50 Famous Women Who Were Once Girl Scouts

Shari Lewis entertained generations of young Americans with her puppets, musical performances, and books (she wrote 60 of them). She introduced her most famous character, Lamb Chop, on the “Captain Kangaroo Show” in 1957. The puppet was soon the star of an award-winning television show and even appeared before the House Telecommunications Subcommittee to speak on behalf of children’s programming. Lewis was born in New York City, was an active Girl Scout, and served on the board of Girls Scouts of the USA.

Born in Washington, D.C., in 1900, Helen Hayes worked in movies, television, and on radio, but her great love was the theater. She appeared in plays by Shakespeare, Eugene O’Neill, and Tennessee Williams, among many others, and is only one of a handful of people to win an Emmy, a Tony, a Grammy, and an Oscar. She was also a political activist and fundraiser. Hayes was a Girl Scout and remained a supporter of the organization as an adult.

Broadcast journalist Jane Pauley joined NBC in 1976 and remained with the network for more than 25 years, working as a correspondent, anchor, and host for various programs like the “Today” show and “Dateline.” She is now the host of “CBS Sunday Morning.” Pauley grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she was a Girl Scout. She is one of several journalists on our list of former scouts.

Former Girl Scout Elizabeth Dole has also been a U.S. senator, secretary of transportation, secretary of labor, as well as the president of the American Red Cross (she was only the second woman to lead the organization after its founder Clara Barton in 1881). She now runs the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, which supports families and friends of America’s wounded veterans.

Sacramento native Lisa Ling has had a wide-ranging career as a television journalist and talk show host. She has reported from numerous countries, served as a war correspondent, and was co-host of fellow Girl Scout Barbara Walters’ Emmy-nominated talk show “The View.”

Dorothy Hamill’s career has had more than a few twists and turns. She began skating at the age of eight and won the U.S. and World Championships and a gold medal in the 1976 Winter Olympics at the age of 19. (The Girl Scout blog proudly features a video of Hamill’s 1976 World Championship performance.) Hamill then went professional and toured with Ice Capades. She has continued to perform despite battles with osteoarthritis and breast cancer.

Natalie Merchant rose to fame as the lead singer for folk-rock band 10,000 Maniacs, which had great success in the 1980s. She went solo in the 1990s. She is known for her socially conscious songs and for her activism on issues such as animal rights, domestic violence, and homelessness.

Janet Reno was the first woman attorney general of the U.S. She was nominated to the position by President Bill Clinton and was not afraid to challenge the White House on a number of issues. Before that, Reno served five terms as state attorney for Dade County, Florida, even though she was a Democrat in a largely Republican area. She was a Girl Scout in Miami, where she grew up.

Originally known as Frances “Fanny” Rose Shore, singer and television personality Dinah Shore overcame childhood polio to become a cheerleader. She later majored in sociology at Vanderbilt University. Shore began singing on local radio and then moved to New York to build her career. She was one of the biggest stars of the 1940s and continued performing until the 1980s. Shore is one of many actresses on our list of former Girl Scouts.

Sally Ride became the first woman to fly in space as a crew member on the space shuttle Challenger in 1983. She later became an advocate for science education, especially for girls, was a professor of physics at the University of California, and served as president of Space.com from 1999 to 2000. A Girl Scout in her youth, Ride co-founded Camp CEO, a Girl Scouts mentorship program.

Susan Lucci achieved fame and won an Emmy Award for playing Erica Kane on ABC’s “All My Children.” The former Girl Scout once wrote, “Clearly, Erica Kane was never a Girl Scout, but I’m really glad I was!” Lucci has since appeared in various television series and shows. She got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005, was inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2006, and has served as an Ambassador for the National Women’s History Museum in Washington, D.C.

Former Scout and Des Moines native Lori Susan “Lolo” Jones has enjoyed success as both a hurdler and bobsledder. In hurdling, she won gold medals at the World Indoor Championship in 2008 and 2010 and competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In bobsledding, she was a brakewoman on the U.S. national team and won a gold medal in the 2013 World Championships. Jones also competed in the 2014 Winter Olympics, making her one of the few athletes who has been in both the Summer and Winter games.

Broadcast journalist Katie Couric served for several years in Arlington, Virginia’s Girl Scout Troop 2165 and has remained dedicated to Scouting ever since. Couric hosted an ABC News segment to mark the Girl Scouts’ 100th anniversary and has supported “To Get Her There,” a Girl Scouts program aimed at raising awareness of the leadership gap between men and women.

Barbara Walters grew up in Boston, where she was a Girl Scout. She worked as a television journalist for more than 60 years and gained prominence on ABC’s “20/20” and as the first female co-anchor of the “ABC Evening News.” She interviewed many world leaders and won numerous awards, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Born Alexandra Zuck in New Jersey, Sandra Dee was a teen star in the late 1950s and 1960s. Her first modeling job was for the Girl Scouts magazine. She later appeared in such iconic movies as “Gidget” and “A Summer Place.” Dee was also married to pop idol Bobby Darin, and their marriage was the subject of the Kevin Spacey movie “Beyond the Sea.”

Gloria Steinem is more than an author and journalist — she has also been an entrepreneur and a feminist activist throughout her career. She co-founded New York Magazine and Ms. magazine and helped launch the Women’s Action Alliance, the Women’s Media Center and Voters for Choice. Activism is in Steinem’s DNA — her paternal grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, was chairwoman of the educational committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association. The Girl Scout curriculum praises Steinem for moving “sisterhood to where it is today.”

Madeleine Albright was born Marie Korbel in Prague. Her family fled Czechoslovakia following the Nazi occupation in 1939. She has achieved success in academia, politics, and diplomacy. From 1993 to 1997, Albright was the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations and a member of the president’s cabinet. Albright then became the first female secretary of state — and the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government at that time. The two other female secretaries of state who followed Albright were also Girl Scout alums.

New Yorker Nancy Reagan achieved fame as a Hollywood actress. She married fellow actor Ronald Reagan and then became first lady of California and first lady of the United States. While in the White House, Reagan championed drug abuse awareness and founded the “Just Say No” initiative. She later was an advocate for Alzheimer’s sufferers after her husband developed the disease. Like all first ladies, Reagan was honorary National President of the Girl Scouts during her time at the White House.

As the only child of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chelsea has been in the public eye throughout her life. As an adult, she has worked for a consulting firm, a hedge fund, NBC, and the Clinton Foundation. She has also been an advocate for global health issues. Like her mother, Chelsea Clinton was a Girl Scout. Speaking at a Girl Scout event in Massachusetts, she said she learned from Scouts “the value of teamwork and everything that we girls can do when we work together.”

Actress Blythe Danner has enjoyed success in film, theater, and television. She is also known as the mother of Gwyneth Paltrow. Danner won a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in “Butterflies Are Free” and appeared in films such as “The Great Santini,” “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” “Meet the Parents,” and “Meet the Fockers.” Both she and her daughter were Girl Scouts.

Texas native Laura Bush was first lady when her husband, George W. Bush, was president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. She began her career as a teacher and has campaigned for education, literacy, and women’s issues. She also created the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries, which provides financial support to needy schools. Bush was honorary National President of the Girl Scouts during her husband’s presidency and said of the organization, “Girl Scouts has the perfect approach to reaching girls worldwide. The world is a better place because of Girl Scouts.”

Former Girl Scout Tammy Duckworth is the junior U.S. senator for Illinois. She previously served in the military for 23 years, flew combat missions in Iraq, and lost her legs when her helicopter was shot down. After retiring from the military as a lieutenant colonel, Duckworth served as assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. As a senator, she has been an advocate for veterans issues and campaigned against waste and fraud in defense spending. She thanked the Girl Scouts on Twitter “for teaching me leadership skills I use in the Senate everyday.”

Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, O’Connor ruled on several landmark cases involving women’s issues, including gender discrimination in education, abortion rights, and sexual harassment. Since retiring in 2006 she has been an advocate for youth involvement in civics and government. When she turned 85, an Arizona Girl Scouts troop introduced the Sandra Day O’Connor Civic Leadership Badge in honor of the former Girl Scout.

Marlo Thomas, the actress best known for her starring role on the sitcom “That Girl,” also is the creator of the book, record album, and television show “Free to Be… You and Me.” Thomas also works on behalf of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which was founded by her father Danny Thomas. Her husband, Phil Donahue, also has had a highly successful career in television. A former Girl Scout, Thomas continues to be a supporter of the organization.

Former Girl Scout Dionne Warwick is one of the most successful R&B and pop singers in history. In a career spanning more than 50 years she has collaborated with artists such as Burt Bacharach, Cyndi Lauper, and Jamie Foxx, hosted infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network, and been an entrepreneur in business.

Actress and Girl Scout alum Kathleen Turner was born in Springfield, Missouri. Her father was a diplomat and she went to school in England. Turner had a string of box office hits in the 1980s, including “Body Heat,” “Romancing the Stone,” “The Jewel of the Nile,” “Prizzi’s Honor,” and “Peggy Sue Got Married.”

Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow has had worldwide success and won nine Grammys. She also has been in the news for her romantic relationships, including with cyclist Lance Armstrong.

The former Girl Scout supports many causes — her website lists more than a dozen, including the World Food Program, the American Civil Liberties Union, Rock the Vote, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. (Crow is a breast cancer survivor.)

Brooklyn-born Mary Tyler Moore was one of the most successful television stars ever. She had a breakthrough role in “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and achieved huge fame with “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” She played Mary Richards, a single, independent career woman who produces a television news show. Moore and the character she played were seen as role models for women seeking to advance in traditionally male-dominated fields.

Condoleezza Rice has been a trailblazer both as a woman and an African American. She began her career teaching political science at Stanford University and became the first woman and first African American provost there. Rice then broke ground as she became President George W. Bush’s national security advisor and later secretary of state. In 2012, she became one of the first female members of Augusta National Golf Club, an organization that had excluded women for 80 years. The Girl Scouts blog describes her as “a fearless leader who started her leadership journey in Girl Scouting.”

New Yorker Abigail Breslin is one of the youngest former Girl Scouts on our list. She is also one of the youngest actresses to have been nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in “Little Miss Sunshine.” Breslin became a member of the San Fernando Valley Girl Scout Council.

Candice Bergen has enjoyed acting success in film, television, and theater and also worked as a model and a photojournalist. She is probably best known for playing the title role in the television series “Murphy Brown,” which ran for 10 seasons — and was revived in 2018 — and won her five Emmys and two Golden Globes.

Martha Stewart is really more than a TV personality — she could equally be described as a media mogul and lifestyle guru. She has also been a model, chef, writer, publisher and convicted felon (insider trading). But Stewart started out as a Girl Scout in Nutley, New Jersey. Of her scouting days, Stewart said, “I remember getting a lot of badges because of course I was an overachiever.”

Queen Latifah was born Dana Elaine Owens in Newark, New Jersey. As a child, she was nicknamed Latifah, which means “delicate and sensitive” in Arabic. She has achieved success both as a rap artist and an actress. Her debut album, “All Hail to the Queen,” was a hit, and the single “U.N.I.T.Y.” won a Grammy Award. She made her movie debut in Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever ” in 1991 and was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in “Chicago” in 2002. The former Girl Scout recently narrated “Lifetime of Leadership,” a documentary about famous scouts.

Actress Debbie Reynolds’ breakthrough role came when she was just 19 — she starred alongside Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain.” And she had never sung or danced before! Stewart went on to act in film, television, and theater and was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” She died of a stroke in December 2016, one day after the death of her daughter, the Star Wars series star Carrie Fisher. Both mother and daughter were Girl Scouts. At some point Reynolds explained, “I registered as a Girl Scout, and I want to die as the world’s oldest living Girl Scout. I’ve been one for 70 years. . . . It is such a good program, and it helped me in my youth.”

Shirley Temple was a famous child movie star of the 1930s who switched careers as an adult. She served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Ghana, and Czechoslovakia and was chief of protocol of the United States from 1974 to 1977. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1972 and was one of the first high-profile women to talk about her battle with the disease. Temple lived the next 40 years of her life as a devoted advocate for breast cancer awareness.

Lucille Ball wasn’t just an actress — she was a pioneer in comedy, television, and business. From the 1950s to the 1980s she starred in a series of shows that bore her name: “I Love Lucy,” “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” “The Lucy Show,” “Here’s Lucy,” and “Life with Lucy.” Ball was the first woman to head a production company, and her shows are still popular today.

California native Venus Williams is one of the most successful tennis players ever. She won seven Grand Slam titles, including five Wimbledon championships, an Olympic gold medal in singles, and three Olympic golds in doubles, playing with her younger sister Serena. Williams is also an entrepreneur and has launched her own clothing line and an interior design company. Even though Williams was a Girl Scout only very briefly — no time! — she spoke at a 100th anniversary celebration of the organization and said, “What helps you stay motivated is doing something that you love … something that when you wake up in the morning, you want to be better at.”

