By Joe Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media

Artie Lange wasn't born on a comedy club stage. Bruce Springsteen wasn't exactly a rockstar while growing up at the Jersey Shore. And Anne Hathaway wanted to be a nun before settling for a career as an actress.

Jersey's biggest stars didn't rise to fame overnight. The places they grew up, the friends and family they knew while living in the Garden State shaped who they would become.

So let's check out exactly where Jon Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Martha Stewart and more were raised in New Jersey, in childhood homes where their paths to fame began.

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Star-Ledger file photo

Whitney Houston, East Orange

Whitney Houston, the eclectic pop star known for her stunning vocals, was born in Newark but grew up in a modest home in East Orange.

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O'Boyle, John

Students walk past Whitney Houston's childhood home on Dodd Street in East Orange before a ceremony remembering Whitney Houston at the Whitney E. Houston Academy of Creative and Performing Arts in East Orange. Houston attended the school when it was called the Franklin School, the school was later renamed to honor Houston. (John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger)

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Don MacKinnon

Martha Stewart, Nutley

One of the premier businesswomen past few decades, the legacy of Martha Stewart, who has done it all — from books, to television shows, to jail time — started in of Nutley.

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Located on a quiet, middle-class block in Nutley, Stewart grew up right off of the Third River, which runs through the town. According to Fox News, Stewart babysat for the families of New York Yankee stars Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Gil McDougald during her adolescent years in Nutley.

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Addis, Noah

Mike Trout, Millville

Long before Mike Trout was the consensus best player in baseball, the star outfielder was grinding to the top in Millville. Trout, who has since gone on to win two MVPs, five Silver Slugger awards and been named to six all-star games, graduated from Millville High School in 2009.

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Raised deep in southern Jersey, it was apparent early on to many just how talented Trout was as a baseball prospect. "He was stronger than any 17-year-old I'd ever seen — (Barry) Bonds, Oddibe (McDowell), all of them. I'd never seen a 17-year-old who was that fast and that strong," a scout told Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal in 2012.

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KRT FILE PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS VIA PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Frank Sinatra, Hoboken

Another one of the biggest stars in entertainment history grew up right here in New Jersey. Frank Sinatra, hailing from Hoboken, is an 11-time Grammy winner, two-time Golden Globe winner and is in the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

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Mark Maurer/Hoboken Now

Sinatra's legacy is not lost on Hoboken. His name is plastered throughout the city. There is Frank Sinatra Park and the Frank Sinatra Post Office, but the entertainer's childhood home on Monroe Street has been reduced to an empty lot.

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Steven Spielberg, Haddon Township

New Jersey cannot claim Steven Spielberg as one of their own as his formative years were spent in Phoenix, but it still does not discount the fact that the award-winning director spent a few years in Haddon Township as a child. (His mailing address was listed as Haddonfield.)

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Located just 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia, Spielberg's family relocated from Cincinnati to this suburban home on Crystal Terrace in 1952 when his father accepted a new job. According to a biography of Spielberg written by Joseph McBride, Spielberg never tells interviewers that he lived in Haddon Township.

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MATT RAINEY

Jon Bon Jovi, Sayreville

One of the most famous rockstars of his generation, Jon Bon Jovi — born John Francis Bongiovi Jr. — was born in Perth Amboy but graduated from Sayreville War Memorial High School in 1980. He went on to to be the lead of the band Bon Jovi, which has sold more than 130 million records.

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

"It's my boyhood home, man. This is the place where I learned about the finer things in life. Like rock and roll and women," Bon Jovi said in a 1989 MTV commercial describing the Colonial-style home he grew up in on Robinhood Drive in Sayreville. Bon Jovi said this to promote a contest in which he would give away his childhood home to the winner.

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Perlman, William

Kyrie Irving, West Orange

One of the most talented high school basketball players ever to come through the Garden State, Kyrie Irving, a West Orange native, starred at St. Patrick and has ascended to higher ranks in the basketball world — becoming a four-time NBA all-star and 2016 NBA champion.

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Earlier this year, the Boston Celtics point guard and his sister Asia, renovated the West Orange home they grew up in for Father's Day as their father, Drederick, a college basketball star in the 1980s, still lives in the Essex County home.

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Star ledger copy photo by (Marty Granger)

Brooke Shields, Haworth

One of the most famous child stars during the late 70s and early 80s, Shields first broke onto the scene for her role in "Pretty Baby" (1978), in which the 12-year-old Shields played the part of a child prostitute in New Orleans. Her performance led to modeling and other acting opportunities.

