June Celebrity Birthdays
A look at the famous and the fascinating on the day they were born
AARP Members Only Access, June 2022
- |
- Photos
-
- 1 of
PHOTO BY: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
June 30: David Alan Grier, 66
Best known as a funnyman from his time on In Living Color, David Alan Grier, 66, has always been a much more serious actor than his comedic roles have suggested. In fact, Grier — who was born in Detroit on June 30, 1956 — trained in Shakespearean acting before receiving an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. In 1982, he earned his first Tony nomination for playing Jackie Robinson in the short-lived Broadway musical The First, and he starred alongside Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson in the Negro Ensemble Company’s production of A Soldier’s Play; its film adaptation earned three Oscar nominations, including for best picture. Grier would soon go on to join the Emmy-winning sketch comedy hit In Living Color, on which he created such memorable characters as the old bluesman Calhoun Tubbs, the clueless shop teacher Al MacAfee and Men on… critic Antoine Merriweather. Future comedic film roles included In the Army Now, Jumanji and McHale’s Navy, and he became a sitcom fixture on shows like Life With Bonnie, DAG, The Carmichael Show and last year’s Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!, on which he played the father of Jamie Foxx’s cosmetics brand owner and single dad. Following a return to Broadway in the revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Grier picked up a trio of Tony nominations for his next three roles: as Henry Brown in David Mamet’s blistering drama Race, as Sporting Life in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and as Sergeant Vernon C. Waters in the 2020 revival of A Soldier’s Play, which finally nabbed him his first victory. The play has been so good to him over the years that Grier recently announced plans to star in and executive produce a limited-series TV version. It will be his second upcoming stage-to-screen adaptation, following next year’s The Color Purple, the film version of the musical based on the 1982 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, in which he’ll play Pastor Avery. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 2 of
PHOTO BY: Adrián Monroy/Medios y Media/Getty Images
June 29: María Conchita Alonso, 65
Born in Cuba on June 29, 1957, the multitalented María Conchita Alonso, 65, fled with her family to Venezuela in 1962 after the revolution. In her new home, she would go on to become a world-renowned pageant queen, winning Miss Teen World in 1971 and later Miss Venezuela in 1975. Following her success in a series of telenovelas and Venezuelan films, Alonso emigrated to the United States in 1982, where she appeared in such films as Moscow on the Hudson, The Running Man and Predator 2. In 1995, she joined Broadway’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, becoming the first Latin American woman not born in the U.S. to star in a musical on the Great White Way, and her work in Latin pop music has yielded two Grammy nominations. A 1999 ALMA Award winner for the TV movie My Husband’s Secret Life, Alonso has continued acting on shows like Resurrection Blvd. and Saints & Sinners, an American remake of a telenovela. In recent years, she has also performed with the GranDiosas, something of a Latina answer to VH1’s Divas Live series; the rotating lineup currently includes Dulce, Ángela Carrasco and Jeanette, and they’ll be touring through California and Mexico this summer. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 3 of
PHOTO BY: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic via Getty Images
June 28: Mike White, 52
Comedy fans might remember Mike White, 52, as Jack Black’s shy and unassuming roommate Ned Schneebly in School of Rock — a film that he also wrote! — but White has spent decades making quietly revolutionary work. Born in Pasadena on June 28, 1970, White started his career writing for Dawson’s Creek, before he broke out with the indie film Chuck & Buck, which he wrote and starred in as a naive man-child who stalks his childhood friend. White took home the Film Independent Spirit Award for best feature made for under $500,000, kicking off a string of screenwriting gigs on projects like Orange County, The Good Girl, Nacho Libre and Year of the Dog, which he also directed. White gained some of the biggest critical praise of his career for HBO’s two-season wonder Enlightened, which starred Golden Globe winner Laura Dern as a self-destructive woman who has a spiritual awakening and then becomes a corporate whistleblower. As an in-demand Hollywood creative, White took the bold step of applying for reality TV, appearing on The Amazing Race with his father, Mel, a former ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham who came out as gay late in life. They returned for a second season, and White later appeared on the 37th season of Survivor, finishing as runner-up. Last year, he struck HBO satirical gold again with his Hawaiian-resort-set comedy The White Lotus, which has attracted its fair share of awards attention, and he’s returning for a second season, which will film in Sicily and feature a cast including Season 1 returnee Jennifer Coolidge, F. Murray Abraham, Aubrey Plaza and Michael Imperioli. For decidedly lighter fare, he’s also working on the scripts for Despicable Me 4 and Migration, about a family of ducks who try to persuade their dad to take them on vacation. May we suggest a little resort called the White Lotus? —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 4 of
PHOTO BY: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
June 27: J.J. Abrams, 56
Few producers have changed the television landscape more than J.J. Abrams, 56, who was born in New York City on June 27, 1966. After creating the university-set Felicity and the spy drama Alias (both of which made A-listers out of their respective stars, Keri Russell and Jennifer Garner), Abrams debuted his game-changing network drama Lost in 2004. The sci-fi series, which ran for six seasons and won 10 Primetime Emmys, has spawned countless imitators and ushered in an era of dramas with sprawling casts, twisty plots, multiple timelines and heaps of puzzle-like clues and references designed to be untangled by viewers. In 2006, he made his first leap to the big screen with his feature directorial debut, Mission: Impossible III, before rebooting the Star Trek film franchise in 2009. His 2011 original film Super 8 was an ode to the 1970s, as a group of small-town friends witness a train crash and then start to uncover unexplained occurrences. Next, following his Star Trek sequel, Abrams turned his attention to that other blockbuster franchise set in outer space, directing Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens and Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. In her review of The Force Awakens for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote, “J.J. Abrams… turns out to be what this stagnant franchise needs: a Star Wars superfan and pop culture savant.” Abrams has a slew of in-the-works projects in various stages of development, including a recently announced live-action version of Speed Racer for Apple and his fourth Star Trek film. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 5 of
PHOTO BY: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
June 26: Derek Jeter, 48
