Public figures, artists, authors with foreign roots you admire?

One that comes to mind is the late C.W. Nichol. Born in Wales, formerly a Canadian, he became a Japanese citizen. Nichol was a journalist and writer who championed the preservation of Japan's natural environment and wrote fiction and non-fiction books. He was a regular columnist in the Japan Times. I regret that I never met him, though some of my martial arts colleagues did. Which foreign resident (or Japanese citizens with foreign roots) do you respect? What are they noted for?