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Shields was born in Manhattan but lived in Haworth with her mother during her teenage years, graduating from Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood before continuing her education at Princeton University. The home has a castle-like look to it, as well as a secluded fenced-in yard.

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Bruce Springsteen, Freehold

Maybe no celebrity from New Jersey is aligned more with their home state than the one-and-only Bruce Springsteen. But there were plenty of years when The Boss could cruise the Jersey Shore hot spots and enjoy the culture without being hounded by fans. Growing up in Freehold, Springsteen developed a love for music.

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Located on 68 South St., this was Springsteen's last family hold in Freehold. In 1969, his father, mother and baby sister left the Shore and headed to California. Here, "a teen-aged Bruce fully embraced the guitar, joined his first band The Castiles, grew out his hair, argued with his pop, and once his family left, he and his band turned the home into a "hippie frat house," wrote NJ.com music critic Bobby Olivier when he did a Springsteen tour of the Jersey Shore.

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Farrell, Tim

Jack Nicholson, Neptune City

Pictured above, critically acclaimed actor Jack Nicholson is inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2010. Now, 80, Nicholson has been nominated for 12 Academy Awards, winning best actor twice and best supporting actor once.

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Long before he was a Hollywood star and sitting courtside at Los Angeles Lakers games, Nicholson was somewhat of a rebel. Before running away at age 17 from Neptune City to California, Nicholson said in a 1993 interview with The Independent that he was "always against authority, hated being told anything by my teachers, by parents, by anyone. At school I created a record by being in detention every day for a whole year." He attended Manasquan High School.

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Buzz Aldrin, Montclair

He was born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr., but soon the nickname "Buzz" derived after his sister's mispronunciation of the word "brother" sounded like "Buzzer," according to Buzz Aldrin's website. Aldrin was second man on the moon during the Apollo 11 flight. Ironically, his mother's last name was "Moon."

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Ed Murray

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin came back to hid childhood home in 2015 when the town renamed a school in his name. Pictured above is the house he grew up in in Montclair.

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WILLIAM PERLMAN

Frankie Valli, Newark

Born in Newark, Frankie Valli is the lead singer for the band The Four Seasons, which has recorded 29 top-40 hits, been nominated for five Grammys and were inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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NJ.com archives

Valli was raised in the Stephen Crane Village housing complex in Newark. When he was seven years old, his mother took him to see Frank Sinatra perform, "I saw Sinatra coming out on stage," Valli says on his official website biography. "And the way he was lit up, it was like he had an aura around him. I decided then and there that's what I was going to do—be a successful singer."

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Bryan Singer, West Windsor

Born in New York City but later adopted, Bryan Singer is an award-winning movie director best known for "The Usual Suspects" and the "X-Men" movie franchise. Growing up, Singer dreamt of being the next George Lucas.

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In 2015, Singer went back to his hometown of West Windsor and purchased his childhood home for $548,888. He graduated from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School (now West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South) in 1984. Singer was childhood friends with actor Ethan Hawke, and the two teamed up for Singer's first short film after college, according to movie editor John Ottman.

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JOHN MUNSON

Anne Hathaway, Millburn

Before she became the highest-grossing actress of the 21st Century, Hathaway had ambitions to become a nun after growing up in a Catholic family in Milburn. Instead, the Academy Award winning actress began participating in school plays, and the rest is history.

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While at Millburn High School, Hathaway was nominated for the Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Award, for her role as the princess in "Once Upon a Mattress." Her next role as a princess really throttled Hathaway to stardom. She starred in "Princess Diaries" in 2001, a film that grossed over $100 million in the box office.

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Richard Raska | Star-Ledger

David Copperfield, Metuchen

David Copperfield pictured above in 1996 standing next to a street sign at a ceremony that named a street in Metuchen in his honor, Copperfield Lane. Copperfield grew up in Metuchen, and began practicing magic in the Middlesex County borough when he was 10 years old.

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Çopperfield grew up in the Redfield Village. Just two years after beginning to practice his magic tricks in the neighborhood, Copperfield was accepted into Society of American Magicians, making him the youngest member ever into the organization at the age of 12, according to the New York Times.

In his career, Copperfield has won 21 Emmy Awards, set 11 Guinness World Records and is recognized as the most commercially successful magician in history, according to Forbes.