Born in Pequannock Township, New Jersey, on June 26, 1974, Derek Jeter, 48, was a powerhouse athlete from the start, years before he joined the Yankees — in fact, as a student, he was named the American High School Coaches Association High School Player of the Year, the Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year and USA Today’s High School Player of the Year! In 1992, he joined the Yankees’ minor league farm system, eventually being called up to the majors as a starting shortstop in 1995. Only a year later, he was helping lead the Bronx Bombers to their first World Series win since 1978, and Jeter was named the American League rookie of the year. It would be the first of five championship wins for the Yankees during Jeter’s time on the team (the others coming in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009). The charismatic shortstop was named team captain in 2003, and before his retirement in 2014, he racked up an impressive 14 All-Star appearances, five Gold Glove Awards and 3,465 hits, ranking him sixth in Major League history for career hits. In addition to his on-field prowess, Jeter emerged as something of a pop cultural icon: Tabloids loved writing about his dating life (Mariah Carey, Minka Kelly), he became a sought-after spokesperson (for everything from Nike and Gatorade to Gillette and Skippy), he released his own men’s fragrance called Driven, and he even hosted Saturday Night Live in 2001. In 2014, he also founded the new media platform, The Players’ Tribune, which included podcasts and first-person articles written by athletes themselves. “I’m not a robot — neither are the other athletes who at times might seem unapproachable,” he wrote on the site. “We all have emotions. We all have a story to tell.” After having his jersey number, 2, retired in 2017, Jeter received 396 of 397 votes for entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame during his first year on the ballot in 2020. In 2017, Jeter became partial owner and CEO of the Miami Marlins, but he stepped down from the team this year. This May, Jeter attracted media attention when he finally joined Twitter and Instagram, joking in his first post: “Looks like I’ve officially run out of excuses.” But social media isn’t the only place you’ll see Jeter this summer: In July, ESPN releases its six-episode docuseries The Captain about Jeter’s storied career, and it promises to be the baseball world’s answer to The Last Dance. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 6 of
PHOTO BY: ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
June 25: Carly Simon, 77
Carly Simon, 77, was born in the Bronx on June 25, 1945, to impressive parents: Her father was a pianist and cofounder of the Simon & Schuster publishing house, her mother a civil rights activist and singer. She followed her folks into the arts, first performing with her sister Lucy before setting off on her own. Simon started the 1970s with a bang, winning the 1971 Grammy for best new artist, and she would have a megahit on her hands the following year with “You’re So Vain.” When including “You’re So Vain” on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, Rolling Stone called it “pure soft-rock fire” and “the holy mother of all diss tracks,” and it also spawned one of pop music’s great mysteries: Who, exactly, was so vain?! Simon later admitted that Warren Beatty inspired at least the second verse, though rumors still persist about other culprits. Future Top 10 singles included “Mockingbird,” a duet with her then-husband James Taylor, and “Nobody Does It Better,” the theme song to the James Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me. In 1988, she composed the song “Let the River Run” for the film Working Girl, and she picked up an Oscar, a Grammy and a Golden Globe — the first time a female artist-composer had pulled off such a trifecta. Simon remained a presence in Hollywood, where she wrote the scores for films like Postcards From the Edge and This Is My Life, and her later pop standards netted her additional Grammy nods. A 1994 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Simon was finally selected for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, after being eligible for 26 years. “There’s that first thought of, ‘I don’t believe it. It must be the House of Pancakes I just got into,’” she told Rolling Stone about the honor. “Somebody bought me a space on the Walk of Fame, so I got confused with that. Truly, I was dumbfounded. I thought they must be mistaken.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 7 of
PHOTO BY: Mark Allan /Invision/AP
June 24: Jeff Beck, 78
One of the most acclaimed guitarists of all time, Jeff Beck, 78, was born in Wallington, Surrey, England, on June 24, 1944, and he built his own guitar at the age of 15. Beck spent the beginning of his career cycling through bands with other rock luminaries: In 1965, he replaced Eric Clapton in the blues-rock group the Yardbirds before forming his own trio, the Jeff Beck Group, with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood. In the mid-’70s, Beck finally went solo as his trademark jazz-fusion style began to solidify. His playing was so lyrical and expressive that his guitar made the need for lyrics or vocals redundant, and he shifted almost exclusively to instrumental music. In 1986, Beck won his first Grammy for best rock instrumental performance, and he’d pick up seven more over the years, including, most recently, a trio of trophies in 2011. A two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, he was inducted as part of the Yardbirds in 1992 and as a solo artist in 2009. And in 2015, he placed fifth on the Rolling Stone ranking of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, with Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers writing, “I saw him last year at a casino in San Diego, and the guitar was the voice. You didn’t miss the singer, because the guitar was so lyrical. There is a spirituality and confidence in him, a commitment to being great. After I saw that show, I went home and started practicing. Maybe that’s what I took from him: If you want to be Jeff Beck, do your homework.” In April 2020, Beck and Johnny Depp released a new single, “Isolation,” with the legendary guitarist saying, “Johnny and I have been working on music together for a while now and we recorded this track during our time in the studio last year. We weren’t expecting to release it so soon but given all the hard days and true ‘isolation’ that people are going through in these challenging times, we decided now might be the right time to let you all hear it.” Beck is currently on a European tour, and he made headlines this month when Depp joined him onstage in Gateshead, England, after the verdict was read in his high-profile defamation case; during the six-song joint set, Beck announced that the unexpected duo would be releasing a new album in July. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 8 of
PHOTO BY: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
June 23: Frances McDormand, 65
A winner of the prestigious Triple Crown of Acting, Frances McDormand, 65, was born in Gibson City, Illinois, on June 23, 1957, and studied at the Yale School of Drama, where her roommate was fellow future Oscar winner Holly Hunter. In 1984, she made her screen debut in the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple, and the collaboration proved fruitful both creatively and personally — she married one of them, Joel, that year! Following her first Academy Award nomination for the 1988 civil rights drama Mississippi Burning, she took home a best actress Oscar for the Coens’ twisted crime comedy Fargo. An instantly iconic character with one of the best accents in film history, policewoman Marge Gunderson landed at No. 33 on AFI’s ranking of the best heroes in film history. “I encourage writers and directors to keep these really interesting female roles coming,” she said during her Oscar acceptance speech, “and while you’re at it, you can throw in a few for the men as well.” The critical hits kept coming, with two more supporting actress Oscar nominations for her turns in Almost Famous and North Country. McDormand has proven to be an acting all-star outside of the world of cinema as well, earning a Tony in 2011 for her work as a struggling single mother in Broadway’s Good People. She famously wore a denim jacket to the ceremony and delivered a gleefully simple acceptance speech: “I love my job, I love my job!” And in 2015, she added two Emmys to her shelf for producing and starring in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge, about a small-town math teacher in Maine, a performance that New York Magazine critic Matt Zoller Seitz called “perfect.” Back on the big screen, McDormand went an impressive three for three with best actress Oscar wins for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Nomadland plus a best picture trophy for producing the latter; the victories put her in rarefied company, as only the second actress after Katharine Hepburn (who won four) to win three best actress trophies (Meryl’s third is for supporting actress). Last year, she pulled double duty in the Wes Anderson flick The French Dispatch and The Tragedy of Macbeth, directed by her husband. And next up, she’ll star in a doozy of an ensemble drama, Women Talking, about a group of Mennonite women who meet to discuss a rash of sexual assaults in their remote religious commune in Bolivia. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 9 of
PHOTO BY: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
June 22: Cyndi Lauper, 69
If you couldn’t tell from her wise-guy accent, Cyndi Lauper, 69, was born in Brooklyn on June 22, 1953, and grew up in Queens, where she got her musical start in a short-lived rockabilly band called Blue Angel. She came out of the gate running as a solo artist in 1983 with the infectious and eclectic debut album She’s So Unusual, which sold 16 million copies worldwide on the success of its lead single “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” The accompanying music video entered heavy rotation on MTV, and Lauper landed best new artist at the Grammys that year, where her four other nominations included album of the year and song of the year for “Time After Time.” Subsequent albums yielded the No. 1 hit “True Colors” and “I Drove All Night,” and she parlayed her lovably zany persona into film and TV appearances, including an Emmy-winning recurring turn on the sitcom Mad About You. In 2013, she staged an impressive second act as a Broadway composer with her beloved musical Kinky Boots, about a British shoe factory that turns to making statement footwear for drag queens to keep the business afloat. For her efforts, she became the first solo female composer to win the Tony Award for best original score and nabbed her second Grammy win in the process. A 2015 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Lauper has continued releasing albums, including Detour, a collection of country covers. Next up, fans will be able to chart the singer’s rise with a new documentary, Let the Canary Sing, by filmmaker Alison Ellwood, who helmed the 2020 film The Go-Gos. “Her music videos were wild and colorful, her songs like ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ were infectious,” Ellwood said in a statement. “But as it turns out, her story is one of hard knocks, hard work and dogged determination.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 10 of
PHOTO BY: David Livingston/Getty Images
June 21: Juliette Lewis, 49
Born in Los Angeles on June 21, 1973, Juliette Lewis, 49, got her start early, appearing in the Showtime miniseries Home Fires by the time she was 12. She joined the Griswold clan for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, but she had her major film breakout in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear, for which she earned a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. “As Danielle, Juliette Lewis has much more to work with, and what she does with it is a revelation,” Hal Hinson wrote in his review for The Washington Post. “Her delicacy and innocence — and Cady's threats against them — lay the emotional foundation for the film. She's superb.” She’d go on to work with such acclaimed directors as Woody Allen (Husbands and Wives), Lasse Hallström (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) and Oliver Stone, who cast her in the controversial Natural Born Killers, in which she starred as a psychopath on a killing spree. “As actors, when we were selling the film, I never had experienced the level of animosity and aggression or disdain from journalists,” she told Entertainment Weekly upon the film’s 25th anniversary. “They were so, so mad at us! Like, we were at fault!” Over the years, she’s shown off her rocker side with the band Juliette and the Licks, and she’s found some juicy roles on television, in series like the ABC mystery Secrets and Lies and the HBO comedy Camping. Late last year, she earned her most enthusiastic reviews in over a decade for her turn in the Showtime survival/horror/coming-of-age hybrid Yellowjackets, about a high school soccer team that survives a plane crash and resorts to some Lord of the Flies–style barbarism in the wilderness. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 11 of
June 20: John Goodman, 70
Born June 20, 1952, in Affton, Missouri, John Goodman, 70, came to national attention in 1988 as a new kind of sitcom patriarch on Roseanne. He and his TV wife weren’t perfect, but they displayed real affection and looked pretty similar to a lot of the families who were tuning in. A year before his small-screen breakthrough, Goodman had appeared as a prison escapee in the 1987 Coen brothers film Raising Arizona, and the celebrated directing duo has kept working with him over the decades. Other memorably off-kilter Coen creations include the Vietnam War vet Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski, the one-eyed crook Big Dan Teague in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and jazz musician Roland Turner in Inside Llewyn Davis. “Usually, they let me just ramble on in front of the camera,” he told Rolling Stone about working with the directors. “It’s a true joy.” His Coen collaborations have proven fruitful, but he’s also emerged as a regular in the Disney/Pixar universe, voicing the villager Pacha in The Emperor’s New Groove, Baloo in The Jungle Book 2, sugar baron Eli La Bouff in The Princess and the Frog and, most notably, the blue-furred Sulley in the Monsters, Inc. franchise, which continued last year with the Disney+ workplace comedy Monsters at Work. Goodman returned to his Golden Globe–winning role of Dan Conner for the 2018 Roseanne reboot — despite the fact that the character had died in the original series — and he ultimately took the reins of the spinoff, The Conners, when the character of Roseanne was killed off amid offscreen conflicts. He’s been keeping very busy in the past few years, and in addition to Monsters at Work and The Conners, Goodman voices Fat Freddy on the psychedelic animated sitcom The Freak Brothers, based on the underground comic from the 1960s, and stars as the megachurch pastor Dr. Eli Gemstone on HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, which recently completed its second season. Goodman has said he’d like to keep playing Eli for as long as they’ll have him, telling Newsweek, “I’ve got nothing else to do. And if I'm gonna loiter on a set for five years, I think these are the finest people to loiter with.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 12 of
June 19: Paula Abdul, 60
Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Paula Abdul, 60 — who was born June 19, 1962 — began taking dance classes at the age of 8. She quickly parlayed those skills into becoming a Laker Girl, eventually rising in the ranks to head choreographer after a few short months. Soon, Abdul was discovered by the Jacksons, and she choreographed such iconic Janet Jackson music videos as “Nasty,” “Control” and “What Have You Done for Me Lately?” In 1988, she released her debut album, Forever Your Girl, a monster hit that went seven-times platinum and spawned four number-1 singles: the title track, as well as “Straight Up,” “Opposites Attract” and “Cold Hearted.” Abdul later won a Grammy Award for best music video for “Opposites Attract,” in which she memorably dances with an animated feline friend named MC Skat Kat. Her 1991 follow-up, Spellbound, yielded another pair of chart-toppers, “Rush Rush” and “The Promise of a New Day.” A two-time Emmy winner for her choreography on The Tracey Ullman Show and the American Music Awards, Abdul returned to television in a big way in 2002 as a member of the original judging panel on American Idol. Known as the sweet yet kind of ditzy judge, Abdul picked up another five Emmy nominations before leaving the show in 2009. She later brought her skill set as a judge to other reality competitions, like The X Factor, So You Think You Can Dance and The Masked Dancer. Last year, she joined the HBO Max sci-fi comedy Made for Love, on which she played an artificial-intelligence hologram assistant named Anydoors, and this spring she reteamed with her most famous costar, MC Skat Kat, for a cameo in the new live-action/animated hybrid movie Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 13 of
PHOTO BY: Denis Guignebourg/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images
June 18: Isabella Rossellini, 70
A true child of the world of cinema, Isabella Rossellini, 70, was born in Rome on June 18, 1952, to Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini. When she was in her late 20s, she emerged as one of the most in-demand fashion models, well past the age many models usually get their start. She soon became the face of Lancôme for over a decade and appeared on the cover of glossy magazines like Vogue. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she became an acclaimed actress, with one of her earliest breakout roles as nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens in David Lynch’s 1986 neo-noir thriller Blue Velvet. Critic Pauline Kael called her “a dream of a freak,” and we’re sure she meant that as the highest of praise. Equally adept at comedy, in films like Cousins and Death Becomes Her, Rossellini appeared as herself in an episode of Friends and later as Jack Donaghy’s (Alec Baldwin’s) ex-wife on 30 Rock. As a pet project, so to speak, Rossellini became obsessed with animal behavior, eventually enrolling at New York’s Hunter College to study the subject, graduating with a master’s degree in 2019. Before making her love academically official, she created a Webby Award–winning series of online shorts called Green Porno, about the wild and wonderful mating rituals of everything from barnacles and praying mantises to squids and elephant seals. “Do I do this because I have a sexual obsession?” she said of the project, which involved performing in costume. “Do I do this because I have to learn how to behave sexually? I don't do it for that at all. I always wanted to make films about animals. There’s not an enormous audience, but there’s an enormous audience for sex.” This summer, after appearing as French cookbook author Simone “Simca” Beck on HBO Max’s Julia Child bioseries Julia, Rossellini costars in this month’s Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. This full-length feature adaptation of the beloved internet short follows a teeny-tiny anthropomorphic shell, voiced by Jenny Slate, as he sets out to find his family, with Rossellini costarring as his shell grandmother, Connie. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 14 of
PHOTO BY: Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic
June 17: Will Forte, 52
Born on June 17, 1970, Will Forte, 52, took a circuitous route to the world of comedy before he landed on Saturday Night Live as a writer and cast member at the age of 32. After receiving a history degree from UCLA, Forte worked at a brokerage firm before dipping a toe in the comedy waters and joining the Groundlings troupe. Soon he was working behind the scenes as a writer on shows like 3rd Rock From the Sun, That ’70s Show and the Late Show With David Letterman, earning his first Emmy nomination in the process. In 2002, he brought his trademark blend of absurdist comedy to Saturday Night Live, where his sketches often ranked among the most bizarre of the night. Forte paired impersonations like George W. Bush with truly bizarre original characters, such as the Falconer and MacGruber. This MacGyver parody finds Forte trapped in a room as he tries to detonate a bomb, but he always gets distracted by personal issues, resulting in a massive explosion. Improbably, the skit has spawned a 2010 spin-off film and a 2021 streaming Peacock series, with a sequel film already announced and a second season of the series expected. After leaving SNL in 2010, Forte has enjoyed a surprisingly diverse acting career, earning another Emmy nomination for his guest gig as Paul L’astnamé on 30 Rock and critical acclaim for his dramatic turn in the Oscar-nominated Nebraska. But it was his postapocalyptic Fox sitcom, Last Man on Earth, that truly captured his trademark combination of sweetness and anarchic zaniness, and it led to three more Emmy nods — two for acting and one for writing. An accomplished voice-over actor, Forte is currently starring as Wolf Tobin on the Alaska-set animated sitcom The Great North, and next year he’ll appear in the live-action/animated hybrid film Wile E. Coyote, as the hapless canine’s lawyer, who helps Wile E. sue the ACME Corporation. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 15 of
PHOTO BY: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions
June 16: Laurie Metcalf, 67
While she may not get the same high-profile gigs as the Meryls of the world, Laurie Metcalf, 67, has emerged as one of the most acclaimed and reliable actresses working today. Born in Illinois on June 16, 1955, Metcalf was an original ensemble member in the revolutionary Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which became renowned for its intense productions and emotional honesty; standout performances of hers included Laura in The Glass Menagerie and the prostitute Darlene in Lanford Wilson’s Balm in Gilead, which earned her national attention when it transferred to a venue off-Broadway. In his review for The New York Times, Frank Rich called her 20-minute monologue “a tour de force” and “one of the year’s most memorable theatrical events.” Metcalf had appeared in one episode of Saturday Night Live before a total overhaul of the series, but she later struck television-comedy gold when she was cast as Jackie Harris on Roseanne. The part earned her three consecutive supporting-actress Emmy wins and led to roles in films like Uncle Buck, JFK and the Toy Story franchise, in which she voiced Andy’s mother. Her biggest cinematic success came in 2017, when she played another maternal role, Marion McPherson, in Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age comedy Lady Bird. She earned nominations from the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the SAG Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards and more, plus a few wins — including one for best supporting actress from the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards! Since 2008, Metcalf has also had an astonishingly impressive run on Broadway, appearing in eight shows and yielding six Tony nominations and two wins. Her eighth show, 2020’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, wasn’t eligible for consideration because it was shut down by the pandemic before it opened. Metcalf’s TV career has been no less lauded: Her Emmy nomination count currently stands at 11, with an incredible three nominations in the same year — for Getting On, The Big Bang Theory and Horace and Pete — in 2016. In 2018, she returned to the role that brought her fame, in ABC’s reboot of Roseanne — which is still going strong in its Roseanne-less form as The Conners. And this year, Metcalf appeared as Dr. Phyllis Gardner on the Hulu series The Dropout, about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, and as the tour manager named Weed on HBO Max’s Hacks. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 16 of
PHOTO BY: Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Deadline Hollywood
June 15: Courteney Cox, 58
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 15, 1964, future Friend Courteney Cox, 58, was quite literally plucked from obscurity when she starred as “girl pulled out of the crowd by The Boss to dance onstage” in the Bruce Springsteen music video for “Dancing in the Dark.” Cox got her first taste of sitcom fame when she played Alex P. Keaton’s (Michael J. Fox’s) college girlfriend Lauren Miller on 19 episodes of Family Ties, from 1987 to 1989. Five years later, she joined one of the most iconic ensembles in television history as the perfectionist chef Monica Geller on Friends. The part earned her seven SAG Award nominations (including one win) and led to big-screen roles in films like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and the Scream franchise, in which she played reporter Gale Weathers. After Friends ended in 2004, Cox found herself back on TV a few more times, first as tabloid editor Lucy Spiller in the FX drama Dirt and then as Jules Cobb in Cougar Town, which followed in the Friends mold of being an easy-breezy hangout comedy about a group of friends and neighbors. This Cougar Town role earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 2010. Following last year’s Emmy-nominated special Friends: The Reunion, Cox returned to the role of Gale Weathers in the fifth installment of the Scream franchise, alongside original costars David Arquette (Cox’s real-life ex) and Neve Campbell. And in March, Cox continued her scream queen legacy with a new role in the Starz horror comedy Shining Vale, in which she plays the matriarch of a family who relocates from their Brooklyn apartment to a Victorian mansion in Connecticut that may — or may not — be haunted. The show has been renewed for a second season, and Cox didn’t have to look far for inspiration to play scared: “There was a guy who passed away there in the ’80s,” she told The A.V. Club website about the Pasadena mansion where the series is filmed. “His wife is certain of his presence there, and I believe in all that stuff.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 17 of
PHOTO BY: Marcus Brandt/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
June 14: Steffi Graf, 53
One of the most undeniably dominant tennis players of her generation, Steffi Graf, 53, was born in West Germany on June 14, 1969, and she was a phenom from the start. In fact, she earned an international ranking at the age of 13. In 1987, Graf won her first Grand Slam event with her victory at the French Open, over Martina Navratilova, followed the next year by a feat so impressive that it needed to be renamed. After winning all four Grand Slam tournaments, she added a gold medal at the Seoul Olympics, thus birthing the term “Golden Slam” — an achievement that has never been repeated within a calendar year. “The whole problem with Steffi Graf is that she isn’t ours,” wrote Curry Kirkpatrick in a 1989 Sports Illustrated article. “Barely 20, she is the embodiment of everything that has shot American sport to smithereens…. Perhaps the hardest part to swallow is that Graf is so humble, soft-spoken and polite, and she’s not even a damn Kommunist or anything. And such an infant, too; she hasn’t really even started her career. It’s downright impossible to harbor jealousy, resentment or dislike for her.” Over the course of her career, Graff racked up 22 Grand Slam singles titles before she retired in 1999, at the age of 30. “I have done everything I wanted to do in tennis,” she said at the time. In 2001, she married fellow tennis great Andre Agassi, and she has dedicated much of her time and attention to her nonprofit foundation called Children for Tomorrow, which helps kids overcome the trauma of war and persecution. Last month, in a cover story for Vogue Germany, she talked about her work with Ukrainian refugees in Hamburg, saying: “When I founded the foundation, we were at 40 million refugees in the world. That has almost doubled in 25 years. Nevertheless, one always hopes that the world will turn in the right direction again. It's definitely not easy and it probably won't get any easier.… But the children are our future, and it’s just extremely important to give them as much help as possible.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 18 of
PHOTO BY: Koury Angelo/Freeform via Getty Images
June 13: Ally Sheedy, 60
Years before she became a member of the 1980s Brat Pack, Ally Sheedy, 60, enjoyed a very un-bratty childhood: Born June 13, 1962, in New York City, Sheedy was a best-selling author at the age of 12, when her book, She Was Nice to Mice, about an encounter between Queen Elizabeth I and a mouse, was published by McGraw-Hill. As a kid, she performed with the American Ballet Theatre and wrote for Ms. magazine, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting on the day she turned 18. Following early roles in WarGames and Bad Boys, Sheedy had her big breakout in 1985 with the one-two punch of The Breakfast Club (as the “basket case” Allison Reynolds) and St. Elmo’s Fire. Her most acclaimed role to date would come in 1998 with the Lisa Cholodenko indie drama High Art, in which she played a drug-addicted lesbian photographer. New York Times critic Janet Maslin called her performance “tricky” and “fierce,” and Sheedy was rewarded with best-actress wins from the National Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards and the Film Independent Spirit Awards. The following year, she stepped into the title role of the transgender German glam rocker in the off-Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch — though she quit the show abruptly after producers complained about her erratic behavior. After recurring roles on series like Kyle XY and Psych, Sheedy takes on a costarring role in this year’s Freeform original comedy Single Drunk Female, in which she plays the overbearing mother of a young woman who’s trying to get sober after a public meltdown at work. Sheedy, who went to rehab for sleeping pills in 1989, told Vanity Fair about the new role: “I’m so grateful, but also so relieved. I just did not know if another role that would resonate this much within me would come again.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 19 of
PHOTO BY: Stephen Smith/Sipa via AP Images
June 12: Sonia Manzano, 72
As actress and writer Sonia Manzano, 72, describes it on her website, “I have spent most of my life cavorting with Muppets!” Born on June 12, 1950, in New York City, Manzano attended the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University before moving to New York to star in the original production of Godspell. In 1971, she joined Sesame Street as a writer and performer, and her character, Maria, became something of a second mom/babysitter to many American children. She was also, amazingly, the first leading Latina character in television history. “It was such a social force,” she told AARP Segunda Juventud. “I never wanted to be on a kids’ show, but I always wanted to be on Sesame Street.” Over the years, she picked up 15 Daytime Emmys for her work on the series before finally retiring in 2015 after more than four decades on television. Outside of Sesame Street, Manzano has appeared in films and onstage, including roles in The Vagina Monologues and Love, Loss, and What I Wore. She published her children’s book, No Dogs Allowed!, in 2004. But Manzano couldn’t stay away from children’s television too long, and last year she debuted her brand-new PBS Kids animated series, Alma’s Way, about a 6-year-old Puerto Rican girl growing up in the Bronx with her family. The semi-autobiographical show is all about critical thinking skills, as Alma has to make an important decision during each episode. “When I was a kid, our neighborhood was in turmoil, and I would go into my head to escape,” Manzano told Emmy Magazine. “I’d think of how to solve problems and test my skills. I think doing that really saved me.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 20 of
PHOTO BY: KGC-247/STAR MAX/Getty Images
June 11: Peter Dinklage, 53
Born in Morristown, New Jersey, on June 11, 1969, Peter Dinklage, 53, made his screen debut in the 1995 independent film about making independent films, Living in Oblivion. He starred as an actor who was frustrated by the stereotypical roles offered to performers with dwarfism, and he’s spent the rest of his career amassing a résumé of roles that buck convention. In 2003, Dinklage had his major breakout with The Station Agent, a film in which he played a lonely man named Finbar who moved into an abandoned train station. “Finbar is a character of particular distinction, played by Peter Dinklage as a man who is defiantly himself,” Roger Ebert wrote. “Rarely have I seen a movie character more present in every scene. He is the immovable object, resisting approaches by strangers, and at first no one can get through his defenses except for a little African-American girl who looks straight at him and is not intimidated and will not be dismissed.” The role earned him nominations from the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Film Independent Spirit Awards, with a slew of wins from critics groups, and it kicked off a string of film parts in a range of genres, including comedy (Elf, Death at a Funeral), fantasy (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), biopic (My Dinner with Hervé) and superhero (Avengers: Infinity War). For many fans, however, Dinklage will always be most beloved for his performance as Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones, which earned him a record-breaking four supporting actor in a drama Emmy wins. “I count myself so fortunate to be a member of a community that is all about tolerance and diversity,” he said during his 2019 acceptance speech. “Because no other place could I be standing on a stage like this.” That year, he returned to the New York stage in an off-Broadway musical production of Cyrano de Bergerac written and directed by his wife, Erica Schmidt, and reprised the role in the 2021 cinematic adaptation, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Dinklage told The New York Times that he took the part, which required him to sing and fight with swords, out of fear: “I’ve got to be intimidated by it. Anything that scares me gets my interest.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 21 of
PHOTO BY: Andy Kropa/Invision/AP
June 10: Elizabeth Hurley, 57
It might be hard to imagine that one little dress could launch a career, but that’s precisely what happened with actress Elizabeth Hurley, 57, in 1994: When she accompanied her then-boyfriend Hugh Grant to the premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral wearing a black Versace dress held together by oversized gold safety pins, she became an international sensation almost overnight. (The dress even has its own Wikipedia page!) Born on June 10, 1965, in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, Hurley was quite a punk in her younger days, complete with a nose ring and pink hair, but she later adopted more of a bombshell image. That served her well in the 1997 comedy Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, in which she played the Bond girl-like secret agent Vanessa Kensington. She would go on to appear in EDtv before vamping it up as the Devil in the 2000 comedy Bedazzled. Since 2005, she has also flexed her entrepreneurial muscle with her luxury swimwear line, Elizabeth Hurley Beach. Following a recurring turn on Gossip Girl, Hurley stepped into a very unexpected role as Queen Helena, a fictional British monarch, in the sexy, soapy drama The Royals, which also featured Joan Collins as a grand duchess. Last year, she starred opposite John Cleese and Kelsey Grammer in the Netflix holiday comedy Father Christmas Is Back, and she’s set to appear as a jilted bride in the island-set romantic comedy Christmas in the Caribbean. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 22 of
PHOTO BY: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
June 9: Michael J. Fox, 61
Born in Edmonton, Alberta, on June 9, 1961, Michael J. Fox, 61, spent his childhood years on military bases before being cast in the 1978 Canadian sitcom Leo and Me. In the 1980s, he broke out south of the border as Alex P. Keaton, the preppy and conservative son of ex-hippie parents, on the popular sitcom Family Ties, and he won three consecutive best actor Emmys from 1986 to 1988. During that period, he also became one of Hollywood’s most likable (and bankable) stars, thanks to films like Teen Wolf and the Back to the Future franchise. In 1991, at the age of 29, Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, though he didn’t reveal the news publicly for another seven years. Sitcom lightning struck twice in the 1990s, with Spin City earning Fox another Emmy in 2000 for his role as Mike Flaherty, the deputy mayor of New York City; and he added a fifth to his mantelpiece in 2009 for a guest gig on Rescue Me. In recent years, he’s popped up on The Good Wife and its spinoff, The Good Fight, as attorney Louis Canning, whose underhanded methods perfectly contrasted with Fox’s good-guy persona. “I wanted to prove that disabled people can be a- - holes, too,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “And you want to feel sorry for him, but he’s such a d—, whether intentionally or not. I think he’s pure-hearted, I think he just wants to win, and whatever may be seen as a deficit, he’ll turn into an asset in order to prevail.” In 2020, Fox released his fourth memoir, No Time Like the Future, which is candid and bitingly funny, and his namesake foundation has funded $1.5 billion in Parkinson’s research since its founding in 2000. “In the quest to cure Parkinson’s,” Fox writes in his memoir, “we’re absolutely certain we’re the tip of the spear.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 23 of
PHOTO BY: Aldara Zarraoa/Redferns
June 8: Bonnie Tyler, 71
Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, 71, was born on June 8, 1951, in Skewen, South Wales, but she didn’t develop her trademark husky vocals until a 1976 surgery to remove nodules from her larynx. “I was a naughty girl and wouldn’t stop talking,” she told The Irish Times of her long road to recovery. Tyler achieved early success with singles like “Lost in France” and “It’s a Heartache,” but she only ascended to the throne of power-pop stardom after teaming up with Meat Loaf producer Jim Steinman. She had her biggest hit with 1983’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” a bombastic power ballad by Steinman (“Meat Loaf was apparently very annoyed that Jim gave that to me”) that topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts for four weeks and spawned a memorably sinister music video, complete with dancing ninjas and football players, glowing-eyed choirboys and long hallways filled with gauzy curtains blowing in the wind. The following year, she released another Top 40 single, “Holding Out for a Hero,” on the Footloose soundtrack, and she earned a trio of Grammy nominations. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Tyler has consistently put out new albums, and in 2013 she represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest with “Believe in Me.” Following her 2019 album, Between the Earth and the Stars, Tyler most recently released the ’80s-tinged album The Best Is Yet to Come, in 2021. “I have been anxious to sing for you all for the past 10 long and scary months,” she said in a statement upon the album’s release. “I realize some of you have suffered from the virus and loss of family and friends and my heart aches for you. Music can lighten our load and is always my personal retreat. I hope these new songs will lift your spirits.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 24 of
PHOTO BY: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
June 7: Liam Neeson, 70
Born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, on June 7, 1952, Liam Neeson, 70, took a rather circuitous route to acting: He started as a promising young boxer before enrolling in university to study physics and computer science, dropping out to become a forklift driver and then going to school to become a teacher. By the mid-1970s, he was joining the theater scene in Belfast, and he made his screen debut in a religious educational film in 1979. Thanks to his gravelly voiced gravitas, Neeson quickly emerged as a go-to for period dramas, starring as Scottish outlaw Rob Roy, Irish revolutionary Michael Collins and, perhaps most notably, flawed Holocaust hero Oskar Schindler in the 1993 epic Schindler’s List, for which he received a best actor Oscar nomination. In 1992, he made his Broadway debut in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie, opposite his future wife Natasha Richardson, who would die in a 2009 skiing accident. In 1999, Neeson dipped a toe into the waters of sci-fi when he played the lightsaber-wielding Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, kicking off a decade of roles that ping-ponged between high-minded dramas (Kinsey, Gangs of New York) and blockbuster franchises (The Chronicles of Narnia, Batman). Arguably, his most consequential film of the 2000s was the action thriller Taken; he was reportedly paid around a meager $1 million to play ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills, who sets out to rescue his kidnapped daughter. When it pulled in $226 million at the box office, Taken launched a major franchise and signaled the birth of a bankable new action star to rival the likes of Tom Cruise. Recent films have seen Neeson battling wolves (The Grey), drug dealers (Cold Pursuit) and even wintry driving conditions (The Ice Road). In 2022 he added two more action films to his résumé with Blacklight and Memory. “I started being offered all these action scripts,” he told Sunday Today. “And I’m going, ‘Wow, the lead is 29 years of age.’” He joked that he would cross out the number and change it to 55 or 56 or 57: “I turn 70 this year, so I’m still getting away with it.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 25 of
PHOTO BY: Bruce Glikas/Getty Images
June 6: Harvey Fierstein, 68
Before he developed his trademark raspy voice, Harvey Fierstein, 68, sang soprano in a professional boys choir, and at the age of 16, he appeared in the Andy Warhol play Pork as an asthmatic lesbian maid. It was an appropriately zany stage debut for the future Broadway legend, who was born June 6, 1954, in Brooklyn. In the early 1980s, he had his big breakout when three of his semi-autobiographical plays about gay family life were produced together on Broadway as Torch Song Trilogy, earning Fierstein his first two Tony Awards, for best play and best actor. “I cannot — and do not want to — imagine anyone else playing Arnold,” New York Times critic Mel Gussow wrote of Fierstein’s drag queen character, whom he later revisited in a film adaptation. “Mr. Fierstein’s self-incarnation is an act of compelling virtuosity.” He would follow up his two 1983 Tony wins with another the following year for writing the book of the musical La Cage aux Folles. On-screen, Fierstein had successes in films like Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day and Mulan, and he earned an Emmy nomination for a guest spot on Cheers. But Broadway was always home, and he continued to prove a creative powerhouse, earning yet another Tony for his role as Edna Turnblad in 2003’s Hairspray and picking up four more nominations so far, for his books for Newsies: The Musical and Kinky Boots, his play Casa Valentina and a 2019 revival of Torch Song. His revamped version of Funny Girl, which first played London in 2015, debuted on Broadway this spring, marking the first time the musical had been revived on the Great White Way. This year, he also released his memoir, I Was Better Last Night, in which he details his decades as a cultural icon and gay rights activist. Next up, he’ll continue to break boundaries when he appears in Billy Eichner’s Bros, the first gay romantic comedy from a major studio. —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 26 of
PHOTO BY: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
June 5: Kenny G, 66
Born Kenneth Bruce Gorelick in Seattle on June 5, 1956, Kenny G, now 66, brought smooth jazz to the masses in the mid-1980s with his lush, romantic tunes on the saxophone — especially his trademark soprano sax. He started playing instruments at age 10, eventually taking the stage with Barry White, at 17, and Clive Davis signed him to Arista Records after hearing his instrumental take on ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” G had his first breakout hit with 1986’s Duotones, which went five-times platinum, and its lead single “Songbird” reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Three years later, he released “Going Home,” which has gone to live a shocking second life in China, where it’s the song used everywhere from malls and train stations to schools and grocery stores to indicate that it’s time to, well, go home! Over the years, he’s netted 17 Grammy nominations, earning his sole win in 1994 for the best instrumental composition for “Forever in Love,” and he ranks as the best-selling instrumentalist of all time, having sold more than 75 million records. Using a technique called circular breathing, he set another (since-broken) world record for the longest sustained note on a wind instrument: 45 minutes and 47 seconds. Kenny G’s adult contemporary hits have earned more than their fair share of ridicule over the years from “serious” critics, but he has a fantastic sense of humor about his place in the music business: He churns out some hilarious tweets and appeared as a janitor in Michael Bolton’s Big, Sexy Valentine’s Day Special in 2017. He continues to work with chart-topping artists like Kanye West and the Weeknd, and last year, director Penny Lane debuted the HBO documentary Listening to Kenny G. “In the movie, the critics are all smiling when they’re talking about my music,” he recently told The Daily Beast website about some of the gentle roasting his music received in the film. “Even though they’re being critical, they’re enjoying themselves.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 27 of
PHOTO BY: Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP
June 4: Angelina Jolie, 47
A true child of Hollywood, Angelina Jolie, 47, was born on June 4, 1975, to actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, and she made her big-screen debut in the Hal Ashby film Lookin’ to Get Out, which starred her father. Following her first leading role in the 1995 tech thriller Hackers, Jolie won a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for her performance as fashion model Gia Carangi in the 1998 TV biopic Gia. She followed that up the next year with perhaps her most iconic role, as the institutionalized sociopath Lisa in Girl, Interrupted, which earned Jolie the Oscar for best supporting actress. She spent the next few years appearing in both blockbusters (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and artsier passion projects, like A Mighty Heart, in which she played the real-life Mariane Pearl, who searched for her journalist husband, Daniel, in Pakistan, and Changeling, as the 1920s mother of a missing child, a part that earned her another Oscar nomination. And while her relationship with Brad Pitt proved to be popular tabloid fodder, Jolie was also emerging as a humanitarian who really put her money where her mouth is: She served as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 2001 to 2012, before being appointed as a special envoy, and her work has brought her to war zones in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and beyond. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Jolie with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award; in her moving acceptance speech, she thanked her mother, saying, “[Above] all, she was very clear that nothing would mean anything if I didn’t live a life of use to others.” Behind the camera, Jolie has become an accomplished director, earning acclaim for films like the Bosnian War drama In the Land of Blood and Honey and First They Killed My Father, about a child living under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. A member of the Disney family, thanks to her role in the Maleficent franchise (with a third film on its way), Jolie joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe last year playing the war goddess Thena in Eternals. “I’m very much like Thena,” she said in a recent roundtable interview. “I am both that person that can be raw, feel broken, vulnerable, but I’m also that person who will fight to the end with everything I’ve got for those I love.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 28 of
PHOTO BY: DANIEL LEAL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
June 3: Jill Biden, 71
Born in New Jersey on June 3, 1951, Jill Biden, 71, grew up in what she later described in her autobiography as a “Leave It to Beaver kind of family,” though she had a rebellious streak. She later recalled that, as a teenager, she and her friend would run across the Pennsylvania Turnpike, dodging speeding cars, to go sneak into a private swim club. Following a short-lived first marriage in the 1970s, she met then-Sen. Joe Biden on a blind date; a single father, Biden had recently lost his wife and infant daughter in a car crash. Joe and Jill later married at the United Nations Chapel in 1977 and had a daughter together in 1981. A lifelong educator, she taught English at a psychiatric hospital and later earned a master of arts degree in English from Villanova University and then a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware. When her husband became vice president during the Obama administration, Biden took a teaching gig at Northern Virginia Community College, where she still teaches today. As second lady, Biden advocated for military families and community colleges and helped raise awareness for early breast cancer detection — a pet project since four of her friends were diagnosed in the 1990s. In 2012, she released the children’s book Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops, about a young girl whose father is deployed, and she wrote a memoir in 2019 called Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself, which beautifully captures her double life as both an educator and a politician’s wife. “I relished the tension of my life, caught between state receptions and midterm exams,” she wrote. “Having dinner with the most powerful people on earth, and study sessions with single moms just hoping to find their way to better jobs, scrambling into a cocktail dress and heels in the ladies’ room at NOVA to make it on time to a White House reception.” After campaigning alongside her husband, Biden officially became the first lady in January 2021, and she’s the first woman to hold that position who kept her full-time job. “Teaching is not what I do,” she wrote in a tweet before the election. “It’s who I am.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 29 of
PHOTO BY: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
June 2: Andy Cohen, 54
Few producers have reshaped modern television as dramatically as Andy Cohen, 54, who started on Bravo as the vice president of original programming in 2004. During his tenure at the network, Cohen — who was born in St. Louis on June 2, 1968 — helped develop such megahit reality shows as Project Runway, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Million Dollar Listing and Top Chef. But his magnum opus might just be the Real Housewives franchise, which has made celebrities out of dozens of “regular” women across the country, and fans are particularly fond of the shows’ multipart, high-drama reunion specials, on which he plays judge, jury, superfan, boss and ringmaster. Since 2009, he has hosted the rowdy late-night chat show Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, which he has described as “Wayne’s World meets Playboy After Dark,” and Cohen has the unique distinction of being the first openly gay late-night host in TV history. Over its 13 years on the air and counting, the show has attracted such guests as Oprah Winfrey and Meryl Streep. In 2017, he began cohosting CNN’s surprisingly raucous New Year’s Eve coverage, alongside Anderson Cooper, and the festivities have often involved copious tequila shots and off-the-cuff commentary. Cohen is also a best-selling author, having published his memoir Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture in 2012, followed by The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year, a gossip-filled 2014 account of a year in Cohen’s life. His Bravo empire is always evolving and changing, and following the 2021 launch of The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip, a Peacock original that brings together fan favorites from across the country, he exported the franchise to Dubai, with the first episode premiering yesterday. “[It’s] a billionaire’s playground,” he recently said on an appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan. “You know, they’re gonna give the Beverly Hills women a run for their money.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
-
- 30 of
PHOTO BY: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
June 1: Brian Cox, 76
Born in Dundee, Scotland on June 1, 1946, Brian Cox, 76, worked his way up from a blue-collar upbringing in a gritty mill town to become one of the most celebrated actors of his generation. By the late 1960s, he was appearing in Shakespeare productions on London’s West End, eventually tackling such major works as King Lear while also appearing in less-expected roles, like the all-American Harold Hill in a production of The Music Man. In 1986, he had the distinction of being the first actor to play Hannibal Lecter on screen in Manhunter, and in 1995 he appeared in a pair of very Scottish roles, in both Rob Roy and Braveheart. He later won an Emmy for his role as Nazi leader Hermann Wilhelm Goering in the 2000 miniseries Nuremberg, and he would rack up a slew of nominations for his similarly dark performance as a pedophile in the indie drama L.I.E. — a part that he took despite being advised not to by his agent and fellow actors. Following lauded supporting roles in Spike Jonze’s Adaptation and Spike Lee’s 25th Hour, he took center stage (and won a Golden Globe) as media mogul Logan Roy on HBO’s Emmy-winning juggernaut Succession. As morally ambiguous and power-mad as a Shakespearean king, Roy became an instant audience favorite for his deliciously dastardly scheming and his penchant for four-letter words (especially his catchphrase “F--- off!”). In 2019, Cox took on another larger-than-life figure, when he returned to Broadway as President Lyndon B. Johnson in The Great Society. The voice of McDonald’s since 2020, he released his rags-to-riches autobiography Putting the Rabbit in the Hat in January. “[Acting] is about holding a mirror up to nature, about reflecting the truth, and that’s what makes it interesting,” he writes. “That’s what makes it an almost spiritual experience, a process, as I say, of expiation. It really is about reflecting back to people how we are.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
Members Only Access content
Find exclusive interviews, smart advice, free novels, full documentaries, fun daily features and much more — all a benefit of your AARP membership — on Members Only Access.
Find exclusive interviews, smart advice, free novels, full documentaries, fun daily features and much more — all a benefit of your AARP membership — on Members Only Access.
Not a member? Join
Already a member? Link Your Membership
Renew your membership today and save 25% on your next year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal. Get instant access to discounts, programs, services, and the information you need to benefit every area of your life.