Celebrity Birthdays in December
A look at the famous on the day they were born, including Denzel Washington, Susan Lucci
AARP Members Only Access, December 2022
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Dec. 31: Val Kilmer, 63
Val Kilmer, 63, has been impressing audiences since the age of 17, when he became the then-youngest drama student ever accepted into the Juilliard School. Born on New Year’s Eve 1959, Kilmer saw his acting career take off (literally) with his role as the arrogant Iceman in 1986’s Top Gun. But he really had a chance to shine when he channeled rock god Jim Morrison for Oliver Stone’s The Doors. Soon, he was appearing as two real-life figures from U.S. history — Doc Holliday in Tombstone and Elvis Presley in True Romance — before tackling another American icon when he put on Bruce Wayne’s mask for 1995’s Batman Forever. Following turns in Heat and the animated The Prince of Egypt, in which he voiced Moses, Kilmer took increasingly wilder career turns, including staging a one-man show in which he played Mark Twain. His acting career was briefly sidelined by a 2015 bout with throat cancer, which caused him to get introspective about his position in Hollywood. He released The New York Times bestseller I’m Your Huckleberry: A Memoir in 2020 and was the subject of an intimate documentary called Val that premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. This year, he made his big comeback, returning as Iceman in the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
Dec. 30: Meredith Vieira, 69
For the past 25 years, Meredith Vieira, 69, has been a near-constant presence on national daytime television. Born in Rhode Island to a Portuguese immigrant family on Dec. 30, 1953, Vieira worked her way up through the ranks of the news as a local reporter and a coeditor of 60 Minutes, before getting her big break as the first moderator of The View in 1997. As she juggled the many unique personalities and points of views of her fellow panelists, Vieira added another gig to her résumé when she took on hosting duties on the syndicated daytime version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which earned her two Emmys. (She had appeared on a celebrity version of the show in 2001 and won $250,000 when she correctly guessed what the dot above a lowercase “i” is called — a tittle!) In 2006, she left behind The View for a perhaps even more coveted position as the coanchor on Today, following in the footsteps of the likes of Katie Couric and Jane Pauley. She parlayed her Today fame into an NBC hosting gig with a much more pleasant wake-up time when she landed her own daytime talk show, though it only lasted two seasons. These days, Vieira can be seen hosting the game show 25 Words or Less, and she’s already racked up more than 575 episodes since taking the job in 2018. “I never thought I would do a game show,” she recently told an interviewer. “I never thought I’d do a talk show. I fell into things. From the beginning of my career, it’s been like that. I’m just curious enough that I want to try different things.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock
Dec. 29: Jude Law, 50
Known for his matinee idol looks and British sophistication, Jude Law, 50, emerged in the ’90s as Hollywood’s new it boy — in fact, you could barely go to the movie theater without seeing his face on a poster! Born on Dec. 29, 1972, in Lewisham, England, the West End upstart came to American shores with a slew of highbrow films like Gattaca and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but it was his turn as millionaire playboy Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley that made critics sit up and take notice. The film earned him his first Oscar nomination, and his second would come for the 2003 Civil War drama Cold Mountain. In recent years, Law has divided his career attention between the art house and the megaplex: He played the fictional first American pontiff in HBO’s risk-taking drama series The Young Pope while also stepping into the roles of Dr. John Watson in the Sherlock Holmes franchise and wizarding great Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter prequel films Fantastic Beasts. A recent entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as alien commander Yon-Rogg in Captain Marvel, Law will once again blast off into space as part of the new Star Wars series Skeleton Crew. And on the big screen, it will be a homecoming of sorts for Law, who is set to play two iconic British characters next year, one real and one fake: Henry VIII in Firebrand and Captain Hook in Peter Pan & Wendy. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
Dec. 28: Denzel Washington, 68