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ED CURRY

Kevin Smith, Highlands

Writer/director Kevin Smith the filmmaker of movies like "Clerks" and "Mallrats" is pictured above in 1997 outside his comic book store in Red Bank. Smith grew up in the Monmouth County borough of Highlands. He graduated from Henry Hudson Regional High School.

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The New Jersey Nor’Easter of ’92 aka THE STORM THAT CHANGED MY LIFE My heart goes out to all the folks on the east... Posted by Kevin Smith on Monday, October 29, 2012

Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Pictured above is Smith's childhood home, which was featured in Clerks II, at 21 Jackson St. in Highlands. Smith grew up overweight and told the Huffington Post in 2013 as he lost nearly 100 pounds that being called "fat" was "the worst thing someone could call him," but after hearing it constantly throughout his life, Smith "thinks it's made him a stronger person."

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Frazer Harrison

Chelsea Handler, Livingston

New Jersey born comedian Chelsea Handler is most well-known for her late night talk show "Chelsea Lately" that she hosted on the E! Network from 2007 to 2014. Handler left her hometown Livingston for Los Angeles when she was 19 to pursue a career in entertainment, according to the LA Times.

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Handler grew up on a elegant block in Livingston. She told W Magazine in 2008 that, even though she was a finalist in the Miss New Jersey pageant when she was 15, as the daughter of a used car salesman, she said she never felt like she fit in in Livingston. "We lived in this nice Jewish neighborhood," Handler told the magazine. "Everyone had Mercedeses and Jaguars, and I was going to school in a Pinto."

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Johnny Buzzerio

Jonas Brothers, musician, Wyckoff

The Jonas Brothers bursted onto the scene in 2007 with their pop rock album, "The Jonas Brothers," which rose to the number five on the Billboard Hot 200 chart. The brothers, Nick, Kevin and Joe, continued to produce popular albums before the band split in 2012.

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The brothers grew on Franklin Avenue in Wyckoff where they were homeschooled, according to MTV. Denise Jonas, their mother, suggested Nick Jonas get a manager after she heard him singing as a child while she was getting her hair done at a local salon, she told Good Housekeeping.

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SUE CALVIN

Kristen Dunst, Brick

Pictured above is Brick native Kirsten Dunst in 2000 making her Hollywood movie debut in "Virgin Suicides." Dunst went onto star in movies such as the "Spider-Man" trilogy, "Bring It On," "Wimbledon," and the second season of the TV show "Fargo."

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Joseph Atmonavage | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Dunst only lived in New Jersey until the age of 11 when her parents separated and she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and brother. Pictured above is Dunst's childhood home on Jaywood Manor Drive in Brick. The home sits on the banks of the Manasquan River.

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TONY KURDZUK

Ray Liotta, Union

The "Goodfellas" and "Field of Dreams" star hails from Union. He has acted in movies and television, as well producing movies.

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Although born in Newark, Liotta was adopted when he was six months old and grew up in this Potter Avenue home in Union. He graduated from Union High School in 1973. Liotta told NJ.com in 2012 that he was an avid athlete and never wanted to be an actor, but after basketball season ended his senior year of high school, the drama teacher asked him to participate in the school play. He then ended up studying drama at the University of Miami.

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Artie Lange, Union

Don't be deceived, Artie Lange is not a professional football player. Instead, the Union native has had a prolonged career as a well-known comedian and actor. Lange currently lives in Hoboken.

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Lange grew up in this modest home on Huntington Road in Union. As he tried to climb the comedy ranks, Lange once worked job as a longshoreman at Port Newark before becoming a cab driver and pursuing comedy full-time, according to a Rolling Stone feature story.

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Matt Stanley

Carli Lloyd, Delran

For two-time Olympic gold medalist Carli Lloyd, it all started in the South Jersey township of Delran. Before excelling on the soccer field at Delran High School, Rutgers University and then on the world's biggest stage, Lloyd first started honing her skills at the age of five in Burlington County.

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In her book, "While Nobody Was Watching: My Hard-Fought Journey to the Top of the Soccer World," Lloyd describes her childhood home as a "modest colonial" that sits on the corner of Black Barron Road and Parry Road in Delran. She described herself as a "kid in motion." Lloyd said she practiced free kicks on the side yard of the house.

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Joe Atmonavage may be reached at jatmonavage@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jatmonavageNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook