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Above Average: 30 Famous Tall People Who’ve Made Their Mark

Numerous well-known figures are renowned for their height.  These individuals range from actors, athletes, and musicians to politicians. But you may wonder, what about tall people makes them so successful? Tall people may have an advantage in some circumstances because they are more likely to be seen and noticed, according to some people. Others contend that being tall simply makes one more outgoing and confident, which can help one succeed in the workplace.

Observing their careers, lives and the mark they left around the globe, these individuals have etched their names in history books for ages to come. If you are tall and aspiring to be famous, then this is your go-to topic; perhaps you’ll make the list next time. Here are 30 of the famous tall people.

1. Robert Wadlow

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Robert Wadlow was a towering giant of a man. He was 8 feet 11.1 inches tall and weighed 439 pounds, making him the tallest person ever measured for whom there is unquestionable evidence.

Hypertrophy of his pituitary gland was what led to his huge size.  Long after adulthood, his growth hormone levels were extra high that he never stopped growing his entire life

Wadlow’s condition made him a celebrity. He toured with the Ringling Brothers Circus and appeared in the centre ring at Madison Square Garden and the Boston Garden. Wadlow was a fan-favourite to the public thanks to his gentleness.

He died of an infection after his leg brace rubbed against his ankle when he was only 22 years old.

2. John Rogan

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At 8 feet 9 inches (2.67 meters), John William “Bud” Rogan is the second-tallest person ever, just behind Robert Wadlow. Rogan died while his height stood at 8 feet 9 inches. Just behind Wadlow, Rogan was the second-tallest individual to ever live and the tallest person with African roots. Robert Wadlow’s height surpassed Rogan’s in 1939.

3. Sultan Kosen

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Sultan Kösen, a Turkish farmer, is the tallest man alive with a height of 251 cm (8 ft 2.82 in). Kösen’s acromegaly and gigantism were brought on by a pituitary tumour, which also caused his other medical conditions. He walks with crutches because of his height.

4. Sun Mingming

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Sun Mingming, a retired Chinese professional basketball player, is the tallest player in the world. 

Thanks to his towering height of 7 feet 9 inches (2.36 meters) and weight of 168 kilograms (370 pounds), he played a key role as a driving force on the team he was on. 

5. Manute Bol

Manute Bol was a giant among men.  Bol is one of the tallest individuals to ever grace the earth standing at 7 feet 7 inches tall.

Bol came from a family of extraordinarily tall people. Bol’s sister’s height was 6 feet 8 inches tall, his father’s height was 6 feet 8 inches tall, and his mother’s was 6 feet 10 inches tall. Even his great-grandfather outgrew them all, at an astonishing 7 feet 10 inches tall.

Bol’s height gave him a unique advantage on the basketball court. Bol was astonishingly a good shooter on the court and thanks to his height blocking shots and rebounding was like child’s play to him. 

6. Gheorghe Muresan

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Gheorghe Muresan stands at a  towering 7 feet 7 inches tall making him one of the tallest players to ever play in the NBA. Before signing on with the Washington Bullets for the 1993–1994 NBA season, Muresan began his professional basketball career in Europe.

Muresan used his extraordinary height and wingspan to command the court and make it difficult for rival players to make defensive shots.

Because of his enormous size, Muresan was able to secure rebounds and use his strength and agility to help his team gain possession. George had an impressive career which saw him feature on different teams and with them winning awards a product of his exquisite talent. To summarize, Gheorghe Muresan’s extraordinary height made him a highly prized asset to his NBA teams.

7. Yao Ming

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 Yao Ming’s 7′ 6″ height makes him one of the tallest basketball players ever and among the tallest most famous people. The Houston Rockets drafted Yao as the first overall pick in NBA Draft 2002. Yao Ming made the most of his extraordinary height throughout his career by dominating the basketball court with his powerful presence and strength.

His height and deft footwork were an advantage that made him get chances to score in and out of the arc. 

Yao’s enormous size made it difficult for opposing teams to make close-range shots and significantly hindered them. His enormous size cemented him as an important asset in the NBA.

8. Peter Mayhew

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Peter Mayhew was a British-American actor. Playing Chewbacca in the Star Wars movie franchise established him as a household name in the entertainment industry. From the 1977 original to 2015’s The Force Awakens, he played the part throughout his live-action appearances before stepping down from it.