There’s almost nothing Denzel Washington, 68, can’t do. Born in Mount Vernon, New York, on Dec. 28, 1954, Washington has starred in a hit television series (St. Elsewhere), won a Tony for his work on the Broadway stage (Fences) and emerged as a respected director with four feature films under his belt, including 2021’s A Journal for Jordan. But, of course, he’ll always be best known as one of the great film actors of his — or any — generation. With 10 nods, Washington is the most-nominated Black actor in Oscar history, and the critics at The New York Times recently named him the greatest actor of the 21st century. A.O. Scott wrote of the selection, “We wrangled and argued about every other slot on the list, but there was no hesitation or debate about this one.” Washington took home his first Academy Award for 1989’s Glory, in which he played a formerly enslaved man who fights for the Union Army during the Civil War; he repeated the feat in 2002 for playing a much less heroic role as the corrupt LAPD narcotics detective Alonzo Harris in Training Day. Along the way, Washington has proven particularly adept at playing historic figures, including anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko (Cry Freedom), Black Nationalist leader Malcolm X and wrongfully imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (Hurricane). And his last Academy Award nomination came just this year for his blistering turn in The Tragedy of Macbeth. Of course, one of the things that makes Washington a truly great actor is his chameleonic ability to excel in nearly any genre, and next year, he’s reteaming with his Training Day director Antoine Fuqua for the vigilante thriller sequel The Equalizer 3. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney
Dec. 27: Sarah Vowell, 53
Born in Oklahoma on Dec. 27, 1969, and raised in Montana, Sarah Vowell, 53, has always harbored a love of the radio. Her first book, 1997’s Radio On: A Listener’s Diary, charted the author’s yearlong listening journey, and in those pages, she developed a trademark wit that had Newsweek calling her “a cranky stylist with talent to burn.” She had recently joined the medium herself as a contributing editor for This American Life, and her wry observations made her a favorite guest on shows like The Daily Show and Late Night With Conan O’Brien. Vowell may also be one of the few (if not only) public radio personalities to costar in a Pixar film, as she voiced the teenage superheroine Violet Parr in The Incredibles. Over the years, she has become best known for her hilarious books about American history and culture, which have seen her covering such disparate topics as the annexation of Hawaii (Unfamiliar Fishes), the New England Puritans (The Wordy Shipmates) and presidential murders (Assassination Vacation). This year, Vowell put her love of history to good use by cocreating an oral history project about the Montana Constitutional Convention of 1972. “The delegates were often very ordinary Montanans — they were ranchers, moms, tractor dealers, very Montana-type people — who wrote this document,” she said. “And what they came up with still affects our lives every day.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 26: Lars Ulrich, 59
Born in Gentofte, Denmark, on Dec. 26, 1963, Lars Ulrich took a somewhat circuitous path to the world of heavy metal music. He was the son of an internationally ranked tennis player and almost took up the sport professionally before pivoting to music. When his family relocated to California in the early ’80s, Ulrich put down the racket and started making one as a drummer. He posted an ad in the local music paper to find bandmates, eventually teaming up with guitarist James Hetfield to form Metallica. Known for hard-hitting rock anthems like “Enter Sandman” and “Until It Sleeps,” the group became one of the most celebrated heavy metal bands ever, winning an eventual eight Grammys and racking up impressive sales. Their 1991 self-titled album (also known as The Black Album), for example, was certified platinum — for selling a million units — 16 times. Ulrich and his bandmates were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, making him the first Dane to be thus honored. Still, he isn’t one to rest on his laurels. This November, during an appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show, Ulrich announced a new Metallica single and album and a two-year-long world tour that will see the band play two shows at each stop with 100 percent different sets. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 25: Sissy Spacek, 73
Before she became an Academy Award–winning actress, Sissy Spacek, 73, flirted with another art form entirely: Under the stage name Rainbo, she recorded and released a single called “John You’ve Gone Too Far This Time,” which was directed at John Lennon for appearing nude on an album cover with Yoko Ono! Spacek, who was born in rural Quitman, Texas, on Christmas Day 1949, later enrolled in acting lessons at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and soon she was appearing in Terrence Malick’s Badlands and earning her first Oscar nomination for her terrifying performance in Carrie. Just four short years later, she picked up the trophy for the Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner’s Daughter, in which, instead of lip-syncing, she sang all the songs herself. In the 1980s, Spacek picked up an additional three Oscar nominations, for Missing, The River and Crimes of the Heart. Following acclaimed supporting turns in films like Affliction and The Straight Story, Spacek earned some of her most rapturous reviews in decades for 2001’s In the Bedroom, in which she played the grieving mother of a murdered teenage son. More recently, like many actresses of her generation, Spacek has found a warm welcome on the small screen, where she’s starred in Bloodline, Homecoming and Castle Rock, which is based on the stories of Carrie writer Stephen King. This year, she and J.K. Simmons costarred in the Amazon Prime sci-fi series Night Sky, where they play a couple who find a chamber buried in their backyard that leads to a mysterious planet. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 24: Ricky Martin, 51
