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^[1]
• 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.^[2]
• 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
• Joseph Michael Kelly - Architect and Engineer
• Mark E. Kelly - NASA astronaut, test pilot and US senator
• 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 ^[3]
• 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, portrayed JFK in PT-109
• 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^[4]
• Paul Teutul Sr. – founder of Orange County Choppers motorcycle manufacturer
• Jim Thorpe – Olympic athlete
• Eliza Thorrold – licensed tugboat master, San Francisco Bay, 1897^[5]
• 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^[5]
• 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