# List of American mariners

Notable members of the United States Merchant Marine have included:
* Jim Bagby Jr. – Major League Baseball pitcher
* Raymond Bailey – actor
* Alvin Baldus – former Democratic member of Congress
* Nathaniel Bowditch – author
* L. Brent Bozell Jr. – conservative activist and Catholic writer
* Lenny Bruce – comedian and poet
* Gordon Canfield – Republican congressman from New Jersey
* Alfonso J. Cervantes – forty-third Mayor of Saint Louis, Missouri
* Granville Conway – public servant, Presidential Medal for Merit recipient
* Harvey Cox – preeminent theologian and professor at Harvard Divinity School
* Joseph Curran – labor leader
* Richard Henry Dana Jr. – author
* Deborah Doane Dempsey – first American female master to command a cargo ship sailing internationally
* Dan Devine – football coach
* Peter Falk – actor
* Eric Fleming – actor
* James Garner – actor
* Allen Ginsberg – poet
* Seamon Glass – actor and author
* Harry Guardino – actor
* Woody Guthrie – musician
* David Hackworth – retired United States Army colonel and prominent military journalist
* Sterling Hayden – actor and author
* Chuck Hayward – actor and stuntman
* Don Hewitt – television news producer and executive
* Chuck Hicks – actor and stuntman
* Sadie O. Horton – female mariner who spent World War II working aboard a coastwise U.S. Merchant Marine barge, and posthumously received official veteran’s status for her wartime service in 2017, becoming the first recorded female Merchant Marine veteran of World War II.
* Cisco Houston – folk singer
* Richard Jaeckel – actor
* Cornelius Johnson – Olympic medal-winning high jumper
* Irving Johnson – author, adventurer and sail training pioneer
* John Paul Jones – naval officer
* Jack Kerouac – author
* Daniel Keyes – author and professor
* Joseph Stanley Kozlowski, AB – portrait and watercolor artist
* Leonard LaRue – naval officer who saved 14,000 lives during the Korean War
* Jack London – author
* Louis L'Amour – author
* Jack Lord – actor
* Jerry Marcus – cartoonist of comic strip Trudy
* Steve McQueen – actor
* Herman Melville – author
* Ray Montgomery – actor
* Hugh Mulzac – master mariner and civil rights activist
* James Nachtwey – photojournalist and war photographer
* Lloyd Nolan – actor
* George H. O'Brien Jr. – Medal of Honor recipient in Korean War
* Jeremiah O'Brien – captain of the privateer Unity in the first battle of the Revolutionary War
* Carroll O'Connor – actor
* Jack Paar – created TV talk show; was replaced by Johnny Carson
* Mary Patten (1837–1861) – only woman to take command of a clipper ship after the captain was incapacitated
* Donn Pearce – author and journalist
* Richard Phillips – held hostage by pirates and later rescued
* Richard Scott Prather – mystery novelist
* Denver Pyle – actor
* Bill Raisch – actor, stuntman, dancer and acting coach
* Joseph Resnick – Democratic congressman from New York
* Nelson Riddle – bandleader, arranger and orchestrator
* Cliff Robertson – actor and aviator
* Ernie Schroeder – comic book artist
* Otto Scott – journalist and author
* Hubert Selby Jr. – author
* Frank Sinkwich – 1942 Heisman Trophy winner
* Gary Snyder – poet
* Joseph D. Stewart – Vice Admiral, Superintendent of the United States Merchant Marine Academy
* Montfort Stokes – Democratic Senator
* Oliver Stone – three-time Academy Award-winning film director and screenwriter
* Celia Sweet – first female pilot in San Diego Bay, 1912
* Paul Teutul Sr. – founder of Orange County Choppers motorcycle manufacturer
* Jim Thorpe – Olympic athlete
* Eliza Thorrold – licensed tugboat master, San Francisco Bay, 1897
* Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens) – author; inland waters
* Dave Van Ronk – folk singer nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street"
* Clint Walker – actor
* Jack Warden – actor
* John S. Watson – New Jersey politician
* Ted Weems – bandleader and musician
* Carlia Wescott – first American woman to be granted marine engineer's license, 1922
* Haskell Wexler – Academy Award-winning cinematographer, director, producer and screenwriter
* Nedd Willard (born 1928) – writer, artist, journalist
* Andy Williams – singer
* Charles Williams – writer of hardboiled crime fiction
* Robin Wilson – science fiction author and editor, and former President of California State University, Chico
* Charles Armijo Woodruff – 11th Governor of American Samoa