The King of Latin Pop, Ricky Martin, 51, has been making fans swoon since he first joined the boy band Menudo at the age of 12. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Dec. 24, 1971, Martin aged out of the group at 18 and began widening his fan base with stints on the soap opera General Hospital and on Broadway in Les Miserables. By the late ’90s, when Latin sounds and Spanish-language songs were just beginning to creep into mainstream radio, Martin was enjoying blockbuster crossover success as a pop star. His “Livin’ La Vida Loca” topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts, “La Copa de la Vida” became the official anthem of the 1998 World Cup, and he picked up two Grammys. In 2010, he came out as gay, and in the years since, he’s found a second life as an actor. He earned an Emmy nomination for his performance as Antonio D’Amico, Versace’s longtime partner, in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Following his deliciously villainous turn as a talking matador doll in the 2020 fantasy musical Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, Martin will star opposite Kristen Wiig in the Apple TV+ comedy series Mrs. American Pie, which is set in the high-stakes world of 1970s Palm Beach high society. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 23: Susan Lucci, 76
Many A-list actresses have used daytime soap operas as a stepping stone to prime time and movies, but few have had such long-running success within the genre as the Queen of Daytime, Susan Lucci, 76. Born on Dec. 23, 1946, in Scarsdale, New York, Lucci landed the coveted role of Erica Kane on a new soap called All My Children in 1970. Over the span of 41 years and 1,631 episodes, Kane became perhaps the most famous character in soap history, best known for her many, many, many marriages: She had a record-setting 11 weddings with eight husbands, making her officially Erika Kane Martin Brent Cudahay Chandler Roy Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marik Marik Montgomery. Despite her memorable onscreen escapades, Lucci is even better known for her unenviable Emmy track record. After earning her first nomination in 1978, she kept losing for more than two decades, until finally nabbing a win in 1999 on lucky nomination number 19! All My Children came to an end in 2011, and Lucci went on to star as Beverly Hills socialite Genevieve Delatour on Lifetime’s Devious Maids, which saw her having sexcapades with the pool boy and tennis coach. Lovers of All My Children will be happy to know that a prime-time reboot entitled Pine Valley is tentatively in the works, and though the project has been delayed by the pandemic, the series would be executive-produced by Lucci’s old AMC costars, Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 22: Ralph Fiennes, 60
Like many acclaimed British actors before him, Ralph Fiennes, 60, got his start on stage interpreting the words of William Shakespeare, and he’s continued to inhabit nuanced characters worthy of the Bard throughout his film career. Born in Ipswich, England, on Dec. 22, 1962, Fiennes earned two Oscar nominations in the 1990s, for playing the terrifying Nazi commandant Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List and a badly burned World War II pilot in The English Patient. While he would have the chance to explore complex roles in dramas like The Constant Gardener and The Reader, it was his turn as an irredeemable force of pure evil that earned him perhaps his biggest audience to date: Lord Voldemort (a.k.a. He Who Must Not Be Named) in the Harry Potter franchise. In recent years, Fiennes has dabbled in directing, making his behind-the-camera debut in 2011 with his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, and he earned a Golden Globe nomination for his decidedly lighter turn as an exacting hotel concierge in The Grand Budapest Hotel. On the cusp of his 60th birthday, Fiennes is still nabbing complicated roles worthy of his talents. After a celebrated run on the London stage, he brought David Hare’s biographical play Straight Line Crazy, in which he plays controversial New York City urban planner Robert Moses, to the off-Broadway stage, and movie audiences can catch him as a dastardly celebrity chef in the black comedy The Menu. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Dec. 21: Samuel L. Jackson, 74
Beloved for his take-no-prisoners attitude and penchant for foul-mouthed tirades, Samuel L. Jackson, 74, proved early in his career that he could tackle nearly any kind of role. Born in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 21, 1948, Jackson made the leap from the stage to the screen with the help of director Spike Lee; among their many collaborations was Jackson’s breakthrough role as the drug-addicted Gator in Jungle Fever. The ’90s would also see him begin a fruitful working relationship with another upstart, Quentin Tarantino. Jackson earned his only Academy Award nomination (so far!) for playing the speechifying killer Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, and he would go on to appear in several more of Tarantino’s films, including Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. Over the decades, he’s become a go-to supporting actor in big-budget blockbuster franchises, including Jurassic Park, The Incredibles, Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), in which he plays Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury across more than a dozen movies, TV shows and video games. As a result, by some counts, Jackson ranks as the second-highest-grossing international box office star of all time — behind only the late Stan Lee, who made a cameo in nearly every MCU film. A 2022 honorary Oscar winner, Jackson is currently starring on Broadway in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, in a celebrated revival directed by his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson. The show is something of a homecoming for Jackson, who appeared in the 1987 premiere production of the play at the Yale Repertory Theatre and made his Broadway debut as an understudy when the show moved to New York in 1990. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 20: Michael Badalucco, 68
