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18 Milestone Celebrity Birthdays in March

Shirley Jones, Rob Lowe, Juliette Binoche, Wanda Sykes, Catherine O’Hara toast another year

By

Nicholas DeRenzo,

 
Members Only Access
Published February 28, 2024
collage of shirley jones, rob lowe, juliette binoche, wanda sykes and catherine o'hara on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols
Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Presley Ann/Getty Images for TCM; Jason Mendez/Getty Images; Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images; Dan Doperalski/Golden Globes 2024/Golden Globes 2024 via Getty Images; Jeremy Chan/Getty Images)

March 1: Ron Howard, 70

Few entertainers have made the leap from acting to directing as seamlessly as the former child star of The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days. One of Hollywood’s most iconic redheads, Howard has helmed hit films like Splash, Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon and A Beautiful Mind, for which he won the Academy Awards for best picture and best director. His next film is the survival thriller Eden, about a group of people who abandon society in pursuit of happiness in the Galapagos Islands.

 

March 4: Catherine O’Hara, 70

catherine o'hara on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols
Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Jeremy Chan/Getty Images)

Long a favorite of comedy aficionados, the SCTV alumna became a regular collaborator of Tim Burton and Christopher Guest, bringing a trademark zaniness and warmth to roles in his mockumentaries like Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. O’Hara had her highest profile role in years as the highly theatrical matriarch Moira Rose on Schitt’s Creek, an out-of-left-field Canadian sitcom hit that earned her an Emmy for best actress in a comedy. For her next TV role, she’s taking a complete 180 turn: She was recently cast in the second season of HBO’s bleak post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us.

 

March 5: Eva Mendes, 50

Following a celebrated turn in the 2001 drama Training Day, Eva Mendes proved capable of tackling any genre, including romantic comedies (Hitch), action (2 Fast 2 Furious) and crime thrillers (We Own the Night). She met her future partner, Ryan Gosling, on the set of The Place Beyond the Pines, which was released in 2012 and was her most recent starring film role. In the years since, she’s only made the rarest of TV and film appearances, including a role in Gosling’s 2014 directorial debut, Lost River, and a voice-acting gig as a yoga instructor on the Aussie kids’ show Bluey. Offscreen, Mendes launched her own clothing line with New York & Company and co-owns Skura Style, a collection of antimicrobial sponges and cleaning tools.

 

March 5: Marsha Warfield, 70

Sitcom fans will remember the Chicago-born actress and comedian from her one-two punch on two successful shows in the 1980s and ’90s: as the no-nonsense, tough-talking bailiff Roz Russell on Night Court and then as Dr. Maxine Douglas, the head of an inner-city medical clinic, on Empty Nest. Warfield came out as a lesbian in 2017, and after recurring on 9-1-1, she returned for a guest stint on the season 2 premiere of NBC’s Night Court reboot. These days, you can also catch her performing live at comedy clubs across the country.

 

March 7: Wanda Sykes, 60

wanda sykes on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols
Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Dan Doperalski/Golden Globes 2024/Golden Globes 2024 via Getty Images)

Stand-up comedian and actress Wanda Sykes has racked up an astonishing 17 Emmy nominations for her comedy specials and guest appearances on Black-ish and Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and she took home a trophy in 1999 for her writing on The Chris Rock Show. Following notable guest turns on shows like The New Adventures of Old Christine and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Sykes began starring in her own Netflix sitcom The Upshaws, opposite Mike Epps and Kim Fields. Last year, she also teamed up with comedy royalty for History of the World: Part II, a TV adaptation of the Mel Brooks classic, on which she wrote and played Bessie Coleman, Harriet Tubman and Shirley Chisholm.

 

March 7: Jenna Fischer, 50

The Indiana-born actress first rose to fame with her lovable (and SAG Award–winning) role as The Office’s Pam Beesly, an administrative assistant caught up in one of the most romantic will-they-or-won’t-they relationships in TV history. She went on to star in the ABC sitcom Splitting Up Together, about a couple who fall back in love after getting separated, and since 2019, Fischer and her former Dunder Mifflin coworker Angela Kinsey have hosted a rewatch podcast called Office Ladies. Earlier this year, she appeared as Cady’s mom in the movie adaptation of the musical adaptation of Mean Girls.

 

March 9: Juliette Binoche, 60

juliette binoche on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols
Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

One of the most famous French actresses of her generation, Juliette Binoche first attracted critical attention for the 1988 film adaptation of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and she won a best supporting actress Oscar for another novel-turned-movie, The English Patient. This year, she’s appearing in two notable projects with an eye toward French history. She stars in the 1880s-set romantic film The Taste of Things, which was shortlisted for the Academy Award for best international feature, and plays Coco Chanel in the new Apple TV+ historical drama series The New Look, which is set during the Nazi occupation of Paris.

Read our Quick Questions interview with Juliette Binoche.

 

March 11: Sam Donaldson, 90

Known for his arched eyebrows and booming voice, the veteran newsman joined ABC way back in 1967, and he spent the following decades covering politics (including the Watergate trial), working as the White House correspondent, and cohosting Primetime Live. His reporting earned him Emmys and Peabody Awards before he retired in 2009, though he has continued to remain a trusted talking head in the years that followed.

 

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March 16: Patty Griffin, 60

The Austin-based singer-songwriter made a splash with her 1996 debutm Living With Ghosts, and in the decades since, she’s emerged as one of the foremost voices in contemporary folk and Americana. In 2011, her album Downtown Church earned Griffin her first Grammy, for best traditional gospel album, and she followed it up in 2019 with a win for best folk album. This spring, you can catch Griffin during concerts in Athens, Georgia, and Lafayette, Louisiana.

