith — deaf activist and author
Famous Deaf People in Sports
- Lance Allred — famous NBA player and motivation speaker
- James “Deaf” Burke – famous deaf boxer
- Tamika Catchings — WNBA player
- Derrick Coleman — NFL player
- LeRoy Colombo — famous deaf lifeguard in the Guinness Book of World Records for saving 907 lives
- Gertrude Ederle — the first woman to swim across the English Channel
- Ashley Fiolek – deaf motocross racer sponsored by Redbull
- Jeffrey “Jeff” Float — the only legally deaf athlete from the USA to win an Olympic gold medal
- Eugene “Silent” Hairston — first deaf African American boxer
- Kevin Hall — professional golfer
- Dummy Hoy — the most accomplished deaf player in MLB history
- David Michalowski — first deaf figure skater ever to compete nationally and internationally
- Terence Parkin — deaf swimmer and Olympian
- Curtis Pride — MLB player
- Bonnie Sloan – first deaf football player in the National Football League
- Luther H. Taylor — MLB player
- Kenny Walker — NFL player
Famous Deaf Celebrities who are Dancers and Performers
Here’s a list of famous deaf performers and deaf dancers:
- Lexine Brooks — deaf dancer
- Antoine Hunter — deaf performer and dancer
- Zahna Simon — deaf Bay Area-based dancer
- Heather Whitestone — dancer and first deaf Miss America titleholder
- Annemarie Timling — deaf dancer
- Samantha Figgins — famous deaf dancer
- Antoine Hunter — deaf jazz dancer
- Shaheem Sanchez — deaf dancer and Tik Tok star
- Simone Botha Welgemoed — deaf dancer and former beauty queen
- Emery Stalzer — deaf girl dancing sensation
- Justin Perez — deaf visual performer
- Fred Beam & Sunshine 2.0 — deaf performance group
- The Dance Troupe at Florida School for the Deaf & the Blind — deaf performance group
- Kassandra Wedel — dancer, actor, and choreographer
Famous Deaf Singers and Musicians
- Ludwig Van Beethoven — deaf composer
- Sean Forbes — deaf hip-hop artist
- Grimes — musician and one of Canada’s most famous people with hearing loss
- Darius McCall — calls himself the first deaf rapper
- Johnnie Ray — hearing impaired pop singer
- Signmark — deaf rap artist from Finland
- Wawa Snipe — deaf entertainer and rapper who performed at the Super Bowl
- Paul Stanley — famous rock musician and one of the biggest celebrities with hearing loss
- James Lee Taylor III — deaf rapper from the Bronx, NY
- Pete Townshend — deaf musician and rock artist
- Will.i.am — rapper with tinnitus that will eventually lead to irreversible hearing loss
Famous Deaf Models & Designers
- Nyle DiMarco — America’s Next Top Model season 22 winner (the second male winner and the first deaf winner)
- Carola Insolera — International deaf model
- Justin LeBlanc — deaf designer from Project Runway
Famous Deaf Comedians, Entertainers, and Filmmakers
- Sean Berdy — deaf comedian and actor
- Evon Black — deaf comedian and entertainer
- Kamau Buchanan — deaf filmmaker
- Kathy Buckley — deaf comedian and speaker
- D.J. Demers — deaf comedian known as “the hearing aid guy”
- Jessica Flores — deaf comedian and influencer
- Vilma Jackson — deaf performance artist
- CJ Jones — internationally known deaf comedian (born to deaf parents)
- Gavin Lilley — deaf comedian
- Magic Morgan & Liliana — deaf comedian magicians
- Eric Sykes — deaf comedian, actor, and film writer
- Rydrea Walker — deaf filmmaker
- Tom Willard — deaf comedian and performer
Famous Deaf Gamers
Here are some famous deaf gamers making history:
- FaZe EwOk — one of the most famous deaf gamers
- Danik Soudakoff — deaf gamer
- DeafGamersTV — deaf gamer and streamer
Famous Deaf Writers
These great deaf Americans include deaf storytellers, writers, and educators:
- Geoffrey R. Ball — author of “No More Laughing at the Deaf Boy: A Technological Adventure between Silicon Valley and the Alps”
- Connie Briscoe — NY Times Bestselling deaf author
- Rashida Abedi — deaf writer
- Donalda Ammons — deaf author and educator
- Ben Bahan — one of the most-known deaf storytellers and writer of deaf culture
