[dredmorbius]

Carl Sagan, to a previous generation.

Arguably one might make the same case for Michael Faraday or Humphry Davy, who's fame in large part devolves from excellent and hugely popular public demonstrations of their work.

It's not that they didn't (necessarily) also do groundbreaking work. But they were phenomenally effective communicators.

Extended to writing, Darwin, Einstein, and Feynman could be similarly considered.