Wait, what?!

My hometown pride has just been upped about ten thousand points.
Gregory Peck - let me say that again - GREGORY PECK was born in SAN DIEGO, California. My town! My place of birth!

 We San Diegans are a classy lot.

He went to High School next to Balboa Park, and then attended - get this - SDSU for a year, finishing school at Berkley.  How weird is that?!  SDSU!

This happy discovery prompted a search - again on Wikipedia, that blessed site - through their list of San Diegans to find other actors of note.  (i.e. ones I've heard of.)

  

I was delighted, overjoyed, to discover that Robert Duvall was born here as well.  That's something to be proud of.  Cameron Diaz is less thrilling, but hey, if I ever get famous we'll at least have something in common to talk about at the Vanity Fair party.  Better than nothing, right? A little ice-breaker? (Edit: Though, now that I think on it, I'm not sure I would want to talk to Cameron Diaz at parties.  What if someone took a picture of the revoltingly slender, fit, well-manicured, perfectly made up and coifed woman while I was standing next to her?  I don't think my self-confidence could take it.  I'm sure she's sweet and funny and that we would become total besties, but I would never be able to stand next to her without feeling a slobby, ill-dressed and manicured blimp.  Sorry Cam - our friendship will have to be strictly limited to texting only.  ttyl)

  

Mostly, depressingly, the notable thespians relating to my fair hometown are people like Adam Brody and Autumn Reeser, Mario Lopez and Jason Earles who may be huge within their fan base, but don't really thrill non-O.C. watching, pre-Saved by the Bell, Hannah haters like me.  There are a lot of people like Marion Ross, maths-touting Danica McKellar and - to a lesser degree - Nakia Burrise, etc., who are all known for one role they played on, like, Happy Days for eight thousand years and nothing else.  (It was Power Rangers for Burrise. No offense to any Rangers fans out there, but I think Happy Days probably was a more challenging gig than shouting things like, "it's Morphin' time!"  Thus, "to a lesser degree".)  The mean popular guy Mandy Moore likes in the first Princess Diaries movie - Zach or Ethan or whatever -  who, incidentally, voiced Sid in the first Toy Story, possibly the scariest villain ever to blow things up while cackling malevolently in the history of the entire world - was born in old SD as well.
But, honestly, I don't care very much.
There are also a few people - Harold Lloyd for instance (moved here as a kid), who, according to Wikipedia,  "ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era" - who I feel I ought to have heard of before, but haven't.

Yep.  Never seen him before.

In some ways, reading about dozens of very mildly successful careers - the variety most of San Diego's talent has boasted - is depressing.  SD is the ninth largest city in the U.S. - you'd think we would have produced more quality talent.  Puny half-dead industrial towns in England boast more thespians of note.
I guess it makes sense - when held up next to the states, England is comparatively compact; it shouldn't be surprising that every third actor was born in a suburb of London.  But still.  Are they hoarding the talent, or what?
Oh well. We got Gregory Peck - so na-na on you!

Later:
What have I done!?  About twenty seconds ago, I declared a fast from facebook! A fast intended to last until May 31! Am I a lunatic or something?!  I have to stay off now, because EVERYONE will know if I cheat.  Accountability, it's a terrible thing.  I wrote a "what are you thinking" or whatever it is, proclaiming my plans.  Ugh, stupid.
But right.  When you spend more time commenting with friends than talking face to face, I think there's a problem.
Aw, nuts.  Being mature is a total drag.

Later later:
feel a bit victorious.  I just deleted my Twitter account.  The darn thing is gone! Facebook will hurt, but I'm almost glad to be rid of Twitter.  I just couldn't go on writing mindless blurbs so deplorably titled "tweets".