May Celebrity Birthdays
A look at the famous and the fascinating on the day they were born
AARP Members Only Access, May 2022
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PHOTO BY: NDZ/STAR MAX/IPx/AP Photo
May 31: Brooke Shields, 57
Many fans remember Brooke Shields, 57, for her preternaturally gifted preteen acting in the late 1970s and early ’80s, but her star began to rise even earlier: Born in New York City on May 31, 1965, Shields booked her first gig, a national ad for Ivory soap, at the age of 11 months. She later made headlines for her first starring role, as a 12-year-old prostitute in Louis Malle’s 1978 period piece Pretty Baby; Roger Ebert wrote of the young actress that “her subtlety and depth are astonishing.” She would go on to appear in other provocative films, like the tropical-island-set romance The Blue Lagoon, and in 1980, she became the youngest model ever to appear on the cover of Vogue, at the age of 14. Famed for her dramatic eyebrows and her controversial Calvin Klein jeans campaign — “You want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” — she temporarily stepped away from Hollywood in the mid-’80s to pursue a degree at Princeton University. In 1994, she made her Broadway debut as Rizzo in Grease, and she’d go on to star as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Roxie Hart in Chicago and even Morticia in The Addams Family. But it was her four seasons on the sitcom Suddenly Susan, on which she starred as a magazine columnist, that signaled her national comeback, and she earned two Golden Globe nominations in the process. Over the years, in addition to her acting work, Shields has written a series of candid memoirs, including Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression (2005) and There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (2014). Following fun-loving, recurring sitcom roles as the neighbor from hell Rita Glossner on The Middle and supermodel-actress River Fields on Jane the Virgin, Shields starred in Netflix’s holiday rom-com A Castle for Christmas, in which she played a best-selling author who falls in love with a Scottish castle — and then has to deal with the grouchy duke (Cary Elwes) who owns it. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images for American Airlines
May 30: Idina Menzel, 51
Born in New York City on May 30, 1971, Idina Menzel, 51, first made waves on the Broadway stage with a musical about her hometown: 1996’s Rent. In that generation-redefining rock musical, Menzel played the bisexual performance artist Maureen, earning her first Tony nomination in the process. She finally nabbed a win for her beloved role as the misunderstood, green-skinned Elphaba in Wicked. In his mixed review of the production, New York Times critic Ben Brantley nonetheless called her a “vulpine vocal powerhouse” and wrote that “she opens up her voice in flashy ways that should be required study for all future contestants on American Idol.” After returning to the role of Maureen in the 2005 screen adaptation of Rent, the future Queen Elsa dipped her toe into the Disney waters for the first time when she appeared in the live-action/animated princess flick Enchanted. But it was her starring role in Disney’s Frozen, as the Scandinavian ice queen with a heart of gold, Elsa, that would earn her fans of all ages, all over the world. Elsa’s signature song, “Let It Go,” went on to become an unstoppable smash hit, the first song from a Disney animated movie to reach the Billboard Top 10 since “Colors of the Wind” — which also made Menzel the first Tony-winning performer to crack the Top 10. It went on to win both a Grammy and an Oscar, and that year’s Academy Awards will always be remembered for the moment when presenter John Travolta introduced Menzel as “the wickedly talented, one and only, Adele Dazeem.” A few days after that ceremony, Menzel returned to the Great White Way in If/Then, a new musical in which her character follows two parallel timelines, which earned her a third Tony nomination. In 2019, she had one of her biggest dramatic film roles to date in Uncut Gems, in which she starred opposite Adam Sandler as his long-suffering wife, and last year she appeared as the evil stepmother Vivian in a new musical retelling of Cinderella. Next up, Menzel is returning to Disney in the sequel Disenchanted. “It was beautiful,” she recently told Us Weekly about the shoot. “It was terrific. It was in Ireland, near Dublin, mostly. So it was a fairy tale within a fairy tale.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Press Association via AP Images
May 29: Annette Bening, 64
Born in Topeka, Kansas, on May 29, 1958, and trained at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, Annette Bening, 64, came out of the gate running as an actress: She received a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in the 1987 play Coastal Disturbances, and two years later, she was earning raves for her portrayal of the devious Marquise de Merteuil in Valmont. In 1990 she played another ethically ambiguous character, Myra Langtry, in the pulpy, neo-noir thriller The Grifters. In his four-star rave, Roger Ebert wrote that she “has some of that same combination of sexiness, danger and vulnerability you could see in Gloria Grahame in movies such as The Big Heat and In a Lonely Place.” The film led to the first of her four Oscar nominations, with later nods for her roles in American Beauty (1999), as the workaholic real estate agent Carolyn Burnham; Being Julia (2004), as a 1930s British stage actress; and The Kids Are All Right (2010), as one half of a lesbian couple whose lives are turned upside down when they meet their children’s biological father. Throughout her career, Bening has skirted the line between highbrow and low, arthouse and blockbuster. For proof, check out her 2019: In the span of a few months, she earned her second Tony nomination, for her blistering performance in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, and appeared in Captain Marvel as the title superheroine’s mentor, a research scientist who’s also secretly a Kree alien. This year, Bening was part of the all-star cast assembled for Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, and next month she’s set to appear opposite Bryan Cranston in the true-crime dramedy Jerry and Marge Go Large, about a couple who figure out how to scam the lottery and use their winnings to revive their small town. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Steve Granitz/WireImage/Getty Images
May 28: Gladys Knight, 78
Long before she became the Empress of Soul, Gladys Knight, 78 — who was born in Atlanta on May 28, 1944 — began belting out gospel music at age 4 at her local Baptist church. And she was well under 10 the first time she started singing with her brother and cousins, who would eventually become her Pips, at a family birthday party. In those early years, they stormed the so-called Chitlin Circuit (Southern venues that allowed Black performers), opening for the likes of Sam Cooke. Following Top 10 singles, including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “If I Were Your Woman,” they had their first number one hit with “Midnight Train to Georgia.” Knight’s signature tune would go on to win a Grammy and be included on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. In the ’80s she had another chart-topper, with the AIDS charity single “That’s What Friends Are For,” which she recorded with Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwick. Mariah Carey inducted Gladys Knight and the Pips into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and said during her speech, “She’s like a textbook to learn from. You hear her delivery, and you wish you could communicate with as much honesty and emotion as she does.” Throughout the past decade, she’s continued releasing new albums, including 2014’s Where My Heart Belongs, and, like many artists of her generation, has appeared on reality competition shows. In 2012 she shed 60 pounds while competing on Dancing with the Stars, sadly getting eliminated during Motown Week (!), and she placed third on the first season of The Masked Singer. Proving that she’s still game for a good time, Knight made a hilarious cameo in last year’s sequel Coming 2 America, in which she sang the spoof “Midnight Train From Zamunda.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Arthur Mola/Invision/AP