Born in Brooklyn on Dec. 20, 1954, Michael Badalucco, 68, had an early brush with stardom: His Sicilian-born father was a carpenter on film sets, and little Michael’s picture was used in the 1964 Henry Fonda movie Fail Safe. It would be another 17 years before he made his official big-screen debut as a soda jerk in Raging Bull, and he continued with small roles in movies including Broadway Danny Rose, Miller’s Crossing and Jungle Fever. After he appeared alongside Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day, she introduced Badalucco to her husband, David E. Kelley, who cast him in his defining role as lawyer Jimmy Berluti on The Practice, a part that earned him an Emmy for best supporting actor. He remained on the acclaimed drama for 166 episodes, though he continued to get high-profile gigs as a character actor, stepping into the against-type roles of serial killer Son of Sam in Summer of Sam and notorious gangster Baby Face Nelson in O Brother, Where Art Thou? Badalucco can currently be seen on Mindy Kaling’s Netflix teen sitcom Never Have I Ever, on which he plays entertainment lawyer Howard Gross, the father of our heroine’s on-again, off-again crush Ben. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 19: Criss Angel, 55
A natural showman since childhood, Criss Angel, 55, was born on Long Island on Dec. 19, 1967, and he first fell in love with magic after watching his aunt perform a card trick when he was 7. “From that day on, I was hooked,” he remembers. “I felt this incredible sense of power that an adult didn’t understand how it worked, but I did.” Over the years, he developed his modern style of magic, which first gained a major fan base at the 1998 World of Illusion convention, which saw him performing the same dazzling 10-minute set 60 times a day for 12 days straight. Word spread, and soon he was headlining his own show in Times Square, Criss Angel: Mindfreak, which ran for more than 600 performances before he transformed it into an A&E reality show of the same name. The series was filmed in Las Vegas, and Angel emerged as a true Sin City superstar, best known for his rock star vibe, and he eventually created his own Cirque du Soleil show at the Luxor Hotel. A record-breaking five-time winner of the International Magicians Society’s Magician of the Year, Angel is back onstage at his eponymous theater at the Planet Hollywood resort on the Vegas Strip. But he’s bringing his tricks to an even wider audience with this month’s CW series Criss Angel’s Magic With the Stars, which sees him training celebrities like Frankie Muniz, Ginuwine and Flava Flav in the ways of magic. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage/Getty Images
Dec. 18: Brad Pitt, 59
Brad Pitt, 59, shot like a bolt out of the blue when he starred as a charming hitchhiker in 1991’s Thelma and Louise. Who is this guy, Hollywood insiders started asking, and how can we get him in more movies? Born on Dec. 18, 1963, in Oklahoma, Pitt quickly emerged as a leading man in films like Interview With the Vampire, Legends of the Fall and 12 Monkeys, for which he earned his first Oscar nomination. And while he’d become famous for his A-list roles in movies like Fight Club and the Ocean’s Eleven franchise, Pitt was equally known for his matinee idol looks (he’s a two-time People Sexiest Man Alive winner) and his relationships with Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. With his Golden Globe–nominated turn in 2006’s Babel, the industry’s perception of Pitt started to subtly shift, and he began to be seen as more of a critical darling. He was soon picking up Oscar nods for both acting (for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Moneyball) and producing, earning his first trophy for his behind-the-scenes work on best picture winner 12 Years a Slave. In 2020, Pitt finally broke through with his first acting win at the Academy Awards for his fun-loving supporting turn as stuntman Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, set in 1960s Tinseltown. This month, he skips a few decades back in history for the 1920s-set moviemaking epic Babylon from La La Land director Damien Chazelle. And there’s a chance he might show up in the awards conversation twice this year: Pitt also executive produced the critically acclaimed #MeToo drama She Said, about the New York Times reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 17: Eugene Levy, 76
