text: Montel Williams – Emmy Award-winning talk show host who later served as a cryptology officer in the U.S. Navy; retired as a lieutenant commander after 22 years of service (The Montel Williams Show)
  Ted Williams – baseball Hall of Famer
  Michael Wilson – Oscar-winning screenwriter (A Place in the Sun, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Planet of the Apes)
  Pete Wilson – former Governor of California
  Terry Wilson – actor (Wagon Train, Westworld)
  Jonathan Winters – Emmy and Grammy Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated comedian, actor, author, television host and artist (It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World)
  Ed Wood – director (Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space)
  Jeremiah Wright – controversial pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago
  Y
  Burt Young – Oscar-nominated actor, artist and former boxer (Rocky, Chinatown)
  Otis Young – actor (The Last Detail, Rawhide)
  Z
  George D. Zamka – NASA astronaut
  Douglas Zembiec – Marine Corps officer and member of the CIA's Special Activities Division's Ground Branch who was killed in action while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom
  Anthony Zinni – foreign policy analyst and television commentator
  Barry Zorthian – press officer for  years during the Vietnam War