May 27: Paul Bettany, 51
Paul Bettany, 51, has come a long way from his early days as a busker on London’s Westminster Bridge. Born into a family of actors on May 27, 1971, Bettany first came to international attention with his scene-stealing role as Geoffrey Chaucer in the 2001 revisionist history flick A Knight’s Tale. Soon, he was cast in Ron Howard’s best-picture winner A Beautiful Mind as Charles Herman, the (spoiler alert!) imaginary, hallucinating roommate of brilliant mathematician John Nash. He met his wife, Jennifer Connelly, on the film’s set and later reteamed with star Russell Crowe on the 2003 seafaring epic Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. In 2008 he appeared in Iron Man, the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as the voice of J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark’s AI assistant, who is eventually reborn as a new being called Vision. Bettany would go on to play the dual roles in a slew of MCU films, later taking center stage on the Disney+ series WandaVision, for which he earned an Emmy nomination. After his 13-year foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he came back to the real world with two roles based on historic figures. Last year he starred opposite The Crown’s Claire Foy in Amazon Prime’s A Very English Scandal, about the very public 1960s divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. And this past February he donned a platinum wig to play Andy Warhol, opposite Jeremy Pope’s Jean-Michel Basquiat, in the new London play The Collaboration, which may soon be adapted into a film. “I was scared by the idea, the project and the part in particular,” Bettany said of his first London stage role in 25 years, “so I thought I better get over myself and do it.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Karwai Tang/WireImage/Getty Images
May 26: Helena Bonham Carter, 56
Years before she embraced the zaniness of roles like Mrs. Lovett and Bellatrix Lestrange, Helena Bonham Carter, 56, had a reputation as the corset queen of Hollywood. Born May 26, 1966, in London, she started her career in tasteful period productions such as A Room with a View, Lady Jane, Howards End and Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet, in which she played Ophelia opposite Mel Gibson’s Danish prince. In 1998 she earned her first Oscar nomination, for The Wings of the Dove, based on a Henry James novel; Roger Ebert said she played the part of Kate Croy “with flashing eyes and bold imagination.” The following year she started catching the attention of American audiences after appearing in Fight Club as Marla Singer, whom the narrator describes as “the little scratch on the roof of your mouth that would heal if only you could stop tonguing it, but you can’t.” In 2001 she met director Tim Burton on the set of Planet of the Apes, kicking off a creative collaboration that yielded some of the most deliciously strange roles of her career, including a witch in Big Fish, the titular undead heroine in The Corpse Bride, the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland and Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a role that earned her a Golden Globe nomination. She would channel that Burton-esque, goth-tinged darkness into her frighteningly good performance as the devious witch Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter film franchise. A 2011 Oscar nominee for her role in The King’s Speech as Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Bonham Carter later starred as her daughter, Princess Margaret, for two seasons on Netflix’s The Crown, a part for which she did prodigious research: She spoke to Margaret’s friends and ladies-in-waiting, devoured biographies and even worked with a psychic, an astrologer and a graphologist. “My main thing when you play someone who is real, you kind of want their blessing, because you have a responsibility,” she recently explained at a literary festival. “So I asked her, ‘Are you OK with me playing you?’ and she said, ‘You’re better than the other actress’ ... that they were thinking of. ... That made me think maybe she is here, because that is a classic Margaret thing to say.” Next, Bonham Carter is set to return in Netflix’s Enola Holmes 2 as the feminist-leaning mother of the titular heroine and her brother Sherlock. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jim Spellman/WireImage/Getty Images
May 25: Mike Myers, 59
Like many Canadians before him, Ontario native Mike Myers — who was born on May 25, 1963 — made the trek south of the border with one goal in mind: to conquer the American comedy scene. And from the moment he stepped onstage on Saturday Night Live in 1989, he was on his way, with a roster of memorable original creations that included Jewish mom Linda Richman and West German talk-show host Dieter. Perhaps his biggest breakout character was metal-loving slacker Wayne Campbell, who inspired Myers to develop Wayne’s World, still the highest-grossing movie based on an SNL sketch. He would parlay his chameleonic ability to play any kind of character into his own blockbuster James Bond spoof franchise, Austin Powers; in addition to the “shagadelic” International Man of Mystery, he played the bald, cat-stroking Dr. Evil; the Dutch supervillain Goldmember; and the Scottish henchman Fat Bastard. And in 2001 he dusted off a different Scottish accent to voice the lovably grumpy green ogre Shrek in what would go on to be one of the top 20 highest-grossing film series of all time. Following the critical and commercial flops Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, in 2003, and The Love Guru, in 2008, Myers traded in broad comedic roles for smaller parts in interesting films, including Gen. Ed Fenech in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and fictional record producer Ray Foster in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. In an avant-garde move in 2017, he hosted an updated version of The Gong Show in character — and in full disguise — as a guy named Tommy Maitland. “I just thought, if I’m doing this almost deconstruction of a talent show, I should be the ringmaster who is also deconstructed,” he told Vanity Fair. This month he made a comeback in a big way with the Netflix limited series The Pentaverate, a spin-off of his 1993 comedy, So I Married an Axe Murderer, about a secret society that has controlled world events since 1347. Myers plays at least eight characters, including a conspiracy theorist, a Canadian reporter, a conservative radio host and a Russian oligarch. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Amy Sussman/Invision/AP
May 24: Patti LaBelle, 78
Born May 24, 1944, in Philadelphia, Patti LaBelle, 78, got her musical start in vocal groups — first, the Ordettes, who became the Bluebelles, who became Labelle in 1970. It was that final iteration that allowed the Godmother of Soul to embrace musical experimentation, and the group finally had their first number one hit, with the funky classic “Lady Marmalade.” The single was such a smash that Labelle became the first pop group to play a show in New York’s Metropolitan Opera House and the first Black group to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone. In 1977 the group disbanded, and LaBelle began recording as a solo artist. By the mid-’80s, she began racking up Grammy nominations and chart success with singles including “New Attitude” and “On My Own” with Michael McDonald. Rolling Stone later included LaBelle at number 95 on its list of the greatest singers of all time, with the editors writing, “Her love of the spotlight is legendary, but she earns it with her astonishing force and control; when LaBelle’s voice simmers in its churchy low register, it’s usually a sign that she’s about to leap up and howl the roof off.” In recent years she’s brought her prodigious talents to the world of reality TV, first as a competitor on Dancing with the Stars, in 2015, and then on The Masked Singer, on which she competed as the Flower. But her success has extended well beyond the entertainment industry. In 2015, LaBelle started selling a sweet potato pie at Walmarts around the country; it became so popular after a viral video sang its praises that, for 72 hours after its release, the big-box retailer was selling one of her pies every second. Some fans even shelled out $60 on eBay for a taste of the dessert, which sold for $3.48. As an actress, LaBelle has appeared in projects such as Broadway’s Fela! and television shows including A Different World, Greenleaf and Star. Next, she’s set to star in the Lifetime Christmas movie A New Orleans Noel. Channeling her newfound role as the queen of holiday pies, she’ll be playing a legendary praline maker — how sweet! —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Steve Jennings/WireImage/Getty Images
May 23: Jewel, 48
Born in Utah on May 23, 1974, Jewel, 48, grew up in Alaska on a ranch where her family had no electricity or running water, and they ate only food they grew or hunted themselves. “Homer, the town that I grew up in, is the farthest west you can drive in the entire United States,” she later said in an interview. “It’s called the end of the road.” At the age of 6, she began performing with her parents and learned how to yodel from her cowboy father. Jewel famously lived out of her van in San Diego, where she started out singing in coffeehouses, but her folk-tinged 1995 debut album, Pieces of You, proved to be a life-changing blockbuster hit. Eventually selling 12 million copies, the album spawned three Top 20 singles (“Who Will Save Your Soul,” “Foolish Games” and “You Were Meant for Me”) and led to her receiving four Grammy nominations, including best new artist. In the late 1990s, she flexed her artistic muscles in new ways, when she released a book of poetry, A Night Without Armor, and made her acting debut in the Ang Lee Western Ride With the Devil. Never one to get stuck in a musical rut, Jewel continually experimented with new genres, dabbling in dance-pop (2003’s 0304), country (2008’s Perfectly Clear) and even children’s music (2009’s Lullaby). In 2009 she competed on Dancing with the Stars but had to drop out of the competition when she fractured the tibia in both her legs during training; she would have a second shot at reality-competition glory when she won the sixth season of The Masked Singer, hidden by the Queen of Hearts costume, last December. This spring, Jewel represented Alaska in the first season of NBC’s American Song Contest, and she released Freewheelin’ Woman, her first studio album in seven years. “I cut my teeth on singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan and got into those Muscle Shoals records a little later on,” she said in a statement, “and for some reason that’s where my voice and my writing wanted to go on this album.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Qatar Museums
May 22: Naomi Campbell, 52
Born in London on May 22, 1970, Naomi Campbell, 54, got her start in front of the camera in music videos for Culture Club and Bob Marley, and she signed with a modeling agency by the time she was 15. Campbell appeared on the cover of British Elle before she turned 16, and she quickly emerged as one of the most in-demand models in the world: She became the first Black model to appear on the covers of British Vogue, Vogue France (thanks to the campaigning of her mentor, Yves St. Laurent) and the September issue of American Vogue. But she was more than just a pretty face, and the 1990s saw her branching out in new ways that showed it. She released a record album, wrote a novel, published a photo book and appeared in films like Cool as Ice and Miami Rhapsody. Despite her many successes, she undoubtedly faced discrimination in the industry. As she told The Guardian in 1997, “There is prejudice. It is a problem, and I can’t go along any more with brushing it under the carpet. This business is about selling, and blonde and blue-eyed girls are what sells.” For a few years in the early 2000s, Campbell became know. for her brushes with the law. She developed a reputation for not being able to control her anger after she was accused of throwing her cellphone at a housekeeper. “I’m never gonna get away from it,” she later told Elle. “It’s part of my history.” In recent years, Campbell has been cropping up on the small screen, first as a coach on the 2013 reality modeling competition The Face and then on series like American Horror Story, Empire and Star. Her latest role is perhaps the most exciting for Campbell: mother. She announced the birth of her daughter in an Instagram post last May, and the pair appeared together on the March 2022 cover of British Vogue. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Dan Steinberg/AP Photo
May 21: Judge Reinhold, 65
Born May 21, 1957, in Wilmington, Delaware, actor Edward Ernest Reinhold Jr., 65, earned his nickname “Judge” when he was just 2 weeks old, because of the stern look on his newborn face! While his early jobs included driving a hearse and working in a frozen yogurt shop, Reinhold had his first big break with the 1982 sex comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, in which he appeared as the burger-flipping senior Brad Hamilton and utters the quotable line, “I shall serve no fries before their time.” While he didn’t graduate to the A-list like costars Sean Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Reinhold would star in some very funny comedies in the 1980s, such as Ruthless People, in which he plays the kidnapper of Bette Midler’s character Barbara Stone, and the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy as Detective Billy Rosewood. In 1994, he earned a guest actor Emmy nomination for his role as Aaron, the “close talker,” on an episode of Seinfeld, and he started a role as Neal that year in The Santa Clause trilogy, alongside Tim Allen as the Man in Red. Sitcom fans will remember his hilarious guest turn as himself on a 2006 episode of Arrested Development, on which he hosted a courtroom show called Mock Trial with J. Reinhold. In recent years, he’s appeared in the comedy Bad Grandmas and the TV movie Four Christmases and a Wedding, and with a newly announced Netflix sequel to Beverly Hills Cop might we be seeing more Judge on our screens in the next year? —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Rachel Luna/Getty Images
May 20: Timothy Olyphant, 54
Born in Honolulu on May 20, 1968, and raised in Modesto, California, Timothy Olyphant, 54, got into acting quite by chance, when he enrolled in a drama class as a high school elective. After moving to New York, he got his first big break in a 1996 off-Broadway adaptation of the David Sedaris essay The Santaland Diaries; as a Macy’s Christmas elf, Olyphant performed nightly in candy-cane-striped leggings and pointy elf shoes. After roles in films like The First Wives Club and Go, Olyphant was cast as Seth Bullock, a former U.S. marshal who becomes the town sheriff in the prestige HBO Western Deadwood — a part he returned to in 2019 for the Emmy-nominated follow-up film. Over the years, he’s emerged as a reliable and charming TV presence, with roles on Damages and then as a charismatic traveling salesman on two episodes of The Office. He would find his biggest success to date in the acclaimed FX crime drama Justified, which was based on a series of stories by Elmore Leonard. Channeling Seth Bullock, Olyphant played U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, who was reassigned from Miami to his hometown in rural Kentucky, and the part earned Olyphant his first Emmy nomination in 2011. He’d play another lawman, U.S. Marshal Dick “Deafy” Wickware, on FX’s Fargo, but his TV résumé has included a few outliers: For three seasons, he and Drew Barrymore starred in the Netflix horror comedy Santa Clarita Diet as Joel and Sheila Hammond, married real estate agents who face a unique problem when Sheila turns into, well, a human-flesh-craving zombie. And he’s lately been dabbling in sci-fi in the Disney+ Star Wars universe as Cobb Vanth, a part for which he earned a guest actor Emmy nomination on The Mandalorian and then continued in this year’s The Book of Boba Fett. The character’s nickname? You guessed it: The Marshal. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Gareth Cattermole/BFC/Getty Images
May 19: Grace Jones, 74
Few (if any) artists have ever moved so seamlessly between modeling, acting and music as Grace Jones, 74, the statuesque and androgynous beauty who was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, on May 19, 1948. After signing with Wilhelmina Models at the age of 18, Jones moved to Paris, where she modeled for the likes of Yves St. Laurent, Kenzo Takada and Helmut Newton. In 1977, Jones signed with Island Records and released her disco debut, Portfolio, which featured a wild assortment of covers that included show tunes like “Send in the Clowns” and “Tomorrow,” and the Édith Piaf standard “La Vie en Rose.” Unsurprisingly, she became a fixture on the Studio 54 scene and a muse to Andy Warhol, who immortalized her striking likeness in a series of colorful portraits. But she had always wanted to be an actress, even back to her college days, when she appeared in musicals at Syracuse University. Following appearances in the 1973 blaxploitation film Gordon’s War and, in 1976, the French sex farce Let’s Make a Dirty Movie, Jones began to attract bigger and better roles. In 1984, she played the formidable fighter Zula opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer, followed the next year by her turn as the assassin May Day in the James Bond flick A View to a Kill. Future roles included the vampire thriller Vamp and the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang, though children of the ’80s may remember her best for her appearance on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special. She continued to release music over the years and appeared in such art house projects as the rock film/interactive cinema experience Gutterdämmerung, in which she played Death/The Devil opposite Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins and Slash, and she released her cheekily titled memoir I’ll Never Write My Memoirs in 2015. Next month, Jones is set to present the COVID-delayed Meltdown 2022, the UK’s longest-running artist-curated music festival, during which she’ll play an intimate opening show with unreleased and never-heard material. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jim Spellman/Getty Images
May 18: Tina Fey, 52
After studying drama at the University of Virginia, Tina Fey, 52 — who was born May 18, 1970, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania — went to the ultimate comedy graduate program at The Second City in Chicago, a training ground where she honed her writing and performing skills. In 1997, after submitting sketch samples to Lorne Michaels, Fey was hired as a writer on Saturday Night Live, following a Second City–to–30 Rockefeller Center pipeline that had been established decades before. She quickly ascended the ranks, becoming the first female head writer in the show’s history in 1999 and then joining the anchor desk of “Weekend Update.” She picked up her first Emmy for writing in 2002, and in 2004 she wrote the screenplay for the beloved teen comedy Mean Girls, in which she also played math teacher Ms. Norbury; she later adapted the film into a blockbuster Broadway musical and earned a Tony nomination for her witty script. She left behind SNL in 2006, but she didn’t go far: She used her years on the show as fodder for 30 Rock, a backstage sitcom set in the same building where SNL films, and it became an awards magnet, winning three consecutive Emmys for best comedy plus an acting award for her role as put-upon sketch comedy show writer Liz Lemon. When her doppelgänger Sarah Palin was named the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, Fey returned to SNL to portray her, and she won yet another Emmy for her uncanny impersonation. In addition to appearing in films like Date Night and Baby Mama, Fey became a force behind the scenes, producing some of the funniest sitcoms of the past decade: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the story of a woman rescued from a doomsday cult; the underappreciated Great News; and current series Mr. Mayor, starring Ted Danson as the mayor of Los Angeles, and Girls5eva, about a one-hit-wonder girl group from the ’90s trying to stage a comeback. (Fey plays Dolly Parton — well, actually, a hallucination of Dolly Parton — in a Season One episode!) A 2010 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize and 2012 Grammy nominee for the audiobook of her autobiography Bossypants, Fey has emerged as one of America’s most reliably funny presences. She and Amy Poehler have cohosted the Golden Globes four times, most recently in 2021 when they emceed from opposite coasts during the pandemic. Fey has been keeping busy, voicing a blob-like soul in Pixar’s Soul and guest-starring as podcaster Cinda Canning in Only Murders in the Building, and next up, she’s working on a film adaptation of the musical adaptation of Mean Girls — which, in case you forgot, was itself an adaptation of the book Queen Bees & Wannabes. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic/Getty Images
May 17: Sugar Ray Leonard, 66
Born May 17, 1956, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Sugar Ray Leonard, 66, took to boxing at the age of 14, and it wasn’t long before he was racking up an impressive record: As an amateur, he won 145 of 150 bouts, and he took home two National Golden Glove championships and golds at the 1975 Pan American Games and the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. Known for his charisma and speed, Leonard was nicknamed “the new Muhammad Ali” by legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell. In 1977, he turned professional, and his record remained impressive, with 36 wins out of 40 fights and 25 knockouts. Bleacher Report ranked Leonard at number 10 on its 2012 list of “The Top 50 Pound-for-pound Boxers of All Time,” and Kevin McRae wrote, “Sugar Ray Leonard fought the best of his era and beat every single one of them. And he fought in an era with several high-profile Hall of Fame fighters who are also amongst the greatest of all time.” Over the span of 20 years, he became the first boxer to win world titles in five weight classes: welterweight, junior middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight. After officially retiring from boxing in 1997, he’s worked as a commentator and analyst on NBC, ABC, FOX, HBO and ESPN, and later went on to host the boxing reality show The Contender. In 2011, he published his autobiography The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring, in which he detailed his struggles with depression and addiction; and he competed on Dancing with the Stars, with judge Len Goodman calling him “the heart of the show.” This year, the educational streaming platform Wondrium is launching a new series called Wondrium Insights, and Leonard will be one of the featured speakers — alongside singer-songwriter Mary Lambert, former NBA player Jay Williams and others — on a season entitled “Finding Strength in Mental Health Struggles.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Ian West/PA Images via Getty Images
May 16: Janet Jackson, 56
The baby of the Jackson clan, Janet Jackson, 56, was born May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana, and much like her siblings in the family band, she got her start in the entertainment business early: By age 11, she was joining the Norman Lear sitcom Good Times as Penny, a girl adopted by Willona Woods (Ja’Net DuBois) when she’s abandoned by her abusive mother. Soon she was appearing on Diff’rent Strokes and Fame, just as she began releasing albums in the early ’80s. The year 1986 saw the release of the game-changing Control, which included such singles as “What Have You Done for Me Lately” and “The Pleasure Principle.” When Rolling Stone included it at number 111 on its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” it wrote, “If properly, successfully maturing in pop after a childhood in the spotlight is an artform, then Janet Jackson is Michelangelo and Control her statue of David.” She quickly emerged as one of pop’s biggest hitmakers, amassing 27 Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and five Grammys out of 26 nominations. Her 1989 album Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 went six-times platinum, and then she topped herself with 1993’s Janet, which sold 14 million copies worldwide. That same year, she starred opposite Tupac Shakur in the film Poetic Justice, and her song “Again” was nominated for the Oscar for best original song. At the height of her stardom, Jackson’s career came to a screeching halt after a much-analyzed “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show left her breast exposed; whether it was planned or accidental, the incident saw Jackson blacklisted by the industry. Luckily, she was able to regain some of the chart-topping magic with subsequent albums 2006’s 20 Y.O. and 2008’s Discipline, which peaked at number one. In 2019, Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and during her speech she said, “I want to say a personal word to each and every fan. You’ve been with me every step of the way. In all my ups. All my downs. I never have and never will take you for granted.” Those ups and downs took center stage this year in a four-part documentary, Janet Jackson, broadcast on Lifetime and A&E. “It’s still a wonderful ride, but I’ve been thinking about the future,” said Jackson, who recently announced that she’ll be releasing her long-delayed album Black Diamond this year. “I want to concentrate on being a mother. I want to go out with a bang. A big bang.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jim Spellman/WireImage