For a certain generation of movie lovers, the lavishly eyebrowed Canadian actor Eugene Levy, 76, will always be remembered as Jim’s dad in the raunchy teen flick American Pie. Born in Ontario, on Dec. 17, 1946, Levy got his comedy start on SCTV — the Canadian equivalent of Saturday Night Live — which launched the careers of John Candy, Andrea Martin, Martin Short and Levy’s frequent collaborator Catherine O’Hara. He and O’Hara often starred together in the mockumentaries of Christopher Guest, including Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, a film about 1960s folk musicians that improbably earned him a Grammy Award for his original song. In 2015, he and son Dan Levy cocreated the quirky ensemble sitcom Schitt’s Creek, in which he starred as Johnny Rose, a video store magnate who falls on hard times and moves with his spoiled family to a motel in a tiny town that he once bought as a joke. (O’Hara, of course, played his wife.) What started out as a little Canadian sitcom with a devoted fan base quickly and unexpectedly emerged as a genuine phenomenon, sweeping the Emmys and earning Levy trophies for outstanding actor and comedy series. Upon the motel-set sitcom’s finale, Apple TV+ announced that it was teaming up with the comedian to produce The Reluctant Traveler, a globe-trotting docuseries that will see Levy touring around the world … even though he’s an admittedly terrible traveler. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 16: Lesley Stahl, 81
A pioneering broadcast news personality, Lesley Stahl, 81, has been breaking glass ceilings since she was hired by CBS News a half century ago this year. Born in Massachusetts on Dec.16, 1941, Stahl became the first woman to serve as CBS’s White House correspondent, during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. As moderator of Face the Nation, she interviewed the likes of Margaret Thatcher, Yasser Arafat and Boris Yeltsin. In 1991, Stahl joined the reporting team at 60 Minutes. Her work on the show has taken her to Guantánamo Bay and the Middle East and earned her more than three dozen News & Documentary Emmy Award nominations, including a 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award. Not usually one to make news rather than report on it, Stahl nonetheless made headlines when President Trump walked out of an interview with her and released the raw footage before it aired; the resulting broadcast attracted 18 million viewers. This year, the author of Becoming Grandma conducted a decidedly friendlier interview as part of a cameo as herself in the sweet comedy Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, in which she filmed a segment with the title character: a tiny anthropomorphic seashell who’s obsessed with 60 Minutes and turns to Stahl to help him find his long-lost family. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 15: Don Johnson, 73
Few TV stars of the 1980s were as effortlessly cool as Don Johnson, 73, who played Miami Vice’s Ferrari-driving, pet-alligator-owning, white-suit-wearing detective James “Sonny” Crockett. Born in Missouri on Dec. 15, 1949, Johnson considered becoming a professional bowler before turning to acting. His breakout Vice role earned him a Golden Globe in 1986, the same year he released his debut album, Heartbeat, and its title track hit number 5 on the Billboard charts. Johnson would strike TV gold once again in 1996 with Nash Bridges, on which he starred as yet another officer of the law, this time the eponymous San Francisco police inspector, for six seasons and a 2021 sequel movie. In recent years, Johnson has brought his mischievous charisma to ensemble comedies (Book Club), murder mysteries (Knives Out), exploitation Westerns (Django Unchained) and both prestige miniseries and network sitcoms: He took on a much darker cop character in HBO’s Watchmen and then played Kenan Thompson’s laid-back father-in-law on Kenan. His latest film is the action comedy High Heat, in which Johnson stars as a man who runs afoul of the mafia. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Rosie Marks/The New York Times/Redux
Dec. 14: Beth Orton, 52
Known for a genre-spanning sound dubbed “folktronica,” British singer-songwriter Beth Orton, 52, combines the heartfelt emotionality of acoustic folk music with electronic beats. Born in Norfolk on Dec. 14, 1970, Orton spent the first half of the 1990s collaborating with musicians like William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers before branching out with her 1996 solo debut, Trailer Park. Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield called it “one of those rare albums you could play for absolutely anyone and know they’d like it.” Her 1999 follow-up, Central Reservation, won her the BRIT Award for best British female solo artist, while 2002’s Daybreaker even made it into the U.S. Top 40 album charts. Orton leaned into her acoustic roots for her fourth and fifth albums, Comfort of Strangers and Sugaring Season, before pushing her sound into new electronic soundscapes on the synth- and loop-heavy 2016 album, Kidsticks. This year, Orton released the deeply personal Weather Alive, which she recorded on a “cheap, crappy” upright piano in her garden shed. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 13: Jamie Foxx, 55
