9 Milestone Celebrity Birthdays in December

Dec. 4: Jay-Z, 50

En español | The Brooklyn-born rapper and entrepreneur formerly known as Shawn Carter will be busy in February overseeing the halftime show at Super Bowl LIV in Miami featuring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. The 22-time Grammy winner and husband of Beyoncé, who became the first hip-hop billionaire this year, holds the record for most No. 1 albums by a solo artist (14) on the Billboard 200. 

Dec. 4: Jeff Bridges, 70

The Big Lebowski’s Dude still abides. The son of actor Lloyd Bridges is about to take on his first regular role on a TV series next fall in The Old Man, playing a retired CIA officer drawn back into the spy game. The show will debut on the new streaming service FX on Hulu. The seven-time Oscar nominee broke out with 1971’s The Last Picture Show and won as lead actor for his alcoholic country singer in 2009’s Crazy Heart.

Dec. 7: Tom Waits, 70

This gravelly-voiced troubadour and cult actor, who has been dubbed “the Prince of Melancholy,” has appeared in several Francis Ford Coppola films, including The Outsiders and The Cotton Club, and had bigger roles in movies by indie director Jim Jarmusch (Mystery Train, Cigarettes and Coffee). Last month, Dualtone Music released a tribute album, Come On Up to the House, with such female singers as Aimee Mann, Patty Griffin and Rosanne Cash performing tunes written by Waits.

Dec. 13: Christopher Plummer, 90

To many of a certain age, this dashing Canadian will always be Capt. Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. But Plummer is more in demand than ever. At 82, he became the oldest actor to win an Oscar thanks to his supporting role in 2011’s Beginners. At 88, Plummer also became the oldest actor ever nominated for an Oscar for his work in 2017’s All the Money in the World. Now you can catch him playing a murdered crime writer in the whodunit Knives Out. 

Dec. 15: Don Johnson, 70

These days, he might be better known as the father of actress Dakota Johnson. But in the bling-bingeing ’80s, the actor popularized wearing pastel T-shirts under designer suits while living on a yacht as undercover cop Sonny Crockett on the TV show Miami Vice. He also had quite a rep as a ladies’ man off screen, wooing the likes of Cybill Shepherd and Barbra Streisand while marrying Melanie Griffith — twice. He currently plays a police chief on HBO’s Watchmen and is also in the new film Knives Out, with Plummer.

Dec. 25: Sissy Spacek, 70

Most moviegoers were likely first creeped out by this actress when she played a taunted high-school misfit who uses her supernatural powers to turn her prom into a mass-murder scene in 1976’s Carrie (the source of the first of her six Best Actress Oscar nominations). She won an Oscar as country legend Loretta Lynn in 1980’s Coal Miner’s Daughter. Last year, Spacek showed up in two TV shows, Castle Rock and Homecoming, and starred with Robert Redford in The Old Man & the Gun.

Dec. 29: Paula Poundstone, 60

The stand-up comic got encouragement early in her career from Robin Williams, who asked her to perform on the 1984 episode he hosted of Saturday Night Live. Poundstone went on to do several cable TV specials and voice work for movies, including a character in Pixar’s 2015 animated comedy Inside Out. These days, this quick-with-a-quip comedian is a frequent panelist on NPR’s news quiz show Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me and regularly takes her comedy act on the road.

Dec. 29: Patricia Clarkson, 60

The elegant blond actress made her big-screen debut in the 1987 mob drama The Untouchables. She later earned acclaim in supporting roles in 1999’s The Green Mile and 2003’s The Station Agent, and was Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of a sickly mother in 2003’s Pieces of April. Last year, she was the overbearing rich mother of Amy Adam’s alcoholic reporter in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects.

Dec. 31: Val Kilmer, 60

For someone who has recently overcome throat cancer, the actor who has played everyone from Jim Morrison (1991’s The Doors) to the Caped Crusader (1995’s Batman Forever) has been fairly busy of late. He has signed up for a second round as Tom Cruise’s nemesis Iceman in next year’s Top Gun: Maverick. Kilmer also has penned a memoir that will be released in April. Its title is I’m Your Huckleberry – an allusion to his Doc Holliday character in the 1993 Western Tombstone.

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