May 15: Brian Eno, 74
How many musicians can boast that they invented a new genre of music? British composer, producer, singer and songwriter Brian Eno, 74, did just that with ambient music. Born in Suffolk, England, on May 15, 1948, Eno experimented with electronic music in the late 1960s while studying art, and in 1971, he joined the band Roxy Music. After two short years, his struggles with front man Bryan Ferry caused him to go solo, and he began turning out increasingly more conceptual music. His 1979 album, Ambient 1: Music for Airports, introduced the world to “ambient music,” a form of instrumental music that’s all about mood and atmosphere rather than rhythm or melodies. As he defined it in the album liner notes, “Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” While his own music got more sparse and minimalist, Eno still knew how to make a great pop or rock record, and he began channeling those impulses into production work for other artists, such as David Bowie and the Talking Heads. He’s won seven Grammys for his work with U2 and Coldplay, including producer of the year for U2’s Achtung Baby, and his sound installations have been featured everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to the Lovell Telescope. In 2019, Roxy Music was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though Eno skipped the ceremony — unsurprising, considering that he hasn’t appeared onstage with his former bandmates since 1973. His most recent album, Film Music: 1976-2020, shows off the impressive range of film and television soundtracks on which his works have appeared, including Heat, Dune and Trainspotting. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Stephane Cardinale/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
May 14: Cate Blanchett, 53
Widely hailed as one of the most versatile actresses of her generation (she did get an Oscar nomination for playing a version of Bob Dylan, after all!), Cate Blanchett, 53, was born in Melbourne, Australia, on May 14, 1969. Following a string of theater and television roles in her native country, Blanchett rocketed to international fame with her regal turn as Queen Elizabeth I in 1998’s Elizabeth. The part earned her a slew of awards attention, including a Golden Globe win and her first Oscar nomination. But it was her performance as another powerful real-life redhead, Katharine Hepburn, in 2004’s The Aviator, that would nab Blanchett her first Oscar win for best supporting actress. Over the years, she earned five more Academy Award nominations, and the diversity of roles shows off her impressive range: She played an art teacher who’s having an affair with a student in 2006’s Notes on a Scandal, the aforementioned spin on Dylan in 2007’s I’m Not There, the virgin queen again in 2007’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and a lesbian in 1950s New York in 2015’s Carol. And she picked up a best-actress win in 2014 for her role as the Blanche DuBois–like Jasmine in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. A former co-artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company with her husband, Andrew Upton, Blanchett earned a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in The Present, and in 2020, she added an Emmy nod to her impressive list of accomplishments for her role as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly in the limited series Mrs. America. Last year, she starred as a femme fatale in Guillermo del Toro’s noirish Nightmare Alley and an unrecognizably made-up news anchor in Adam McKay’s disaster satire Don’t Look Up. When both were nominated for best picture at the Oscars, Blanchett earned a unique distinction: She surpassed Olivia de Havilland as the actress who had appeared in the most best-picture contenders, at nine. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Art of Elysium
May 13: Stevie Wonder, 72
When it comes to genius, age is nothing but a number: Born on May 13, 1950, and raised in Detroit, Stevie Wonder, 72, was a child musical prodigy who had mastered the piano, organ, harmonica and drums before hitting his teen years — all the more impressive, considering that he has been blind from birth. His life changed forever when he met Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown Records, who helped him record his debut album at just 12 years old. It kicked off an incredible run of hits — such as “For Once in My Life” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” — that culminated in an impressive feat in the mid-’70s: He won three best-album Grammys between 1974 and 1977, out of an eventual 25 Grammys wins and 74 nominations. The last in that winning trio, 1976’s Songs in the Key of Life, was recently ranked fourth on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Songs, released in 1976, encompasses an incredible range of life experiences — from the giddy joy of a baby in the bathtub (“Isn’t She Lovely,” featuring the cries and giggles of Wonder’s infant daughter Aisha Morris) and a tribute to his musical heroes (“Sir Duke”) to dismay about the indifference of the wealthy (“Village Ghetto Land”). In the 1980s, he found even more commercial success, with songs like the Paul McCartney duet “Ebony and Ivory” and the charity singles “We Are the World” and “That’s What Friends Are For.” And he successfully campaigned to get Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday recognized as a federal holiday. Over the years, the music legend was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, honored by the Kennedy Center, awarded the second-ever Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song and given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Wonder remains a vital live performer, and in addition to appearing in last year’s Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul (... Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), he led a musical tribute to his mentor Berry Gordy at the 2021 Kennedy Center Honors. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Variety
May 12: Tony Hawk, 54
Perhaps no sport in America is as intrinsically linked with a singular towering figure as skateboarding and Tony Hawk, 54. Born in San Diego on May 12, 1968, Hawk began skateboarding at the age of 9 and turned pro by 14; his parents were so supportive that they organized the California Amateur Skateboard League and the National Skateboard Association. Hawk became especially dominant in “vert” skateboarding, which is done on a nearly vertical ramp. Among his many accomplishments, Hawk was named the top vert skater every single year between 1984 and 1996. Along the way, he changed the sport and remade it in his own image in much the same way that William Shakespeare transformed the English language: He invented more than 100 new tricks, like the Saran wrap, the stalefish, the gymnast plant, and the 900. Hawk quickly began expanding to selling boards, accessories and clothing, before he hit the jackpot with his best-selling video game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, which has sold well over a million copies. Before retiring from professional skating in 2003, he established his namesake foundation, which is now called the Skatepark Project and is dedicated to bringing inclusive skateparks to underserved communities. This year, he got the documentary treatment with Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off, which premiered in March at the South by Southwest Film Festival before becoming available to stream on HBO Max. The day before the HBO trailer dropped, Hawk suffered a nasty femur fracture while skating. “I’ve said many times that I won’t stop skating until I am physically unable,” he wrote in an Instagram caption. “A broken leg — with plenty of hardware — will probably be the biggest test of that creed.” The injury didn’t stop him from presenting at the Oscars — albeit using a cane. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