Jamie Foxx, 55, is a triple threat who doesn’t just dabble in different art forms — he achieves greatness in them. Born in Texas on Dec. 13, 1967, Foxx was a natural scene stealer on Fox’s In Living Color before landing his own sitcom in 1996. He started to show off his impressive range with the sports films Any Given Sunday and Ali, but the industry really began to take notice in 2004, when he starred in the biopic Ray and Collateral. He earned Academy Award nods for both performances, winning an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for his crowd-pleasing turn as Ray Charles. At around the same time, his album Unpredictable topped the Billboard charts, as did the singles “Gold Digger” and “Slow Jamz,” and he’s earned nine Grammy nominations and one win. Once he ascended to the A-list, Foxx proved he could tackle nearly any genre, including blockbuster action (Miami Vice), musical (Dreamgirls), comedy (Horrible Bosses) and period drama (Django Unchained). Foxx earned some of his best reviews in years for the 2019 drama Just Mercy, in which he starred as the real-life death row inmate Walter McMillian. Though he’s no stranger to prestige films, he returned to his sitcom roots with Netflix’s throwback Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 12: Bill Nighy, 73
Like many acclaimed British actors before him, Bill Nighy, 73, took a few decades toiling away on the U.K. stage and small screen before he was noticed by an international audience. Born on Dec. 12, 1949, in Caterham, Surrey, England, Nighy had his first taste of movie stardom with the Golden Globe–nominated sleeper hit Still Crazy, in which he starred as an aging rocker. It was an archetype he mined once again in the beloved holiday rom-com Love Actually, and the role of past-his-prime pop star Billy Mack — which saw him perform the endearingly goofy “Christmas Is All Around” — earned him a BAFTA for best supporting actor. His next major project took him from a London recording studio to the briny deep, when he played the villainous Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but you’d be forgiven for not recognizing him: It was a motion-capture performance, and his face was made up of CGI tentacles! After appearing in films like The Boat That Rocked and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Nighy earned a Tony nomination for his role in Broadway’s Skylight. This year he played the alien Thomas Newton, a part originated by David Bowie, in the Showtime sequel series The Man Who Fell to Earth, and he took on a decidedly more human role in the film Living. The English-language remake of the 1952 Akira Kurosawa classic Ikiru sees Nighy starring as a 1950s bureaucrat facing a fatal illness, and awards pundits predict it could be just the role to earn him his first Oscar nomination. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 11: Nikki Sixx, 64
Born in San Jose, California, on Dec. 11, 1958, Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr., 64, moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17, where he promptly adopted a name that was a bit less of a mouthful: Nikki Sixx. After cycling through a few short-lived bands, the bassist teamed up with drummer Tommy Lee, guitarist Mick Mars and singer Vince Neil to form the band that would cement his place in the heavy metal pantheon, Mötley Crüe. Despite chart successes like “Dr. Feelgood”and “Without You,” the rocker and syndicated radio show host has been candid about his struggles, first in the 2001 Crüe autobiography The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, and then in his own 2007 memoir, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star. The Dirt was later adapted into a 2019 Netflix biopic, which kicked off a resurgence that led to a surprising development: The band, which had officially disbanded in 2015, headed out on a reunion stadium tour last summer. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 10: Bobby Flay, 58
Perhaps no other chef in America is as intrinsically linked with the Food Network as Bobby Flay, 58, who has been a fixture on the channel for nearly three decades. Born in New York City on Dec. 10, 1964, Flay got started on an Easy-Bake Oven as a child, eventually dropping out of school at 17 to work in the kitchen at the Theater District institution, Joe Allen. After graduating from the French Culinary Institute, Flay opened the buzzy Mesa Grill in 1991. But his charisma couldn’t be contained in the kitchen, and he first made the jump to television with appearances on the Food Network’s Iron Chef America in 1994. In his time on the Food Network, Flay has proven his versatility as an instructional cook (Boy Meets Grill With Bobby Flay), a fierce competitor (Beat Bobby Flay), a mentor and a judge (The Next Food Network Star) and a travelogue host (Bobby and Giada in Italy). Last year, there were rumors that the four-time Daytime Emmy winner would be leaving the channel, but American food TV lovers breathed a collective sigh of relief when he agreed to a new deal that will see him sticking around through at least 2024. Never one to rest on his laurels, Flay is constantly spicing up his résumé with new series concepts, including this year’s new competition series Bobby’s Triple Threat and Bobby and Sophie on the Coast, which he cohosts with his daughter. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
Dec. 9: Joshua Bell, 55
Joshua Bell may only be turning 55, but he has, improbably, been a violin prodigy for about 50 years! Born in Bloomington, Indiana, on Dec. 9, 1967, he began taking violin lessons at the age of 4, when his mother noticed that he had been placing rubber bands on his dresser drawer handles and plucking them to make music. Bell went on to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra as a soloist at 14, debuted at Carnegie Hall at 17 and made his first recording at 18. A seven-time Grammy nominee (and two-time winner), he picked up the trophy for best instrumental soloist performance in 2001 for Nicholas Maw’s Violin Concerto, which was written especially for him, and he’s gone on to become one of the most renowned classical musicians in the world, taking over as the music director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in 2011 and frequently appearing as himself in Amazon Prime’s Mozart in the Jungle. In 2007, Bell was the subject of a Pulitzer-winning Washington Post article in which he busked in a D.C. Metrorail station during rush hour and was widely ignored by passersby — only making $32.17 in change. For his latest endeavor, Bell has partnered with the violin-learning app Trala, recording videos for new learners to democratize music education. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bruce Glikas/WireImage/Getty Images
