Notable Names in Ocala

Every state has bragging privileges for having some famous people either born or living within their respective regions; some more than others. Here in Ocala we’re not lacking in that department by any stretch. Being the Horse Capital of the World, this region has borne and draws a good chunk of actors, musicians, sports figures, scientists, and writers who like the quieter, agrarian lifestyle. Community beats steadily here, people raise families and horses here, and the equestrian roots of Ocala run deep here. It may not be as glitzy as the bikini bastion of Miami Beach or the Spring Break sojourn of Fort Lauderdale – but that’s kind of the point. 

Generally, Ocalans are pretty easygoing and nonchalant, and they don’t get all giddy when they run into someone famous. Pretty much the only thing a celebrity has to worry about chasing them around here is the mosquitoes, and the only real heat comes from the 90% - plus humidity that has everyone searching for air-conditioned refuge or a cool oasis of water. So when we say someone is “hot”, we’re not parroting Paris Hilton; we mean it literally. Drink some water before you fall down, dude. 

With its small-town vibe, serene farms, parks, and enthusiasm for outdoor recreation, Ocala offers privacy and an alternative to the hustle and noise, but we’re also close enough to Tampa and Orlando for when you want a bit of rattle and hum – and you might be surprised to discover who’s shopping the next aisle over or grabbing a coffee in the car in front of you. 

Here are a few of our hometown neighbors who happen to be just a little more well-known than most of us: 

 

JOHN TRAVOLTA

Actor/Pilot 

Like Stephen King up in Bangor, Maine, John Travolta is kind of our resident Famous Person, the guy you literally might run into at the shopping center or the airport. Travolta and his family have made one of their homes in Ocala for nearly 20 years; his property at the private, 550-acre Jumbolair Airport has its own runway that leads right up to the house and connects to the gated community’s shared airstrip – the largest private paved airfield in the US. Travolta and his wife were some of the first to buy a property on the development; as a licensed and commercially-rated pilot, the actor has owned multiple aircraft in his aviation career, including a Boeing 707 and a Gulfstream, and Jumbolair was for him the ideal place to park. 

Travolta was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation in 2007 and piloted for charity relief efforts to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. His 40-year career as an actor includes landmark films Grease, Carrie, Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, and Face/Off. He was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his performances in Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction, and won the Golden Globe Award as Best Actor in Get Shorty. 

 

BRITTANY BOWE

Champion Speed Skater 

Born and raised in Ocala, Bowe graduated from Trinity Catholic High School and went on to earn a degree in Sociology and Social Science from Florida Atlantic University. She was an enthusiastic sportswoman from a young age, participating in basketball and soccer teams and even giving dribbling demonstrations at basketball games when she was just two years old, foreshadowing her stint as a point guard for the Florida Atlantic Owls in 2008. 

Bowe has enough Gold and Silver medals over several different speed skating competitions to boggle a village of prospectors. She is the current world record holder in the 1000-meter distance as well as the American record holder in the 1500-meter, holds eight Gold medals in inline speed skating (as well as 2 Silver and 2 Bronze ones), and yet another Gold medal in, believe it or not – roller skating for the 2007 Pan American Games. Her speed skating achievements are no less gobsmacking, where she has collected at least 2 Gold, 1 Silver, and 1 Bronze medal at the World Single Distance Championships, won the World Sprint Championships in 2015, and crowned the mound of goodies with two Olympic Bronze medals in 2018 and 2022  – alongside fellow Ocala Olympic champions Erin Jackson and Joey Matia. 

There are literally too many awards Bowe has earned over her wildly remarkable skating career to list here, but suffice to say we’ve just scratched the surface here. For an Ocala girl raised in the tropics of Florida to tackle ice speed skating is remarkable enough; for her to become one of the world’s fiercest and most formidable champions in the sport is just plain extraordinary.  

 

JOEY GILMORE

Blues Musician 

Born Joshua Gilmore in 1944 Ocala, Gilmore was a self-taught guitarist, starting when he was a child, learning technique from his local minister. He played in a band when he was a teenager, fronting at local clubs before any of them were actually of legal age to be admitted inside as patrons. Later he relocated to South Florida, attracting notice and a solid reputation that enabled him to play gigs with touring blues, R&B, and soul musicians, and in the 90s he was recording his own music and appearing at music festivals throughout the Southern US and Taiwan. 

