22 Milestone Celebrity Birthdays in September

Joan Jett, Bryant Gumbel and George R.R. Martin among those toasting to another year

collage of george r r martin, cheryl strayed, joan jett, and bryant gumbel on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Joel Ryan/Invision/AP; Randy Brooke/WireImage/Getty Images; Gregg DeGuire/WireImage/Getty Images; Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images for HBO)

Nicholas DeRenzo,

AARP

Published September 01, 2023

Sept. 3: Malcolm Gladwell, 60

Through his best-selling books like The Tipping Point and Blink, the Canadian public intellectual has reshaped the way we think about everything from fashion trends and crime rates to the so-called 10,000-hour rule. The cofounder of Pushkin Industries and host of the Revisionist History podcast most recently published the 2021 book The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, which details the U.S. bombing campaign in Japan.

Sept. 5: Rose McGowan, 50

The Charmed star started a second chapter as an activist when she spoke out against Harvey Weinstein, and her efforts with the #MeToo movement even landed her a spot as one of “The Silence Breakers” recognized as Time’s joint Person of the Year in 2017. Since then, she’s released a best-selling memoir, Brave, and starred in the docuseries Citizen Rose, and now she’s leaning back into her role as an entertainer, reuniting with her Charmed costars for September’s 90s Con in Florida.

Sept. 6: Jeff Foxworthy, 65

jeff foxworthy on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Trae Patton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

Best remembered for his “You might be a redneck if …” one-liners, the Grammy-nominated stand-up comedian returned to the stage with his first new solo comedy special in 24 years, The Good Old Days, which debuted on Netflix in March 2022. Foxworthy can still be found out on the road — often alongside his fellow “Blue Collar Comedy Tour” members like Larry the Cable Guy — and this December, he’s doing a two-night stint at the Mirage in Las Vegas.

Sept. 10: Guy Ritchie, 55

Known for his wry British gangster comedies like Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the former Mr. Madonna later adapted the Sherlock Holmes stories into two blockbuster films, which together made more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office. In the past decade, Ritchie has maintained a steady pace of new releases, including this year’s spy comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and the Afghanistan-set thriller The Covenant. Also in the works: a live-action remake of Disney’s Hercules.

Sept. 14: Nas, 50

The New York hip-hop legend was recently ranked third on Billboard’s list of the 50 greatest rappers of all time, and his 1994 debut album, Illmatic, was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. After 13 Grammy losses, Nas finally took home his first trophy in 2021, when King’s Disease won best rap album, and this summer, he released his 16th studio album, Magic 2.

Sept. 16: Marc Anthony, 55

marc anthony on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)

Hot off a celebrated cameo turn in the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, the New York–born singer returned to his salsa roots with his 2022 album Pa’lla Voy, which he described as “one man’s story of desamor: falling in and out of love.” Earlier this year, he teamed up with wildly popular Colombian singer Maluma on a new salsa-tinged single called “La Fórmula,” with an accompanying video that offers a peek behind the curtains at their recording session in Miami’s Hit Factory Criteria studios.

Sept. 16: Jennifer Tilly, 65

An Oscar nominee for Bullets Over Broadway, Tilly has cultivated an image that’s equal parts bombshell and comedian, and she’s put her charisma and cunning to good use in her second career as a professional poker player — to date, she’s earned almost $1 million in winnings! She recently returned to a fan-favorite role, the murderous doll Tiffany Valentine, in the TV series follow-up to the bloody Chucky franchise.

Sept. 16: Richard Marx, 60

A master of adult contemporary music, Marx racked up three number 1 Billboard hits of his own in the late ’80s— “Hold On to the Nights,” “Right Here Waiting” and “Satisfied” — and then won a Grammy for song of the year in 2004 for Luther Vandross’ emotional “Dance With My Father,” which he cowrote. Last September, Marx released his 13th studio album, Songwriter, which saw him experimenting with different musical styles and included five songs each from four different genres: pop, rock, country and ballads.

Sept. 17: Cheryl Strayed, 55

cheryl strayed on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)

After finding major success with her best-selling memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film, Strayed pivoted to an unexpected second act: moonlighting as the advice columnist Dear Sugar! Her heartfelt columns were collected into the book Tiny Beautiful Things, which later became a popular stage play and is now a Hulu miniseries starring Kathryn Hahn.

Read our Quick Questions interview with Cheryl Strayed.

Sept. 18: James Marsden, 50

A charismatic star known for his roles in films like The Notebook and Enchanted, Marsden has recently been making a splash on the small screen, playing a cowboy robot on Westworld and a set of twins on Dead to Me. This year, he earned his first Emmy nomination for playing a much trickier role: a fictionalized version of himself — with the jerk dial turned up all the way — on Jury Duty, in which an unsuspecting real guy is surrounded by actors for a hilariously unhinged court case.

Sept. 19: Jeremy Irons, 75

A commanding presence on the Broadway and West End stages and an Oscar winner for Reversal of Fortune, Irons recently followed in the footsteps of Michael Caine to play Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth in DC Extended Universe films like this year’s The Flash. This month, he appears in the mysterious film Cello, a horror flick shot in Saudi Arabia that’s in Arabic and English.