May 11: Frances Fisher, 70
Best known as Rose’s mom in Titanic, actress Frances Fisher, 70, was born in England on May 11, 1952, and she spent her early years appearing on and off-Broadway, in productions like Arthur Miller’s final play, Finishing the Picture. A member of the acclaimed Actors Studio, Fisher studied with Stella Adler, and in her first screen role, she played Deborah “Red” Saxon on the soap opera The Edge of Night for more than 240 episodes, between 1976 and 1981. In 1992, she had her highest profile role to date as the town madam Strawberry Alice in the best-picture-winning Western Unforgiven, and she and director Clint Eastwood whipped up something even better than an award: their daughter, actress Francesca Eastwood. Five years later, she would go on to appear in one of the biggest movies in cinema history, Titanic, as Ruth Dewitt Bukater, the stern and image-conscious mother of Rose (Kate Winslet). “People would come up to me and scream about how much they hated my character,” she later said of the character. “Especially younger women and girls. I would tell them that you have to look at the social situation before you attack someone for their actions. My character was someone who had a very narrow outlook on the world and was in great desperation to keep her social standing.” In the years following, she would go on to appear in dozens of films and TV shows, including the acclaimed HBO limited series Watchmen, and she also tackled juicy stage roles like Queen Eleanor (a part that won Katharine Hepburn her third Oscar) in a 2019 Laguna Playhouse production of The Lion in Winter. Fisher had a particularly robust 2021, during which she appeared in the films Grace and Grit, This Is Not a War Story and Awake; the USA network show The Sinner, as matriarch Meg Muldoon; and the podcast series Electric Easy, which is described as “a musical neo-noir science-fiction show” in which humans and robots coexist in a futuristic Los Angeles. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
May 10: Bono, 62
When Rolling Stone magazine included Bono, 62, at number 32 on its list of the greatest singers of all time, the editors described his voice as “50 percent Guinness, 10 percent cigarettes — and the rest is religion. He’s a physical singer, like the leader of a gospel choir, and he gets lost in the melodic moment.” Born Paul David Hewson in Dublin on May 10, 1960, Bono teamed up with three schoolmates in the late 1970s to form the world-conquering rock band U2. And from the start, their music blended sweeping rock sounds with punk influences and lyrics that touched on everything from Christian spirituality to international politics. Their megahit albums, including The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, reshaped modern rock, and the band has picked up 22 Grammys, including multiple wins for record, song and album of the year. The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 by Bruce Springsteen, who said that U2 “has carried their faith in the great inspirational and resurrective power of rock ’n’ roll.” Bono’s bandmate The Edge once called the front man “chairman and founding member of Over-Achievers Anonymous,” and indeed it’s his “extracurricular” work that has been most impressive over the past decades. As a humanitarian, he’s rallied for Africa and debt relief, as well as fought poverty and AIDS, cofounding the ONE Campaign in 2004. If he’s cultivated a bit of a self-serious reputation over the decades, he played against that persona, last year, when he voiced a reclusive lion rock star named Clay Calloway in the animated hit film Sing 2. The role saw him dueting with Scarlett Johansson’s teenage porcupine character, Ash, on a cover of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and U2 provided a new original track called “Your Song Saved My Life.” “[Clay] sings ‘Your Song Saved My Life,’ but sometimes I think it’s the people who hear the songs who save the performer’s life, really,” Bono recently said at a screening of the film. “You give us a special life, and we’re so grateful. People like you save my life.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Theo Wargo/NBC/Getty Images for "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon"
May 9: Billy Joel, 73
Born in the Bronx on May 9, 1949, Billy Joel, 73, began tickling the ivories at the age of 4 and joined bands at the tender age of 14. Before settling on his signature sound in the early ’70s, he was in a blue-eyed soul group called the Hassles and then, more surprisingly, a heavy metal duo called Attila. With the 1971 release of his debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, Joel introduced the world to his tuneful piano ballads, like “She’s Got a Way.” And his 1973 follow-up, Piano Man, unleashed one of the most anthemic karaoke songs of all time. His biggest commercial and critical breakthrough would come with his 1977 opus The Stranger, which was later certified diamond status by the RIAA (10 million copies sold) and earned him Grammys for record of the year and song of the year for “Just the Way You Are.” Joel continued to churn out hit singles in the 1980s and ’90s, many of which saw him stepping into others’ shoes to write about the Vietnam War (“Goodnight Saigon”), unemployment in steel towns (“Allentown”), life in the Soviet Union (“Leningrad”) and commercial fishing (“The Downeaster ‘Alexa’ ”). Following the release of his thus-far-final studio album, 2001’s Fantasies & Delusions, which comprised original classical compositions, Joel lent his music to the Broadway musical Movin’ Out, which was conceived and choreographed by Twyla Tharp. When Tharp presented him with some dance pieces to ask for his blessing, he agreed on the spot, later telling The New York Times: “It was risky, it was kind of crazy. There was so much potential for it to be a nightmare. I loved it.” The risk paid off with a Tony win for Joel for best orchestrations. A 1999 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, the singer-songwriter was later celebrated by the Kennedy Center (an honor he called “overwhelming”) and then awarded the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2014. That year, he started a monthly residency at Madison Square Garden, and while the pandemic caused an unplanned 20-month hiatus, he returned in full force in November, with his 80th show planned for this month. When the residency started, Joel said that he’d keep going “as long as the demand continues.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
May 8: Enrique Iglesias, 47
