My parents were both born in Birmingham, Alabama, and come from large Catholic families with lots of Michaels, Marks, and Patricks, so they wanted to choose two names that I don't think you could find anywhere else in the family tree: Haley and Joel.

Haley Joel Osment

In 2011, I started a nonprofit organization, Venture for America, to help bring talented young entrepreneurs to create thousands of jobs in Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Birmingham, Baltimore and other cities around the country.

Andrew Yang

Nobody black had learned anything from the 'Letter from the Birmingham Jail' or from the 'I Have a Dream' speech. That was a revelation of white people.

Andrew Young

Birmingham did a truly remarkable thing in building Symphony Hall, which is the finest concert hall in the U.K. and one of the best in the world. The city has supported music without putting on the brakes.

Andris Nelsons

I feel unbelievably blessed that I have had the opportunity to photograph Malala in her classroom in Birmingham.

Annie Leibovitz

While the 1963 Birmingham church bombing is the most historic, there also was a series of church burnings in the 1990s. Recognition of the terror those and similar acts impose on communities seems to have been forgotten post-Sept. 11, 2001.

Anthea Butler

I started in the kitchen of a Holiday Inn in Birmingham. I wanted to be a sponge, wanted to learn and progress. I knew I didn't want to work in a hotel forever, but I had some good teachers there.

April Bloomfield

My enthusiasm for L.A. stems from my father, who was a lecturer in American literature at the University of Birmingham. Through his work, our family did several house swaps with L.A. families. It was a dreadfully daring thing to do in the early 1980s; there was no Internet, so you had no idea of what you were getting into.

Ben Miller

I admire Tom Ades: he's a brilliant conductor, and he gets just the right hard, brilliant sound from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Russian music.

Charles Hazlewood

I went to university in Birmingham in the 1970s just when the curry revolution was starting in Britain.

Chris Tarrant

When I was at university in Birmingham, I used to spend half my grant betting on horse racing. Seven terms out of nine, I made a profit.

Chris Tarrant

Birmingham is my second home.

Christopher Timothy

Pebble Mill was packed with a lot of talent and a lot of really, really good stuff came out of Birmingham. It was a tragedy that it closed. It was the most famous TV centre in the country.

Christopher Timothy

There was a shop in Birmingham called Autographs, where I'm from in Birmingham. My uncles and dad used to shop there. They played professionally, too. When I started, I went to Autograph, and they had brands like Rick Owens. There are loads of brands, like my go-to brands that I will go to if I want to buy jeans, like DSquared or Balmain.

Daniel Sturridge

I grew up in Hockley, Birmingham. It was an environment I'll never forget in terms of playing football on local pitches, kicking a ball around in the front garden and all over the house. It was a positive place to live, and somewhere, that gave me the right grounding for where I am today.

Daniel Sturridge

I grew up in Birmingham, but my parents are originally from Barbados. My dad, Romeo, was a long-distance lorry driver, and my mother, Mayleen, worked in catering.

David Harewood

Birmingham people are the salt of the earth, and I've carried that with me all around the world. People respond to a certain down-to-earthness that I have, and that's purely as a result of coming from Birmingham.

David Harewood

I grew up in an environment in Birmingham that was really multicultural, with black kids, Irish kids, Indian kids.

David Harewood

I'm the only member of my family who dared to move away from Birmingham - my brothers and sister are still here, along with my mom.

David Harewood

The area where I grew up in Birmingham was very diverse - I was aware of my race but not overly aware of it - and there seemed to be an understanding that we were all very much in the same boat.

David Harewood

We come to Birmingham every January for the 'Britain's Got Talent' auditions and always have a great time.

Declan Donnelly