Famous Faces in Savannah

Famous Faces in Savannah

Long before the notoriety described in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, interesting people were doing interesting things in this city. Here's a sampling of the figures who have etched themselves into Savannah's collective memory.

Actor Robert Mitchum (1917-97) gave one of his finest performances as a psychotic ex-convict in 1961's Cape Fear, which was filmed in and around Savannah. The shooting wasn't Mitchum's first visit to the city. In 1934, as a wayward 17-year-old, he roamed across America and was arrested on charges of vagrancy and begging while panhandling in Savannah. Six days after he was jailed, he escaped. When he returned to Savannah, his earlier transgressions were never mentioned.

James L. Pierpont (1822-93) wrote the Christmas classic "Jingle Bells" in Savannah -- at least that's what locals will tell you. A native of Medford, Massachusetts, Pierpont became music director of Savannah's Unitarian church in the 1850s. In 1857 he obtained a copyright for "The One Horse Open Sleigh" (commonly known as "Jingle Bells"). In the 1980s tempers boiled when Medford claimed that Pierpont had written the song in their city, not in Savannah. The dispute has never been resolved.

John Wesley (1703-91), the founder of Methodism, had some rough times in Savannah. He arrived in 1735, and fell in love with Sophia Hopkey. But Wesley wasn't prepared to marry and Sophia found another suitor, William Williamson. The jealous Wesley charged Sophia with neglect of public church services and refused to let her participate in communion. Sophia's uncle, Thomas Causton, Savannah's chief magistrate, charged Wesley with defamation, claiming he was unfit to be a minister. Wesley, found guilty on some of the counts, fled to England. By the time he died, at 88, he had become one of the towering figures in religious history.

Names of note also include Johnny Mercer (1909-76), a fourth generation Savannah native and one of America's most popular and successful songwriters of the 20th century. Between 1929 and 1976 he composed lyrics to more than 1,000 songs, received 19 Academy Award nominations, and co-founded Capitol Records. He is buried in Bonaventure Cemetery. Fiction writer Flannery O'Connor (1925-64) spent the first 13 years of her life in Savannah. A devout Catholic, she was a regular presence at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Her novels Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away amply convey her unique take on the Southern-Gothic style, but her greatest achievement is found in her short stories, published in the collections A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge.

Savannah is also the proud hometown of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, America's second African-American Supreme Court Justice.