Music was in Latin pop star Enrique Iglesias’ blood from the start: He was born in Madrid on May 8, 1975 to Spanish superstar Julio Iglesias, though he studied business administration at the University of Miami before taking the big leap and joining the “family business.” At the age of 18, he released his eponymous debut album and began making a splash on the Billboard Latin charts. His audience began to broaden when Will Smith attended one of his concerts and heard “sustained screaming” from the fans; the actor asked Iglesias to provide a song for the soundtrack of his new movie Wild Wild West, and the resulting single “Bailamos” became a pop radio smash. Following the crossover success of artists like Marc Anthony and Ricky Martin, Iglesias released his 1999 English-language debut Enrique, which went platinum and featured such hits as “Be With You,” “Rhythm Divine” and the Whitney Houston duet “Could I Have This Kiss Forever.” The following year, he took to the world’s biggest stage when he performed alongside Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera and Toni Braxton at the Disney-themed Super Bowl XXXIV halftime show. His 2001 follow-up album, Escape, was his biggest hit to date, and the lead single “Hero” became something of an anthem after the September 11 attacks. In the decades that have followed, Iglesias has proven to be one of the world’s most popular Latin recording artists, earning 154 number 1 singles on all the various Billboard charts, and he ranks first among artists with the most number 1 songs on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs Chart, with 27. Iglesias has picked up one Grammy (for best Latin pop performance) and five Latin Grammys, and even after all these years, he still has the power to sell out arenas: Last fall, Iglesias and Ricky Martin teamed up for a co-headlining tour, and he has a few more solo shows planned for 2022. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Mark Davis/Getty Images for Women In Film
May 7: Amy Heckerling, 68
There may be no director who’s better at capturing the life of the American teenager than Amy Heckerling, 68. Born to a Jewish family in the Bronx on May 7, 1954, Heckerling grew up going to Coney Island to watch old movies with her grandmother, and she developed a particular fondness for the gangster flicks of James Cagney. After studying at NYU and the American Film Institute, Heckerling made her directorial debut with 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High; she looked toward American Graffiti for inspiration, saying, “That felt like a movie about young people that, if you woke up and found yourself living in the movie, you’d be happy. I wanted that kind of feel.” Her follow-up films were all zany in their own ways, from the 1984 gangster comedy Johnny Dangerously to National Lampoon’s European Vacation the next year, and then she directed Look Who’s Talking, about the inner thoughts of a newborn, voiced by Bruce Willis. Heckerling’s biggest critical hit came with the 1995 teen comedy Clueless, which updated Jane Austen’s Emma to 1990s Beverly Hills, and it was a true zeitgeist-changer: It made stars out of Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy and Paul Rudd; spawned catchphrases like “as if”; spun off a mildly popular TV show; and earned Heckerling a best screenplay award from the National Society of Film Critics. The 2000s proved less successful for Heckerling, who directed the 2000 college-set comedy Loser, reteamed with Paul Rudd for the 2007 rom-com I Could Never Be Your Woman and then helmed the Alicia Silverstone–starring horror comedy Vamps in 2012, but each of the projects showed off her unique comedic voice. Following a string of TV directing gigs, Heckerling returned to the world of Clueless when she wrote the libretto for the 2018 Off-Broadway musical adaptation. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
May 6: George Clooney, 61
Few Hollywood stars shine as brightly as George Clooney, 61, whose charisma and breadth of talent — acting, directing, writing, producing — often lands him comparisons to Golden Age legends like Cary Grant. Born May 6, 1961 in Kentucky to a family that included a few celebrities of its own (his aunt was Rosemary Clooney), a young George originally planned to become an athlete, even trying out unsuccessfully for the Cincinnati Reds. As an actor in those early days, Clooney bounced around TV shows, recurring on The Facts of Life and Roseanne, before landing his breakthrough role as Dr. Doug Ross on ER, for which he received two Emmy nominations — he’d later receive that award show’s prestigious Bob Hope Humanitarian Award in 2010. Clooney soon left the emergency room behind, and his film roles showed how adept he was at tackling any genre, including rom-com (One Fine Day), war (Three Kings), action (Out of Sight), period comedy (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) and even superhero, though he considers his critically derided Batman & Robin “a waste of money.” His 2001 Rat Pack remake Ocean’s Eleven was such a critical and box-office darling that it spawned a trilogy, but 2005 marked a turning point for Clooney as an artist: That year, he starred in the oil-industry thriller Syriana and directed and costarred in the Edward R. Murrow biopic Good Night, and Good Luck, which together netted him three Oscar nominations, including a best supporting actor win for Syriana. Over the years, Clooney has been nominated for Oscars in six categories, ranking behind only Kenneth Branagh’s seven and tied with Alfonso Cuarón and Walt Disney: After his banner 2006 year, he received nods for best actor for Michael Clayton, Up in the Air and The Descendants and best adapted screenplay for The Ides of March, and he won best picture for producing Argo. A respected humanitarian and human rights advocate, Clooney married lawyer Amal Alamuddin in 2014 and received the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2015, but he isn’t resting on his laurels: He recently directed and starred in the post-apocalyptic, Arctic-set Midnight Sky and helmed last year’s sweet coming-of-age film The Tender Bar. Next up, he’s reteaming with Julia Roberts for this fall’s romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise, in which they’ll star as a divorced couple who travel to Bali to stop their teenage daughter from getting married. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images
May 5: Richard E. Grant, 65
Born on May 5, 1957 in the Southern African nation of Eswatini, Richard E. Grant, 65, made his big-screen debut with the 1987 British cult comedy classic Withnail and I. He and fellow newcomer Paul McGann starred as a pair of struggling, alcoholic actors, in a performance that Roger Ebert called “a tour de force,” writing, “Withnail could possibly have become a comic drunk in the wrong hands. Richard E. Grant never, ever, not for a second, breaks character; he is relentlessly wounded and aggressive. He never goes too far, he never relaxes, he aims at the end of the movie and charges.” Over the years, he has starred in projects both highbrow (The Age of Innocence, Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and low (the Spice Girls musical Spice World), and he was part of the SAG Award–winning ensemble of Gosford Park. After roles on Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones, Grant had his biggest success in decades with Can You Ever Forgive Me? — in which he starred as the gay confidant and accomplice to forger Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy). He racked up dozens of best supporting actor nominations, including the Oscar, the BAFTA, the SAG Award and the Golden Globe, and picked up a few wins in the process, such as the AARP Movies for Grownups Award (we have good taste!). Grant had a very busy last year, appearing in the Marvel and Disney+ series Loki, the action comedy Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard and the cinematic adaptation of the West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, in which he plays a former drag queen and mentor to the titular Sheffield teenager who dreams of becoming a drag star. He told The Hollywood Reporter that he prepared for the role by binge-watching 11 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race in three weeks: “Their courage, chutzpah and creativity are off the scale. They are astonishing. The prejudice that they have to overcome in broader society and the resistance that many of their life stories have within their own families is so touching. The shade throwing and the sass and the vivacity of what the drag queens come up with is so witty and funny and heartbreaking at the same time. I’m a complete RuPaul addict.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Andrew Toth/WireImage
May 4: Will Arnett, 52