A maestro in electric and soul blues, he was a prolific and sought-after singer, songwriter, and guitarist, appearing with industry legends Etta James, James Brown, Bobby Bland, and Little Johnny Taylor. Gilmore’s 2008 Blues All Over You won the 2008 Blewzzy Award for Best Song, and in 2015 he was honored with the Latin World Talent Lifetime Achievement Award. 

He continued to tour, play, and record into his seventies, with his last album Brandon’s Blues released in 2015. While he frequently traveled the world playing at various venues, festivals, and concerts, he always returned to play in Florida, where he kept a busy music schedule and called  home throughout his life.  

 

ERIN JACKSON

Champion Speed Skater/Roller Derby Skater

Ocala native Jackson is the first Black woman to ever win Olympic Gold in an individual sport, but that’s just one of the milestones she’s achieved in her career. Raised in the Horse Capital of the World, Jackson was a member of the Engineering and Manufacturing Institute of Technology magnet program at Forest High School and went on to graduate with honors from the University of Florida with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering. 

She started skating at 8 years old, switching from figure skating to inline skating, where she won the gold medal at the 2008 and 2009 Junior World Championship.  She was also a skilled roller derby player, competing with the Jacksonville Roller Girls and earning the MVP Award at the 2014 WTFDA Division playoff championships. The year previously, she was named Female Athlete of the Year by the United States Olympic Committee.  

Transitioning to ice speed skating in 2016, Erin proceeded to rack up multiple awards and championships, including qualifying for the 2018 Olympics when she was just four months training in the sport.  She finished 24th out of 31 in the 500 meter race in Pyeongchang and went on to become the first Black American woman to win the World Cup in November 2021. She won the Gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2022 alongside fellow champions Joey Matia and Bronze winner Brittany Bowe. 

Jackson won the Gold medal in the 2025 Four Continents Speed Skating Championships and was a contender in Season 2 of the adventure series Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test on Fox Network, where she was the only woman to win in the history of the show. 

 

A DAY TO REMEMBER

American Rock Band 

Formed in Ocala, this band – whose members past and present are all local – is known for its fusion of metalcore and pop-punk, touring worldwide and releasing several albums over their collective career. After two self-released EP albums, their debut studio release And Their Name Was Treason in 2005 sold over 10,000 copies. Their second album with Victory Records, For Those Who Have Heart, peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers. 

Their tours include frequent music festival appearances, including the Bamboozle Festival and the Download Festival, and they have played several times with fellow metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada, opening together for Silverstein and on the road in the UK for the Road to Download tour. They also played as part of 2009’s Warped tour, traveling across Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. 

Vocalist Jeremy McKinnon and his girlfriend brainstormed what became the Self Help Fest, the first concert of which was in 2014 in San Bernardino, California and headlined by the band. Other musicians came to support and play for the festival, including punk rock and metalcore bands Bring Me the Horizon, Of Mice and Men, The Story So Far, Memphis May Fire, Attila, and Letlive. The second festival just six months later drew even more bands and crowds, with The Wonder Years, Motionless in White, Chiodos, and Gnarwolves appearing to play onstage. The event has continued each year since, with A Day to Remember either producing or playing the venue. McKinnon, who is also a record producer, has helped create albums for The Ghost Inside, Neck Deep, and fellow Ocala band Wage War. 

Former bandmate Tom Denney is a prolific producer and songwriter, and helped pen several of the band’s albums and created his own solo work through his own studio label, 33 Records and Titan Studio. He continues to write and produce with other musicians, including Paddock Park, The Word Alive, Honor Bright, and Secrets.

A Day to Remember’s eighth album, Big Ole Album Vol. 1, was a surprise release in February 2025. On the same day as the album drop, two singles, “Make It Make Sense” and “LeBron” were physically released to fans – as either vinyl or CD units – and then later made available on streaming services the next month. The band continues to tour and play tirelessly year-round.

 

ELIZABETH ASHLEY

Actress

Elizabeth Ashley is one of those actors you see and instinctively know who she is, even if you’re not sure of the name – a character actor and performer with a prolific body of work, but not so famous as to be obnoxious. Ashley was born in Ocala to a music teacher dad and a domestic engineer mom, and early on it was clearly apparent she was destined for a life in footlights. She left college after her freshman year and headed for New York City to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse, supporting herself as a showroom model and a Jell-O pudding girl on TV. 

After that, she basically tore up Broadway. A three-time Tony nominee, she won Best Actress for her role in Take Her, She’s Mine. The other two nominations were for her fiery turns as the original Corie in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park and as the formidable Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Her stage career also includes leading roles in Agnes of God, August; Osage County, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, and Caesar and Cleopatra. Off-Broadway, she was equally as active with roles in The Red Devil Battery Sign, When She Danced, If Memory Serves, and Edward Albee’s Me, Myself, and I. 