Dec. 8: Teri Hatcher, 58
Born in Palo Alto, California, on Dec. 8, 1964, Teri Hatcher, 58, performed as a San Francisco 49ers cheerleader before making the leap into the world of acting, first appearing as a singing and dancing mermaid on The Love Boat. She’s a member of an elite sorority of actresses who have starred in two equally iconic television roles – first as the whipsmart Lois Lane in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and then as divorcée Susan Mayer on the campy dramedy Desperate Housewives. The latter role earned her an Emmy nomination, a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. Since Housewives went off the air, Hatcher returned to the Super-world, playing a villainous alien queen on CW’s Supergirl before starting her own YouTube channel, Teri Hatcher’s Hatching Change, on which she released cooking videos and a series called “Van Therapy,” which saw her driving around Los Angeles in a vintage van to chat with locals. After the success of last year’s A Kiss Before Christmas, Hatcher returned to the Hallmark Channel for this fall’s Mid-Love Crisis, in which she stars as a single mom on the brink of 50. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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Dec. 7: Ellen Burstyn, 90
It’s hard to overstate just what a dominant acting force Ellen Burstyn, 90, was in the 1970s. Born in Detroit on Dec. 7, 1932, Burstyn starred in five Oscar-nominated roles in under a decade: as an alcoholic mother in a small Texas town in 1971’s The Last Picture Show; as the mother of a possessed teenager in 1973’s The Exorcist; as a recent widow looking for a second chance in 1974’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore; as a woman who cheats on her husband every year in 1978’s Same Time, Next Year; and as a woman who briefly enters the afterlife in 1980’s Resurrection. She won the trophy for her role in Alice — the same year she picked up a best actress Tony for the Broadway-play version of Same Time, Next Year. In 2000, Burstyn earned some of her most rapturous reviews in decades (and a sixth Oscar nomination) for her turn as a Coney Island widow addicted to diet pills in Requiem for a Dream. In recent years, the Triple Crown of Acting winner has starred as everyone from Claire Underwood’s mother on House of Cards to Elliot Stabler’s mother on the Law & Order franchise to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s mother on this year’s The First Lady. But next year, she’ll return to one of her most spine-tingling roles, in the sequel to The Exorcist. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Matt Baron/Shutterstock
Dec. 6: JoBeth Williams, 74
Just how committed to her art is JoBeth Williams, 74? For her breakthrough role as mom Diane Freeling in the 1982 haunted-house horror flick Poltergeist, Williams filmed 50 takes of a climactic scene in which she was flung around on the ceiling by a demon, leaving her bruised and bloody. Born in Houston on Dec. 6, 1948, Williams next made a splash in The Big Chill, playing an unhappy suburban housewife who still carries a flame for her college crush. Throughout the ’80s, she became a TV movie fixture, earning Emmy nominations for Adam, as the mother of an abducted child, and Baby M, as a surrogate mother who refuses to give up her newborn. In 1995, Williams added an Oscar nod for her directorial debut: the short film On Hope. After a starring role on The Client, a TV show based on the John Grisham novel, Williams landed recurring gigs on hit series like Dexter and Private Practice. Next up, she’s proving that you can go home again with Chantilly Bridge, a sequel to her 1993 ensemble dramedy Chantilly Lace, in which she played a film critic celebrating her 40th birthday. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CraSH/imageSPACE/Shutterstock
Dec. 5: Margaret Cho, 54
Margaret Cho, 54, forever changed the TV landscape with the 1994 debut of ABC’s All-American Girl, the first network sitcom to focus on an Asian American family — and the only one until Fresh Off the Boat two decades later. Born in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 1968, Cho started doing stand-up comedy at age 14 and had her first taste of stardom when she won a contest to open for Jerry Seinfeld in the early ’90s. Over the years, she became a pioneering comedic voice for the Korean American and LGBT communities, and her raucous and raunchy stand-up specials earned her five Grammy nominations. She returned to the small screen with VH1’s The Cho Show, which she described as a “reality sitcom,” and later appeared as the assistant Teri in the popular Lifetime comedy Drop Dead Diva. A celebrated — and shockingly hilarious — guest turn on 30 Rock earned Cho her first Emmy nomination. The role? North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il! In recent years, she launched a podcast and appeared as the Poodle on the first season of The Masked Singer, and this summer, she costarred in the groundbreaking gay Asian romantic comedy Fire Island, a project that might never have been possible without her decades of ceiling-breaking. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Gregory Pace/Shutterstock