He received a gigantism diagnosis when he was just 8 years old. Mayhew also had a genetic tissue disorder called Marfan syndrome. He grew to a height of 7’3″ at his peak. 

9. Kristaps Porzingis

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Kristaps Porziis is a professional basketball player from Latvia who plays for the Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association. He is one of the NBA’s tallest players right now at 7 ft 3 in (2.21 m) tall. He can play power forward or centre. Due to his height, he is one of the world’s tallest celebrities.

10. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

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There is a reason why Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was able to win six MVP awards in the course of his career. He has six championships to his name, and his dominance dates back twenty years. Although Jabbar had a long title drought before joining the Lakers’ Showtime, his height of 7 ‘2 ” helped him win a championship ring with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1971 and later with the Los Angeles Lakers.

His 38,837-point total has stood the test of time. His record stood until LeBron beat it, over 20 years after he retired. During the Lakers’ Showtime era, The Captain won five additional championships while Magic handled traffic. 

11. Shaquille O’Neal 

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Shaquille O’Neal is one of the greatest American icons and NBA players in history. He was an American former professional basketball player who is a sports analyst on the television program Inside the NBA.

At only 10 years old, Shaquille stood at a towering 6 feet. He is currently 7 feet 1 inch tall. Shaq currently reigns supreme on TNT’s Inside the NBA after a historic 19-year run on the court.

12. Rumeysa Gelgi

Rumeysa Gelgi is a Turkish advocate, researcher, and front-end developer who has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the tallest living woman, as well as having the largest hands, longest fingers, and longest back of any female. She had previously held the title of tallest living female teenager. She is 7 ft 0.71 in (215.16 cm) tall.

13. Kevin Durant

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Diverse opinions will be raised by Durant’s inclusion in the NBA All-Time Greats. However, his extraordinary ability to score when in control of the basketball is one thing that cannot be argued. Durant averages 27.0 points per game and it’s no doubt that he is a four-time scoring champion.  Thanks to basketball, Durant is famously known across the globe. He is an enormous 6′ 10″ tall. 

14. LeBron James

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LeBron James brings up grandiose thoughts. From the first dribble, he took in an NBA game till the present, he has done nothing but live up to the huge hype that was placed on his shoulders when he graduated from high school in Akron, Ohio. LeBron exceeded expectations in addition to living up to them.  He is a reputable figure in the basketball world given that the game has defined him ever since he was in high school.  LeBron is 6 ft 9 in tall.

Check Out: Top 10 Unbelievable Facts about LeBron James

15. Klay Thompson 

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Klay Thompson plays professionally for the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. He has taken part in five NBA All-Star games, twice made the NBA Third Team, once made the NBA All-Defensive Second Team, and won four NBA championships with the Warriors.

In addition, he owns gold medals from the Olympic and World Cup teams of the American national team from 2014 and 2016, respectively. Klay stands at 6 feet 6 inches.

16. Krist Novoselic

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Krist Anthony Novoselic is an American musician and activist. He played bass and was a co-founder of the rock group Nirvana. After Nirvana split up, Novoselic started two new bands, Sweet 75 in 1995 and Eyes Adrift in 2002, each of which produced one album. His height of 6 feet 6 inches is astounding.

17. John Cleese

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John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He first found fame after leaving the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a writer and performer on The Frost Report.

John was part of the founding team of Monty Python’s comedic group, which was synonymous with producing Monty Python’s Flying Circus in the late 1960s. Cleese is a 6-foot-5-inch man.

18. Tim Robbins

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Actor and director Timothy Francis Robbins hail from the United States. He won Golden Globes for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for his roles in Mystic River (2003) and The Player (1992), respectively. He is most known for his role as Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Timothy stands at 6 feet 5 inches.

19. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

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Dwayne Douglas Johnson, also known by his ring moniker the Roc, is an American actor, producer, and former professional wrestler.

He is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time and was instrumental in the development and growth of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in the Attitude Era, a period of industry boom, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

He is also one of the world’s highest-paid earning actors. Dwayne has a height of 6 feet 5 inches.

20. Usain Bolt

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Usain Bolt is a retired Jamaican sprinter who is regarded as the sport’s all-time best sprinter. He holds the world records for the 100, 200, and four-by-100 meter world records.

By winning the 100-meter and 200-meter Olympic titles at three successive Olympics (2008, 2012, and 2016), Bolt achieved a remarkable feat, taking home a total of eight Olympic gold medals. In the 4 x 100 relay, he also won two gold medals. Bolt is 6 feet 5 inches tall.

