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honorary knighthoods
Mar. 2nd, 2005 12:11 pmAfter reading an article today about Bill Gates receiving an honorary knighthood (KBE) from the Queen ( explains finicky details of KBE as applied to foreigners ) I began to ponder the number of foreign citizens to receive honorary knighthoods. I mean, the news articles always just throw in two or three names so the readers won't think of the honor as unprecedented (Bill Gates, like Rudolph Giuliani and Alan Greenspan...).
And I googled, and found no complete lists. So I went to AskNow, the live reference librarian chat. I always feel vaguely as though it's Library Porn -- click here to chat with a live reference librarians! Live reference librarians available 24/7! Annnnnd the reference librarian in question was able to find me a few notes about the honorary KBE, but was not able to find me a comprehensive list online -- she's going to check the various Who's Who type books and get back to me. (It saddens me, because I'm sure Bunter could have found the answer in 20 seconds. Of course, at that point in history Debrett's and Burke's were still being published regularly, and if all else failed there was always the London Gazette.)
Regardless, we did turn up some partial lists. Piecing them together, I'd like to list some foreign recipients of honorary KBEs, with brief notes on the origin of their fame:
George H.W. Bush (president)
Wesley Clark (ex-General, Dem presidential candidate)
Placido Domingo (Spanish tenor)
Lawrence Eagleburger (SecState for Reagan)
Tom Foley (Democratic Speaker of the House, first sitting speaker to fail to win reelection, probably did other stuff)
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (actor, Gunga Din and Sinbad the Sailor)
Tommy Franks (also ex-General and ex-Commander-in-Chief of US Central Command during Iraq invasion)
Bill Gates (creator of Windows, into giving money to Cambridge)
Bob Geldof (Irish singer, organized Live Aid)
J. Paul Getty (inherited lots of Getty money)
Louis V. Gerstner (ex-CEO of IBM)
Rudy Giuliani (ex-mayor of New York)
Billy Graham (televangelist)
Alan Greenspan (blah blah Federal Reserve)
Bob Hope (entertainer, and a weird case, as he was born in England but wasn't a British citizen when he was given a KBE)
Yehudi Menuhin (violinist, conductor; also, renounced American citizenship and applied for British and for a transformation of his KBE, so he's now had both an honorary and a substantive KBE)
Lewis Mumford (historian)
Wayne Newton (musician? sorta-actor?)
Pelé (Brazilian footballer, but granted KBE for his work in the Brazilian government, verrrry coincidentally right before the World Cup)
Murray Perahi (pianist)
Sidney Poitier (definitely an actor. also a director.)
Colin Powell (also ex-General and SecState for Bush)
Andre Previn (also a pianist and a composer)
Ronald Reagan (president)
H. Norman Schwarzkopf (also ex-General, during first Gulf War)
Brent Scowcroft (National Security Adviser to the elder Pres Bush)
Steven Spielberg (director, E.T., Indiana Jones, Schindler's List, other stuff)
Simon Wiesenthal (famous hunter of Nazi war criminals)
James Wolfensohn (president of World Bank)
Pretty weird list, no? My personal favorite, by far, is Billy Graham, who won the award for (and I quote) "truly international contribution to civic and religious life." Whoa.
And I googled, and found no complete lists. So I went to AskNow, the live reference librarian chat. I always feel vaguely as though it's Library Porn -- click here to chat with a live reference librarians! Live reference librarians available 24/7! Annnnnd the reference librarian in question was able to find me a few notes about the honorary KBE, but was not able to find me a comprehensive list online -- she's going to check the various Who's Who type books and get back to me. (It saddens me, because I'm sure Bunter could have found the answer in 20 seconds. Of course, at that point in history Debrett's and Burke's were still being published regularly, and if all else failed there was always the London Gazette.)
Regardless, we did turn up some partial lists. Piecing them together, I'd like to list some foreign recipients of honorary KBEs, with brief notes on the origin of their fame:
George H.W. Bush (president)
Wesley Clark (ex-General, Dem presidential candidate)
Placido Domingo (Spanish tenor)
Lawrence Eagleburger (SecState for Reagan)
Tom Foley (Democratic Speaker of the House, first sitting speaker to fail to win reelection, probably did other stuff)
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (actor, Gunga Din and Sinbad the Sailor)
Tommy Franks (also ex-General and ex-Commander-in-Chief of US Central Command during Iraq invasion)
Bill Gates (creator of Windows, into giving money to Cambridge)
Bob Geldof (Irish singer, organized Live Aid)
J. Paul Getty (inherited lots of Getty money)
Louis V. Gerstner (ex-CEO of IBM)
Rudy Giuliani (ex-mayor of New York)
Billy Graham (televangelist)
Alan Greenspan (blah blah Federal Reserve)
Bob Hope (entertainer, and a weird case, as he was born in England but wasn't a British citizen when he was given a KBE)
Yehudi Menuhin (violinist, conductor; also, renounced American citizenship and applied for British and for a transformation of his KBE, so he's now had both an honorary and a substantive KBE)
Lewis Mumford (historian)
Wayne Newton (musician? sorta-actor?)
Pelé (Brazilian footballer, but granted KBE for his work in the Brazilian government, verrrry coincidentally right before the World Cup)
Murray Perahi (pianist)
Sidney Poitier (definitely an actor. also a director.)
Colin Powell (also ex-General and SecState for Bush)
Andre Previn (also a pianist and a composer)
Ronald Reagan (president)
H. Norman Schwarzkopf (also ex-General, during first Gulf War)
Brent Scowcroft (National Security Adviser to the elder Pres Bush)
Steven Spielberg (director, E.T., Indiana Jones, Schindler's List, other stuff)
Simon Wiesenthal (famous hunter of Nazi war criminals)
James Wolfensohn (president of World Bank)
Pretty weird list, no? My personal favorite, by far, is Billy Graham, who won the award for (and I quote) "truly international contribution to civic and religious life." Whoa.