Dec. 4: Marisa Tomei, 58
Marisa Tomei, 58, shocked the Hollywood establishment when she picked up the best supporting actress Oscar for her performance as the feisty Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny. Though she’ll forever be linked to this hilarious breakthrough role, Tomei — who was born on Dec. 4, 1964 in Brooklyn — went on to earn two more Oscar nods for darker fare, playing a woman dealing with an unthinkable tragedy in In the Bedroom and a stripper in The Wrestler. After her scenery-chewing guest turn as billionaire Mimi Whiteman on Empire and roles in films such as The Lincoln Lawyer and The Big Short, Tomei joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Aunt May in the Spider-Man films. In 2020, she returned to her New York City roots, playing the widowed mother of Pete Davidson’s character Scott Carlin in the Judd Apatow comedy The King of Staten Island. And this year, she played against type as a small-town sheriff investigating a murder in the crime thriller Delia’s Gone. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images
Dec. 3: Brendan Fraser, 54
Enjoying a mid-career renaissance propelled by his star-remaking turn in The Whale, Brendan Fraser, 54, is the kind of actor who’s beloved by audiences but has never quite gotten his critical due. Born in Indianapolis on Dec. 3, 1968, Fraser got his first big break with Encino Man, in which he played an unfrozen caveman discovered by two teenagers. With his matinee idol looks and goofball appeal, Fraser was equally at home in broad family films (George of the Jungle), heady dramas (School Ties), romantic comedies (Mrs. Winterbourne) and especially swashbuckling adventures such as the Mummy franchise, in which he starred as the Indiana Jones–like Rick O’Connell. Despite his successes, Fraser stepped back from Hollywood, hampered by injuries caused by his extensive stunt work and disillusioned after he said he was sexually assaulted by an influential man in the industry. His comeback has been slow but steady, with appearances in the John Paul Getty III kidnapping drama Trust and the DC Comics action comedy Doom Patrol, and his fortune has escalated during this year’s festival season. He’s earning the best reviews of his career for the new drama The Whale, in which he plays a reclusive, morbidly obese English teacher; he cried during the six-minute standing ovation after the movie’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and the internet has spent the past few months collectively lavishing praise on the long-underestimated star, who’s garnering serious Oscar buzz for the role. Need proof of his comeback? His next project is the Martin Scorsese epic Killers of the Flower Moon. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Heidi Ross
Dec. 2: Ann Patchett, 59
If you were in a book club in or around 2001, there’s a good chance you read the best-selling novel Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, 59. Born in Los Angeles on Dec. 2, 1963, Patchett began publishing fiction while she was an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence College. After the publication of her first trio of novels — one of which was adapted into a TV movie (The Patron Saint of Liars) — Patchett had her big breakthrough with Bel Canto, a gripping story about the relationship between terrorists and hostages at a lavish birthday party somewhere in South America. The novel was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the Orange Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award, and it was adapted into a film starring Julianne Moore as renowned soprano Roxanne Coss. The owner of Nashville’s Parnassus Books, Patchett spent the next two decades experimenting with genres, releasing memoirs, e-books, children’s books and novels such as 2019’s The Dutch House. Her latest work is the 2021 essay collection These Precious Days, in which she meditates on such disparate topics as knitting, Eudora Welty and Snoopy. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Dec. 1: Candace Bushnell, 64
Few cultural voices have shaped our understanding of modern day New York City as completely as Candace Bushnell, 64. Born on Dec. 1, 1958, she launched her zeitgeist-shifting “Sex and the City” column in The New York Observer in 1994, and it was such a hit that she collected her essays in a book, which was adapted into an Emmy-winning HBO sitcom, in which Sarah Jessica Parker filled in as her alter ego. Bushnell’s incisive critiques of womanhood and contemporary urban life have earned her comparisons to Jane Austen, Edith Wharton and Dorothy Parker. After the success of SATC, two of her novels made their way onto the small screen, Lipstick Jungle and the 1980s-set prequel The Carrie Diaries. In 2019, Bushnell returned to the topic of Big Apple dating with Is There Still Sex in the City?, which was also turned into a one-woman show. “It’s really the creation story of Carrie Bradshaw,” she told the New York Post, “and that’s my story.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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