May Milestone Birthdays

May 1: Tim McGraw, 50

This cowboy-hatted country crooner (and sometimes actor) didn’t learn he was the son of pro baseball pitcher Tug McGraw until he was 17, but they made up for lost time. Tim dedicated his 2004 hit Live Like You Were Dying to his dad, who died from a brain tumor early that year. This month he and his wife, fellow country star Faith Hill, kick off a 65-city tour that runs through the end of October. 

May 2: Mika Brzezinski, 50

Since 2007, cable news junkies have been waking up to this opinionated cohost — along with Joe Scarborough — on MSNBC’s popular weekday show Morning Joe. Brzezinski has politics in her blood: Her father, Zbigniew Brzezinski, served as national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter and a counselor to LBJ.

May 4: Dick Dale, 80

You may not recognize this King of the Surf Guitar’s name. But you may recognize his 1962 hit instrumental “Misirlou” from the soundtrack to 1994’s Pulp Fiction. Dale and his band first broke out in Frankie and Annette beach-party films in the early ’60s, and his flashy performing style would go on to influence such world-class guitarists as Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen.

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May 15: Madeleine Albright, 80

This Prague native, who arrived at Ellis Island with her family in 1948, would become the first female secretary of state (1997-2001) while serving under President Bill Clinton. She’s now a professor of international relations at Georgetown University and caused a stir with a bold statement last year: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

May 15: Trini López, 80

This Dallas-born singer of Mexican descent rose to fame in the ’60s with a string of hits, including covers of such folk songs as If I Had a Hammer and Lemon Tree. Fans of Lee Marvin’s World War II film The Dirty Dozen (1967) also know him as prisoner Pedro Jiminez. He continues to record and perform live.

May 25: Jacki Weaver, 70

Aussie actress Jacki Weaver, best known for her Oscar-nominated role as the genial matriarch of a family of Philadelphia Eagles fanatics in 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook, first made a splash in the ’70s in such Down Under imports as Picnic at Hanging Rock. She plays Jack Black’s mother-in-law in the recent Sundance hit The Polka King.

May 25: Karen Valentine, 70

Many a boomer lad had a crush on Valentine’s overeager student teacher Alice Johnson on the TV series Room 222 (1969-74). The Emmy winner, a semiregular on the game show The Hollywood Squares in the ’70s, never really liked being called "cute."never really liked being called “cute.” As she once told People magazine, “I’ll be cute when I’m 90. But I’m other things, too.”

May 29: Anthony Geary, 70

If you were near a TV on Nov. 16, 1981, chances are you were among the record 30 million viewers who witnessed the wedding of Geary’s Luke and Genie Francis’ Laura on the ABC soap opera General Hospital. The role earned the actor eight Daytime Emmys, the most of any male lead on a drama series. He finally quit the show in 2015, observing at the time, “I’m about to raise the curtain on my third act. It’s a blessing that I can make this choice.”

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