 

March 17: Rob Lowe, 60

rob lowe on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols
Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Jason Mendez/Getty Images)

A founding member of the Brat Pack, Rob Lowe broke out in the 1980s with roles in generation-defining films like The Outsiders and St. Elmo’s Fire, but his career was temporarily sidelined by addiction problems and a sex scandal. After staging a comeback with the Austin Powers films, he became a TV fixture, starring in The West Wing, Brothers & Sisters and later Parks and Recreation, as the relentlessly upbeat city manager Chris Traeger. He’s currently pulling triple duty as a relocated New York firefighter in the Fox action drama 9-1-1: Lone Star, a biotech CEO — opposite his real-life son, John Owen Lowe — on the Netflix workplace comedy Unstable and the host of the interview podcast Literally! With Rob Lowe.

 

March 23: Hope Davis, 60

An actor’s actor who steals scenes in highbrow projects like American Splendor and About Schmidt, Hope Davis earned a Tony nomination for her role in the star-studded Broadway play God of Carnage. She’s been keeping very busy, and last year, Davis appeared in the Wes Anderson film Asteroid City, the Sundance drama Cat Person, the HBO remake of Perry Mason, the Showtime crime thriller Your Honor and the awards juggernaut Succession, for which she earned her third Emmy nomination. Next up, she’s set to be featured in the Apple TV+ limited series Before, also starring Billy Crystal, Judith Light and Rosie Perez.

Read our Quick Questions interview with Hope Davis.

 

March 23: Kenneth Cole, 70

The Brooklyn-born designer launched his own shoe company in 1982, selling 40,000 shoes out of a mobile boutique in his first two days of business, and by the end of the decade, he became one of the first people in his industry to speak out about the AIDS crisis. He expanded beyond shoes with a line that included jeans, jewelry, bags, watches and more, eventually taking the brand public (and later buying his company back for $280 million). Cole recently launched the Mental Health Coalition to reduce stigma around the topic. 

 

March 23: Randall Park, 50

While a student at UCLA, comedian Randall Park cofounded what would become the largest Asian American college theater group in the country, and he’s since gone on to rack up a résumé of diverse roles. He stole scenes as a Minnesota governor on Veep, recurred in both the DC and Marvel universes and courted controversy playing Kim Jong-un in the comedy The Interview, a part that made him fear he’d be kidnapped. His best role to date, however, might be the simplest: as the dad of a Taiwanese American family on Fresh Off the Boat, the first TV comedy in two decades to center on an Asian family. Since then, he starred as himself in the Dwayne Johnson sitcom Young Rock and made his directorial debut with last year’s graphic novel adaptation Shortcomings.

Read our Quick Questions interview with Randall Park.

 

March 24: Alyson Hannigan, 50

A scene stealer in the American Pie franchise (“This one time, at band camp”), Alyson Hannigan had nerdy hearts fluttering with her fan-favorite turn as Willow Rosenberg on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She would strike television gold again when she was cast as Lily on the classic hangout sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and most recently she returned to small screens as a contestant on the 32nd season of Dancing with the Stars, on which she finished in fifth place.

 

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March 25: Gloria Steinem, 90

One of the defining feminist voices of the 20th century, Gloria Steinem turned heads with her 1963 exposé, A Bunny’s Tale, for which she went undercover at the Playboy Club. Soon, she was gaining acclaim for her column, The City Politic, in the earliest days of New York magazine, before cofounding her own game-changing magazine, Ms., in the early ‘70s. Her decades of working toward gender equality have elevated her to the status of pop culture icon, and she’s been played in movies and on television by the likes of Julianne Moore and Rose Byrne. And last year, she did one better by making a cameo as herself on the Sex and the City sequel And Just Like That....

 

March 26: Diana Ross, 80

The Motown icon was only 15 years old when she and a few friends started the girl group that would become the Supremes, and they’d go on to top the charts a dozen times with songs like “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love” and “Stop! In the Name of Love.” The hits kept coming as a solo act, and she successfully made the leap into acting, starring in films like Mahogany, The Wiz and Lady Sings the Blues, which earned her an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Billie Holiday. After releasing 2021’s Thank You, her first new studio album in 15 years, Ross became the first woman to win the Grammys’ Lifetime Achievement Award twice — first as a solo artist and, in 2022, as a member of the Supremes.

 

March 30: Tracy Chapman, 60

Known for her profoundly poetic lyrics and mastery of the acoustic guitar, singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman burst onto the airwaves in 1988 with her resonant single “Fast Car,” which climbed to the Billboard top 10; her self-titled debut album earned her a trio of Grammys, including best new artist, and she later took home another trophy for best rock song for the 1995 single “Give Me One Reason.” Chapman stepped out of the public eye for the past few years until country star Luke Combs recorded a cover of “Fast Car” that introduced her song to a new generation of fans. The single went platinum, hit number one and made Chapman the first Black woman to win a Country Music Award (for song of the year). When the pair dueted on the Grammys stage in February, the internet collectively melted down with nostalgia. 

 

March 31: Shirley Jones, 90

shirley jones on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols
Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Presley Ann/Getty Images for TCM)

A fixture of the musical genre in the 1950s and ‘60s, Jones starred in Oklahoma!, Carousel and The Music Man, though it was an against-type dramatic role as a vengeance-seeking prostitute in Elmer Gantry that won her the supporting actress Oscar in 1961. Younger generations will remember her as matriarch Shirley Partridge in The Partridge Family, and she’d go on to appear on the small screen over the years with recurring roles on series like The Drew Carey Show and Raising Hope.

 

Nicholas DeRenzo is a contributing writer who covers entertainment and travel. Previously he was executive editor of United Airlines’ Hemispheres magazine and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Sunset and New York magazine.

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