- Edmund Booth — deaf author and journalist
- Patricia Carlon — deaf writer
- Matt Daigle — creator of “That Deaf Guy” comic along with his wife Kay Daigle
- Teresa Deevy — deaf short story writer and playwright
- Pierre Desloges — known as the writer of the first book published by a deaf person
- Julia Lester Dillon — architecture designer and author
- Arthur Dimmock — deaf journalist and author
- Michael Eury — deaf comic book writer
- Donald Harington — deaf writer and teacher
- Lars Havstad — deaf writer, editor, and activist
- Helen Keller — deaf and blind author
- Ella Mae Lentz — famous deaf poet and author
- J. Schuyler Long — deaf author and educator
- Harold MacGrath — deaf author who kept his deafness from his readers
- Dale Morgan — editor and critic
- Carol Padden — deaf author and educator
- Yvonne Pitrois — deaf woman writer
- Rose Pizzo — deaf author
- Edith G. Stedman — deaf author and educator
- Samuel James Supalla — deaf author
- Ted Supalla — deaf author
- Teresa de Cartagena — deaf writer
- Heinrich von Treitschke — deaf political writer and historian
- Julius Wiggins — deaf author
- Mary Herring Wright — deaf writer and contributor to Black American Sign Language
Famous Deaf Artists
Here are some of the most famous deaf artists in history:
- Martin Aitchison — deaf illustrator
- Asphyxia — deaf artist, writer, and activist
- Chuck Baird — deaf artist
- John Brewster Jr. — deaf painter
- Leonard Leslie Brooke — deaf artist and writer
- James Charles Castle — deaf artist and illustrator
- Paul-François Choppin — deaf sculptor
- Willy Conley — deaf photographer, playwright, and actor
- Mary Electa Allen — deaf photographer
- Regina Olson Hughes — deaf illustrator
- Denis Juneau — deaf painter
- Anton Kaulbach — deaf painter
- Christine Sun Kim — deaf artist of sound
- Elisabeth MacIntyre — deaf illustrator and author
- Niall McCormack — deaf artist
- William Frederick Mitchell — deaf painter
- Hippolyte Montillie — deaf sculptor
- Kate Mosher — wood sculpting artist
- Shawn Richardson — deaf artist and sign language cartoonist
- Judith Scott — deaf sculptor
- Charles Shirreff — deaf painter
- Louise Stern – deaf artist and writer on the topic of sign language
- Alfred Thomson — deaf artist and Olympic medalist
- Vincent Van Gogh — famous painter known to have tinnitus that impaired his hearing and intolerance of loud noises
- Dorothy Stanton Wise — deaf sculptor
Famous Deaf Inventors, Scientists, and Doctors
These deaf scientists, doctors, and famous deaf inventors helped change the world:
- Robert Grant Aitken – deaf Astronomer
- Guillaume Amontons – deaf Physicist who studied absolute temperature
- Donald L. Ballantyne — first deaf Professor of Experimental Surgery
- Lewis H. Babbitt — American herpetologist and educator
- Frederick A.P. Barnard — deaf scientist and astronomer
- Ruth Fulton Benedict — tribal anthropologist
- Charles Bonnet — one of the founding fathers of modern biology
- Annie Jump Cannon — deaf astronomer who classified 1/3 of a million stars
- Harold J. Conn — bacteriologist
- Sir John Warchup Cornforth — chemist and noble prize winner
- Tilly Edinger — founder of paleoneurology
- Thomas Edison – deaf scientist who invented the light bulb but found his deafness as a blessing
- Anders Gustaf Ekeberg — deaf chemist who discovered tantalum (metal) in 1802
- Fielding Bradford Meek — deaf geologist
- Nansie Sharpless — deaf Biochemist
- Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky– deaf inventor know as the Father of Astronautics
Famous Deaf Black People
In researching this article, I noticed a tremendous amount of people asking about “famous deaf black people”. You might have seen these famous deaf Black people in the lists above, but because they are such a success, despite struggles they may have faced in life, I put them into one list here to celebrate them again:
- Dr. Shirley Allen — first deaf African-American Female with Ph.D.
- Dr. Glenn B. Anderson — first deaf African-American with Ph.D.
- Michelle Banks — deaf actress
- Evon Black — comedian and entertainer
- Connie Briscoe — NY Times Bestselling deaf author
- Ann Marie “Jade” Bryan — deaf filmmaker
- Kamau Buchanan — deaf filmmaker
- Tamika Catchings — WNBA player
- Derrick Coleman — NFL player
- Andrew Foster — Father of Deaf Education in Africa
- Whoopi Goldberg — hearing loss affected actress
- Claudia Gordon — first deaf Female African-American Lawyer
- Dr. Ernest Hairston — deaf activist and author
- Eugene “Silent” Hairston — first deaf African American boxer
- Kevin Hall — professional golfer
- Antoine Hunter — deaf performer and dancer
- CJ Jones — internationally known deaf comedian
- Aarron Loggins — deaf activist and actor
- Nathie Marbury — first Black deaf woman to serve on the National Association of the Deaf board
- Darius McCall — calls himself the first deaf rapper
- Roger D. O’Kelly — first deaf African-American lawyer
- Curtis Pride — MLB player
- Shawn Richardson — deaf artist and sign language cartoonist
- Joseph Sarpy — first known Black deaf actor & first to join the National Theatre of the Deaf
- Linwood Smith — deaf activist and author
- Wawa Snipe — deaf entertainer and rapper who performed at the Super Bowl
- Michael Spady — deaf actor and Broadway star
- Kenny Walker — NFL player
- Mary Herring Wright — deaf writer and contributor to Black American Sign Language
More Deaf Famous People?
I know this list is missing some successful deaf individuals. If you have any to share that I missed, email Heather@Ongig.com. You might also like one of our recent posts on 100+ Famous Blind People [A List of Actors, Athletes, Entrepreneurs, Writers, Musicians, & More!].
Why I Wrote This?
Ongig’s mission is to eliminate boring and biased job descriptions. Part of that mission is sharing best practices on everything diversity-related. Ongig’s Text Analyzer helps you avoid words that exclude famous (or non-famous) people with disabilities like hearing impairments. Please visit Ongig if you’d like to learn more.
Shout-Outs:
- Famous Deaf People: 17 Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Actors (by AI Media)
- Black “Deaf” History Month (by National Black Deaf Advocates)
- What it’s like to be a deaf model on international runways and shoots (by Jemima Lewin)
- Famous and Historic Deaf (and Hearing) People (by Jamie Berke)
- Deaf Artists (by Wikipedia)
- These deaf & hard of hearing comedians are using humour to create awareness about Deaf culture (by Newz Hook)
- EwOk, the World’s Most Famous Deaf Professional Gamer (by Emilio Ferrerio)
- Deaf gamer Danik Soudakoff talks streaming, signing and never giving up (by Aatish Patel)
- 4 Deaf Performers (by Cennarium)
- Famous Deaf Scientists (by Deaf Digest)
- Deaf Writers (by Wikipedia)
- Not Your Average Dancer: Meet the Deaf Dancer Defying Stereotypes (by Katherine Beard)
- Dancing While Deaf: What It’s Like to Move to Music You Can’t Hear (by Rebecca J. Ritzel)
- Famous Deaf People (by Start ASL)
- Stars with Hearing Loss: 10 Celebrities Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (by Kelly Mahoney)
- 8 Famous Deaf People Who Changed the World (by Deaf Unity)
- 5 Famous Deaf People who Changed the World (by terptree UK)
- That Deaf Guy (by Matt & Kay Daigle)