Anthony Bourdain, Paul Rudd, Bebe Neuwirth among New Jersey Hall of Fame nominees

It's an honor just to be nominated.

But the true honor is to be from New Jersey — as Anthony Bourdain, Bebe Neuwirth, George Clinton, Michael B. Jordan, Nathan Lane, Paul Rudd, John McPhee, Margaret Bourke-White and 40 other men and women nominated for the New Jersey Hall of Fame Class of 2022 could tell you. The nominees were announced Tuesday morning.

"All of them are certainly worthy to be honored," said Carol Ross of Aura Entertainment, a member of the Hall's advisory board. "Eventually, they will be. But we can only have so many."

Several of them are repeat nominees, holdovers from previous years. Depending on how the voting goes (online ballots can be cast through May 20), these and many other deserving people will end up being glorified at the Hall's new "Entertainment and Learning Center," set to break ground at the American Dream Meadowlands mall at East Rutherford in the fall.

"We're very excited about that," Ross said. "It's been a long time coming. We were very concerned when COVID hit. These things take time and effort."

No doubt Neuwirth, belting out "Always True to You in My Fashion" in the 1975 Princeton High School production of "Kiss Me Kate" never imagined she would be a Tony winner and TV star ("Cheers," Madam Secretary"), much less a nominee for this most special honor her home state can bestow.

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Nor could Anthony Bourdain, the late and much-loved celebrity chef from Leonia; George Clinton, the Plainfield-raised funkmeister of Parliament Funkadelic; Michael B. Jordan, the Newark-raised star of "Black Panther" and "Creed"; Paul Rudd, the Passaic-born "Ant-Man"; or Nathan Lane, the Jersey City-born, multiple Tony-winning stage and screen star ("The Birdcage," "The Producers") have dreamed they would be immortalized in this way. 

But that's the purpose of the New Jersey Hall of Fame — to give shout-outs to the great, and to make the general public aware that New Jersey produces more than gangsters and mosquitoes.

"They're the ultimate symbol of Jersey pride," said Ethan Andersen, Hall of Fame spokesperson. "Our campaigns and voting process are all based on the idea that everyone needs a hero. New Jersey has been the home of countless heroes through the decades, years, centuries."

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Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, Yogi Berra, Meryl Streep, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison were among their first nominees, in 2008; in later years, they have been joined by such luminaries as Connie Chung, Dizzy Gillespie, The Smithereens, The Shirelles, Martha Stewart, George R.R. Martin, The Four Seasons, Derek Jeter, Danny Aiello and many others.

Each year, a master list of more than 500 New Jerseyans is whittled down to about 100, and then — after further consultations by experts — narrowed down to 50-odd names. It's then up to the public to decide. Voters select their top two choices in each category.

"We try to make the list as diversified as possible," Ross said. "All the people we bring to the table are worthy, but we can only do so many this year. Now it's open to the public."

Among the other notables, past and present, in this year's nominee list are feminist Lucy Stone (Orange), the late singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow (Teaneck), secretary of state George Shultz (Englewood), photographer Alfred Stieglitz (Hoboken), photographer Margaret Bourke-White (Bound Brook) attorney David T. Wilentz (Perth Amboy), Sir George Carteret (Carteret), FBI director Louis Freeh (Jersey City), Gov. Christine Todd Whitman (Far Hills), and wide receiver Victor Cruz (Paterson).

"We focus not only on the current people impacting the state, but also people who have made New Jersey great and have made an impact on our society for as long as New Jersey has been a state," Andersen said. "We want to make sure that people from all times and all walks of life are represented."

Here's the full list:

Arts and letters

Margaret Bourke-White

Lonnie Bunch

Janet Evanovich

Gaetano Federici

John McPhee

Walter Dean Myers

Violet Oakley

Alfred Stieglitz

George Tice

Dr. George Theophilus Walker

Enterprise

Anthony Bourdain

James E. Burke

Bruce S. Gordon

Ralph Izzo

Woody Johnson

The Mars Family

Denise Morrison

Dr. Leon G. Smith

The Unanue Family

Roy Vagelos

Performing Arts and Entertainment

George Clinton

Brian DePalma

Lola Falana

Chelsea Handler

Michael B. Jordan

Nathan Lane

Henry Jay Lewis

Bebe Neuwirth

Paul Rudd

Phoebe Snow

Public service

Sir George Carteret

Dorothea Dix

Louis Freeh

Gov. Richard J. Hughes

Peter W. Rodino

Edith Savage-Jennings

George Shultz

Lucy Stone

Gov. Christine Todd Whitman

David T. Wilentz

Sports

Al Attles

Ben Borgmann

Victor Cruz

Stanley Dancer

Sid Dorfman

Lou Lamoriello

Heather O’Reilly

Amos (Alonzo) Stagg

Paul Tagliabue

Sonny Werblin

Jim Beckerman is an entertainment and culture reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to his insightful reports about how you spend your leisure time, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: beckerman@northjersey.com 

Twitter: @jimbeckerman1