Michelle Obama was a Girl Scout while growing up in Chicago. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she has worked as a lawyer, a dean at the University or Chicago, and a vice president at University of Chicago Medical Center. She was first lady from 2009 to 2017 as wife of President Barack Obama. As first lady, she and her family hosted the first Girl Scout camp-out on the White House lawn. Obama recently wrote her memoir, “Becoming,” which has sold over 3 million copies.

While not technically a Girl Scout, Queen Elizabeth was an active member of the British sister organization, the Girl Guides. She served in the Buckingham Palace Company, and her troop was made up of other young royals, including her sister Princess Margaret. They cooked over campfires and learned to pitch tents on the palace grounds. Queen Elizabeth, who is in her nineties, is the longest-reigning British monarch.

Grace Kelly was a Girl Scout while growing up in Pennsylvania. She was a leading Hollywood actress in the 1950s, with roles in such classics as “High Noon” and “Rear Window.” She then married Prince Rainier III of Monaco and became Princess Grace. Kelly died in a car accident when she was only 52.

It’s hard to sum up Hillary Clinton’s career in a paragraph. Among other achievements, she was first lady of the United States, U.S. senator for New York, U.S. secretary of state, and the Democratic Party’s nominee in the 2016 presidential election. And she was a Girl Scout, too. Of her Girl Scout days, Clinton said she learned “songs that I still sing,” as well as “lifelong lessons about leadership and the value of public service and friendships that go back all those years and keep me grounded.”

Bette Davis was not only a decorated Girl Scout, but also a Scout leader as an adult. Meanwhile, Davis had an acting career that lasted some 60 years, and won Oscars for “Dangerous” and “Jezebel.” When the song “Bette Davis Eyes” became a hit, she reportedly wrote to singer Kim Carnes and the songwriters thanking them for making her “a part of modern times.”

Dakota Fanning joined the San Fernando Valley Girl Scout Council when she was 11 — and was already an established actress. She began her career with appearances in commercials and television shows, and then got into movies. Fanning has acted alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Sean Penn in “I Am Sam,” Tom Cruise in “War of the Worlds,” and Robert De Niro in “Hide and Seek.”

Born in Salinas, California, former Girl Scout Vanessa Hudgens has been acting from an early age. She had a recurring role in the “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” before achieving fame in Disney’s High School Musical movies. Hudgens and co-star Zac Efron had a big hit with the single “Breaking Free” — as well as an off-screen romance. She has also been a spokesperson for Neutrogena, Candies, and EcoTools.

French Canadian singer Celine Dion, and former Girl Guide of Canada, has had huge success in both her native tongue and English and had a remarkably international career. She even represented Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest. Her biggest hit was “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme from the blockbuster movie “Titanic.” Dion has been a regular performer in Las Vegas and recorded duets with such stars as Barbra Streisand, Luciano Pavarotti, and Stevie Wonder.

Gwyneth Paltrow is the daughter of another former Girl Scout on our list, Blythe Danner. She’s also a versatile actress and has appeared in edgy films such as “Se7en” and period dramas such as “Emma” and “Shakespeare in Love,” for which she won an Oscar. She is also the CEO of Goop, a $250 million lifestyle company.

Carrie Fisher was the daughter of another famous former Girl Scout, Debbie Reynolds — Fisher and Reynolds died one day apart. Fisher had a very successful career as an actress. She was catapulted to fame by her role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies. In addition, she was an accomplished writer — she wrote screenplays and a memoir titled “The Princess Diarist.” She won a posthumous Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for her reading of the book.

Mariah Carey, who was a Girl Scout while growing up on Long Island, went on to become one of the most successful female singers of all time. She signed with Columbia Records at the age of 18, and her first album yielded four No. 1 singles. Carey has regularly released best sellers ever since. She has also appeared in movies and was a judge on the Fox television show “American Idol.”

Taylor Swift, one of the most famous singer-songwriters in the world, has been in the public eye since childhood. She sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game at the age of 11, and her family moved to Tennessee to aid her music career when she was 13. While her roots are in country music, Swift has enjoyed huge crossover success with albums such as “Fearless” and “1989.” She hasn’t forgotten her Scouting roots either — Swift has given free concert tickets to Girl Scout troops.