Sept. 20: George R.R. Martin, 75

george r r martin on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images for HBO)

Following the once-in-a-generation pop cultural explosion that was HBO’s Game of Thrones, the fantasy novelist behind the fictional continent of Westeros cocreated the prequel series House of the Dragon, and he was working on other TV spin-offs and sequels before the writers’ strike halted his production deal in June. In the meantime, he’s still hard at work on The Winds of Winter, announcing in a blog post that he’s been writing the sixth installment in the A Song of Ice and Fire series “almost every day.”

Sept. 21: Jerry Bruckheimer, 80

Few Hollywood filmmakers can match the hit rate of Mr. Blockbuster, a producer responsible for adrenaline-pumping action franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure, Beverly Hills Cop and Bad Boys. His films have made more than $12 billion at the global box office, but they haven’t always been critical hits. That is, until this year when he earned his first Oscar nomination, for best picture, for his work on Top Gun: Maverick.

Sept. 21: Ricki Lake, 55

Beloved for her role as Tracy Turnblad in 1988’s Hairspray, Lake became the youngest daytime talk show host on the air when she launched her own show at just 24, and it ran for 12 seasons. After appearing recently on The Masked Singer and The X Factor: Celebrity, Lake and cohost Kalen Allen launched the podcast Raised by Ricki, in which they rewatch her old talk-show episodes, chat about the series’ cultural legacy and interview the likes of John Waters, Sally Jessy Raphael and Andy Cohen.

Sept. 22: Andrea Bocelli, 65

One of the most revered classical vocalists of his generation, the Italian tenor released a holiday album, A Family Christmas, last year with two unexpected collaborators: his son Matteo and his then-10-year-old daughter, Virginia. He’s remained one of the most in-demand singers around, performing at the opening ceremony of the Euro 2020 football championship, the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 and this May’s coronation of Charles III, where he sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

Sept. 22: Joan Jett, 65

joan jett on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Gregg DeGuire/WireImage/Getty Images)

The punky rock goddess was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 alongside her Blackhearts bandmates, and they continue to make beautiful music together. Last year, they released their first acoustic album, Changeup, followed this summer by a six-track digital EP called Mindsets. Of the title, Jett says: “The last several years have been tough ones on the whole world. These songs reflect the various mindsets needed to make it through the day, the week, the year or the next minute.”

Sept. 23: Julio Iglesias, 80

The Madrid-born singer has been eliciting swoons for generations with his romantic songs, and he’s sold hundreds of millions of records since his 1969 debut. Following the release of his 2017 album México & Amigos, he recently announced via Instagram that he’s in the process of writing his memoir. “I always tell myself that nostalgia is a bit of going back, but without going back, you can't write your life. I strongly want these memories to make you laugh and cry — the two emotions together are actually life itself.”

Sept. 25: Will Smith, 55

The much-loved multihyphenate found himself in hot water during last year’s Oscars ceremony, when his controversial slapping of host Chris Rock overshadowed his win for best actor in King Richard. He next starred in Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation as a man running away from enslavement in 1860s Louisiana and is currently at work on the fourth film in the Bad Boys franchise, which will see him reteaming with fellow ’90s TV star Martin Lawrence.

Sept. 27: Marc Maron, 60

The podcasting pioneer has chatted with everyone from President Barack Obama to Robin Williams, and he parlayed his cranky affability into an acting career that has seen him starring in his own IFC sitcom, Maron, and earning a SAG Award nomination for his role as a women’s wrestling director in GLOW. This summer, he costarred in Amazon Prime Video’s The Horror of Dolores Roach, which is something like a pitch-black comedy version of Sweeney Todd that’s set in a rapidly gentrifying Washington Heights.

Sept. 28: Naomi Watts, 55

The two-time Oscar nominee has recently found success playing real-life figures on prestige TV series — first as Gretchen Carlson on Showtime’s The Loudest Voice, about the downfall of Fox News founder Roger Ailes, and then as a new homeowner facing a creepy stalker on Netflix’s The Watcher, based on a gripping New York magazine article. Next up, she’ll channel socialite Babe Paley in the second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud, which will chart the many fascinating women in Truman Capote’s orbit.

Sept. 29: Bryant Gumbel, 75

bryant gumbel on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Randy Brooke/WireImage/Getty Images)

The longtime cohost of the Today show has been at the helm of Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel for 29 seasons and counting, and its wide-ranging segments this year have covered everything from pickleball mania to labor exploitation in Qatar during the 2022 World Cup. The HBO series remains TV’s most-awarded sports news magazine, with 37 Sports Emmys so far, and this May Gumbel himself earned a lifetime achievement award at the 44th annual Sports Emmy Awards.

Sept. 30: Cissy Houston, 90

The soul singer got her start in the family gospel group called the Drinkards. And while Houston continued recording music for decades, she’ll always be best-remembered as the loving mother of Whitney Houston. Last year, she got the biopic treatment when she was played by Law & Order: SVU star Tamara Tunie in Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

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