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: 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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