Known for his baritone voice and sarcastic demeanor, Will Arnett, 52, has become one of the most reliably funny television actors of his generation, and he’s able to get laughs in everything from cult sitcoms to animated dramedies, kids movies to improvised detective spoofs. Born May 4, 1970 in Toronto, Arnett appeared in a number of never-aired pilots and failed sitcoms before hitting it big with Fox’s always-under-the-radar classic Arrested Development in 2003. As the arrogant, womanizing magician Gob Bluth, Arnett earned his first of seven Emmy nominations, with four more to follow for his guest appearances on 30 Rock. “I like characters who are really cocky and really dumb,” he told The Guardian. “That always seems to be a really great cocktail for me.” Arnett seemed destined to lead a sitcom, and the networks repeatedly tried to make it work: He starred as an immature playboy in Running Wilde, as a stay-at-home dad in Up All Night and as a divorced reporter in The Millers, but none had staying power. Who would have guessed that it would be his role as a washed-up, horse-headed actor in the darkly surreal animated Netflix dramedy BoJack Horseman that would bring Arnett his biggest acclaim since Arrested Development? The series, which offered a starkly existential look at depression, fame and addiction, earned Arnett an Annie (like the Emmys and Oscars for animation) for outstanding voice acting. He also lent his signature vocals to The Lego Movie, in which he stole scenes as a moody Bruce Wayne/Batman, and after appearing in a sequel and a spin-off, he stayed in the toy-block family as the host of the game show Lego Masters. Since 2020, Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes have cohosted the wildly popular interview podcast Smartless, which has featured such guests as Tina Fey and Jerry Seinfeld, and they recently completed a six-city live tour. This February, Arnett once again called on his famous friends for the absurd Netflix comedy series Murderville, which boasts a zany premise: He plays a detective, while a celebrity guest star (including Conan O’Brien and Marshawn Lynch) who hasn’t seen any script must improvise their way through the case. It’s pure silliness, and Arnett wouldn’t have it any other way. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
May 3: Christina Hendricks, 47
Christina Hendricks, 47, was only 10 years old when she made a life-changing decision that would impact her public image for years: The natural blonde started dyeing her hair the signature red color for which she’s now known! Born May 3, 1975 in Tennessee and raised in Idaho, Hendricks began appearing on television in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in series like the soapy MTV drama Undressed and the Showtime satire Beggars and Choosers, but she really shot to international fame with her star-making turn on Mad Men. As a take-no-prisoners office manager–turned–junior advertising partner, Joan Holloway was one of the standout characters among the very deep bench of the ’60s-set drama, and Hendricks earned six consecutive Emmy nominations plus two SAG Award wins for best ensemble in a drama. During her time on the show, she earned another honor: In 2010, Esquire surveyed 9,617 female readers, and they named her the best-looking woman in America! Since breaking out as Joan, Hendricks has appeared in such films as the action thriller Drive and the coming-of-age drama Ginger & Rosa, but television lightning struck twice with her role in the NBC dramedy Good Girls, which aired its last episode in summer 2021. In the series, Hendricks plays part of a trio of suburban moms who pull off a heist at a supermarket to get money for their kids, entangling them in a criminal underworld that keeps pulling them in deeper. Next up, Hendricks is set to star opposite The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar in an adaptation of the New York Times best-selling novel The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx via AP
May 2: Christine Baranski, 70
An award-winning powerhouse on stage and screen, Christine Baranski, 70, was born in Buffalo, New York, on May 2, 1952, and while her characters often veer toward the elegant and urbane, she hasn’t totally abandoned her Upstate roots: As she recently told Stephen Colbert, “Everyone thinks this sophisticated lady, this New York type, these characters that I play, they think that’s me. They should be in a room alone with me when I watch the Buffalo Bills. It is loud.” After graduating from Juilliard, Baranski became a Broadway regular, earning Tony wins for Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing and Neil Simon’s Rumors. In 1995, she made the leap to the small screen on the sitcom Cybill as best friend Maryann Thorpe, a character The Washington Post described as “saucy, a snappy dresser, sharp-tongued and a big drinker.” The part earned Baranski her first Emmy win of an eventual 15 nominations, including four for her guest turn on The Big Bang Theory as Leonard’s mom, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter. In 2009, she took on the juicy role of attorney Diane Lockhart on the CBS legal drama The Good Wife, and she was such a runaway fan favorite that Diane now anchors a Paramount+ spinoff series called The Good Fight, which Entertainment Weekly has called the best show on television. While she’s still racking up critical acclaim for the series, which is set to return for its sixth season this summer, Baranski added another show to her résumé this year with the HBO period drama The Gilded Age, which is set in 1880s New York and was created by Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes. Baranski plays Dutch-American widowed socialite Agnes Van Rhijn, who is suspicious of the nouveau riche she believes are infiltrating high society. “Agnes is a very emphatic character — I call her a walking declarative sentence,” Baranski recently told Vogue. “I have a T-shirt that says ‘I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss,’ and that’s true for Agnes and a lot of my other characters.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Lorenzo Palizzolo/Getty Images
May 1: Wes Anderson, 53
There may be no contemporary film director with a more recognizable visual style than Wes Anderson, 53, who has become known over the past three decades for such aesthetic trademarks as slow motion, bold colors and, especially, symmetrical compositions. In fact, there’s even a popular Instagram account — and an accompanying coffee table book — called Accidentally Wes Anderson, which collects images that look like stills from his movies! Born in Houston on May 1, 1969, Anderson attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he met classmate Owen Wilson, and the pair worked on a 1994 short film called Bottle Rocket. Two years later, with the help of producer James L. Brooks, they turned it into a feature-length film, and it signaled the arrival of one of the most unique voices in American indie cinema. Anderson’s style really started to coalesce with his next two movies, 1998’s Rushmore and 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums, which earned him his first Oscar nomination, for best screenplay. With an expansive company of returning performers that includes Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston and Jason Schwartzman, Anderson brought his unique vision to the world of undersea exploration (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), a train traveling through India (The Darjeeling Limited) and a New England summer camp (Moonrise Kingdom), and he even dabbled with stop-motion animation (Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs). In 2014, he had his biggest hit to date with The Grand Budapest Hotel, which won four Oscars and finally nabbed Anderson nominations for best director and best picture. Last year, the auteur released what may be the most “Wes Anderson movie” to date, The French Dispatch, which takes the form of a series of short films inspired by the stories in a fictional New Yorker–like magazine: It’s marked by experimental stylistic flourishes, beaucoup French New Wave references and an enormous cast of regulars and newcomers. While the plot of his next film, Asteroid City, is being kept under wraps, the cast is filled to the bursting point with A-listers, including Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Margot Robbie, Tilda Swinton and Jeff Goldblum. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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