Ashley was also busy with film and television work, appearing in Coma, Vampire’s Kiss, The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, an unexpected turn as the villain in Windows, and in Love, American Style with then-box office giant Burt Reynolds. Her television credits include Route 66, The Six Million Dollar Man, Murder, She Wrote, several iterations of the Law and Order franchise, Homicide: Life on the Street, and as a regular cast member on Evening Shade with her film costar Reynolds. 

 

MARK E. CASSE

Thoroughbred Trainer 

Mark Casse grew up in Ocala, where his father Norman was a founding member of Ocala Breeders Sales Company and the administrator for Cardinal Hill Farms.  When he was just 8 years old, Casse was at Churchill Downs with his father and saw the legendary Secretariat make history at the 1973 Kentucky Derby. 

He began taking over his father’s training operation at age 15, winning his first race at Keeneland in 1979.  His first stakes win was the same year at Sportsman’s Park, with Amalie taking the Indian Maid honors.  At the Churchill Downs Spring Meet in 1988, he won the trainer’s title, and then scooped up four more at Turfway Park. After a two-year stint as Calumet Farm’s private trainer, he went to work during the 1990s in the same role for Mockingbird Farm - a sprawling facility in Ocala with 900 horses.  The farm was later bought by Eugene Melnyk and renamed Winding Oaks and remained one of Casse’s largest and staunchest clients.  

Casse has won a record 9 Sovereign Awards as a top Canadian trainer since moving there in 1998 and centering his operations at Woodbine Racetrack. His first Sovereign winner, Exciting Story, was a two year-old colt who took the trophy in 1999, and then went on for the Metropolitan Handicap in 2000, netting Casse his first Grade I Stakes win. In 2001, Casse earned the first of his Woodbine training titles with a stunning 69 wins. 

The number of awards and accolades on Casse’s record are voluminous; he has produced several Canadian Horse of the Year recipients, has two Breeder’s Cup wins, a Preakness, a Belmont Stakes, and has won several stakes races with his champion horse Tepin, who competed at the famous Royal Ascot Queen Anne Stakes in England. In 2020 he won his 3000th race at Gulfstream Park West, and his 4000th career win at Colonial Downs in July 2025. He was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2016

 

BOBBY GOLDSBORO

Songwriter/Singer

 

A multi-talented writer, musician, singer, and painter, the Marianna-born polymath calls the Ocala National Forest his home and lives life according to his inner beat. He dropped out of Auburn University to go play backup guitar for Roy Orbison – not a bad career move for anyone, admittedly – but Goldboro spun that out to create top-charting songs of his own, including “Little Green Apples” “Honey”, and “Summer (The First Time”, which was a top-10 single in the UK.   His music was enormously popular in Britain’s Northern soul dance scene in the 1960s, and he kept writing and producing even more hits right on into the 70s.  His songs have been played and covered by literal legends of music: John Denver, Dolly Parton, and Della Reese just to list a few. He also composed the theme music for Evening Shade, with the aforementioned Burt Reynolds helming the hit sitcom. 

Not being one to limit himself to a single medium of artistic expression, he hosted a popular and successful variety show from 1973-1975 and created The Swamp Critters of the Lost Lagoon for PBS – a children’s television series that drew from his own love and experience of Florida. Goldsboro wrote all the scripts, voiced every character, and played all the musical instruments – proving that Seth MacFarlane had some large footsteps to follow in later decades. 

Goldsboro then went on to partner up with Peeler-Rose Productions to create several animated shows and best-selling books geared for children’s education, including Snuffy: The Elf Who Saved Christmas, Easter Egg Mornin', Stinger: King of the Bee's, Boy Who Became a Frog, A Cat Named Bob, and Lumpkin the Pumpkin. 

Goldsboro is also a gifted oil painter whose work on the flora and fauna of the Sunshine State can be enjoyed at various local galleries and the Community Bank. His art has also exhibited at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the Gateway Bank in Gainesville, East West Fine Art in Naples, and at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. His painting “The Gathering” was also chosen as the cover art for the coffee table book “Ocala: A Portrait of Life”. 

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If you’re looking for a home in Ocala, these and other notable names make for pretty good recommendations! Central Florida has a great deal to offer; the quiet and privacy of a simple life, but also access to a more metropolitan vibe when the mood strikes you. Showcase Properties is happy to help guide you on your search for the perfect place to create your own story.