21. Vince Vaughn 

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Vincent Anthony Vaughn is an American actor. Vaughn is most recognized for his main performances in comedy movies like Old School (2003), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), Wedding Crashers (2005), The Break-Up (2006), Fred Claus (2007), and Four Christmases (2008). He continued to play humorous parts in the 2010s in The Dilemma (2011), The Watch (2012), and The Internship (2013). Vaughn stands 6 feet 4 inches tall.

22. Abraham Lincoln

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Abraham Lincoln, an American lawyer, politician, and statesman, served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 to 1865. Lincoln was successful in ending slavery, strengthening the federal government, and modernizing the American economy by leading the Union through the American Civil War to defend the country as a constitutional union. Lincoln stood at 6 feet 4 inches.

Read More: Top 10 Facts about Abraham Lincoln

23. Jeff Goldblum

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Actor and musician Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum hails from the United States. He has appeared in some of the highest-grossing films, such as the 1993 and 1996 sequels to Jurassic Park and Independence Day, respectively. He has a height of 6 feet 4 inches.

24. Liam Neeson

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William Neeson is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received nominations for two Tony Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, an Academy Award, and a BAFTA Award. He came in at number seven on The Irish Times’ list of the country’s 50 greatest film actors in 2020. Neeson was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2000. He stands 6 feet 3 inches tall.

25. Conan O’Brien

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Conan O’Brien is a television personality, comedian, writer, and producer from the United States. The late-night talk programs that O’Brien is most known for hosting include The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (1909-2010), Late Night with Conan O’Brien (1993-2009), and Conan (2010-2021) on the cable network TBS.

He has also been the host of the podcast series Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend since 2018 and he is set to debut Conan O’Brien Must Go, a travel show on Max. He has a   height of 6 feet 3 inches.

26. Jason Momoa

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Jason Momoa is an American actor. He made his acting debut as Jason Ioane on the action drama series Baywatch: Hawaii, which was broadcast on a national basis from 1999 to 2001. After that, he portrayed Khal Drogo in the first two seasons of the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones, which aired between 2011 and 2012, after portraying  Ronon Dex in the science fiction series Stargate Atlantis, which ran on Syfy from 2005 to 2009.

Later, he played the main characters in the historical drama series Frontier on Discovery Channel (2016–2018) and the science fiction series See on Apple TV+ (2019–2022). Since 2016, Momoa has played the role of Aquaman in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), including the standalone Aquaman (2018) movie. Jason is a 6-foot-3-inch man.

27. Gwendoline Christie

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Gwendoline Christie is an English actress best known for her roles as Brienne of Tarth in the HBO fantasy-drama series Game of Thrones (2012–2019) and Captain Phasma, a First Order stormtrooper, in the films Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017).

She was nominated for the Former’s Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Primetime Emmy Award in 2019. Since then, Christie has made appearances in the Netflix fantasy shows Wednesday and The Sandman (both from 2022). She stands 6 ft 3 in.

28. Karlie Kloss 

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Model Karlie Kloss hails from the United States. When she was just 17 years old, she was listed as one of the “Top 30 Models of the 2000s” by Vogue Â鶹APP. From 2013 to 2015, Kloss was a Victoria’s Secret Angel; she left the company to attend New York University. She had been featured on 40 different worldwide Vogue covers by 2019. Kloss is a towering 6 feet 2 inches tall.

29. Idris Elba

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DJ and actor Idrissa Elba hails from England. He is well-known for his performances as Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) and Stringer Bell in the HBO biographical drama The Wire (2002–2004), as well as DCI John Luther in the BBC One drama Luther.

He was nominated four times for Luther in the Best Actor category of the Golden Globes and the Outstanding Lead Actor category of the Primetime Emmys, with the Best Actor category of the Golden Globes going to him. Elba is 6 feet 2 inches tall.

30. Maria Sharapova

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Maria Sharapova, a former tennis player from Russia, held the top spot in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) singles rankings for a total of 21 weeks. Sharapova competed on the WTA Tour from 2001 until 2020, and she had a successful career. As one of her generation’s most formidable competitors, Sharapova has earned widespread acclaim.

She has a sizable following on social media thanks to her remarkable exploits and extensive recognition. She stands 6 feet 2 inches tall.

Related: 15 Most Famous Short People