Top 10 January 19 Birthdays

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1982: Pete Buttigieg. The former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana ran for President in 2020, when he was too young, too inexperienced, the 1st gay candidate to get as far as he did in either Party's nominating process, and had a name hard to either pronounce or spell. And yet, he won the Iowa Caucuses, beating Senator Bernie Sanders in a contest tailor-made for him.

After the South Carolina Primary, he dropped out of the race, and endorsed Joe Biden. He was rewarded with an appointment to be U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

Dishonorable Mention: January 19, 1807: Robert E. Lee. Whatever he was until the American Civil War began, when it came, he betrayed his country, choosing his home State of Virginia over the United States of America. He was a traitor, and every statue of him in a public place needs to be removed, and every street named for him needs to be renamed.

10. January 19, 1932: Richard Lester. He directed John Lennon in 3 films: A Hard Day's Night and Help! with the Beatles, and How I Won the War. He directed the film version of the Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He directed the 1973 version of The Three Musketeers and its sequels.

Unfortunately, he also took over for Richard Donner in directing Christopher Reeve's Superman films, to the point where Superman III resembled one of the Beatles' films more than anything having to do with truth, justice and the American way.

9. January 19, 1969: Junior Seau. He had the best name of any defensive football player ever. As in, "I hit Drew hard, he Bledsoe, and I heard him say, 'Ow.'" But his game-induced head injuries meant that he did not live to see his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1957: Ottis Anderson. He hasn't (yet) lived to see his election to the Hall of Fame, either, but at least he still could. Having rushed for over 10,000 yards and won 2 Super Bowls, including the Most Valuable Player award in 1, he should.

8. January 19, 1923: Jean Stapleton. She was much more than just Edith Bunker on All In the Family.

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1924: Nicholas Colasanto. Most of us only saw him as "Coach" Ernie Pantusso on Cheers, but, like Jean, he was probably a lot more than just the one role.

When he died in 1985, in the show's 3rd season, director James Burrows took a portrait of Native chief Geronimo that Nick had hung in his dressing room, and made it part of the bar's decor. It not only fit with the rest, but was a lasting tribute to him. In the last scene of the last episode, Sam (Ted Danson) straightened it as one last tribute.

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1930: Tippi Hedren. She paid the price for crossing Alfred Hitchcock, her director in The Birds. These days, she's better known as the mother of Melanie Griffith and the grandmother of Dakota Johnson.

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1942: Michael Crawford. Another actor known mainly for one role, but it's as the title character in the Broadway musical version of The Phantom of the Opera.

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1944: Shelley Fabares. A star as a teenager on The Donna Reed Show, and again as middle-aged on the original version of One Day at a Time and Coach. The niece of Nanette Fabray (Nanette kept the spelling, Shelley kept the pronunciation), she is married to M*A*S*H actor Mike Farrell.

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1974: Frank Caliendo. Since Rich Little has barely been heard from since Futurama was canceled, Frank might now be America's best-known impressionist.

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1982: Jodie Sweetin. Stephanie Tanner from Full House is 40? Don't remind her: "How rude!"

7. January 10, 1931: Robert MacNeil. He was covering President John F. Kennedy's 1963 trip to Texas when he witnessed the assassination. He ran to the nearest building, which turned out to be the Texas School Book Depository, and asked a man where the nearest phone was. According to historian William Manchester's account, that man was Lee Harvey Oswald.

By phone, through radio, he was NBC's man on the scene there and at Parkland Hospital in Dallas where the President died. He later covered Oswald's arraignment, but he'd been so rushed earlier that Oswald did not look familiar to him, and he could never confirm that the two men were actually one.

Jim Lehrer was also covering the story for the Dallas Times-Herald, but they did not meet at that time. In 1973, MacNeil received an Emmy Award for his coverage of Watergate for PBS. That inspired the network to pair him up with Lehrer in 1975, founding their nightly newscast, The NewsHour.

6. January 19, 1943: Janis Joplin. The Queen of the Hippies was an early member of "The 27 Club." It would have been nice if she were now one of the elder stateswomen of American music, but it was not to be.

Honorable Mention: January 19, 1939: Phil Everly. If he and his brother Don could be counted as a single unit, they would rank a bit higher. Without the Everly Brothers, you wouldn't have The Beatles, or The Beach Boys, or Simon & Garfunkel, or anybody they influenced.

5. January 19, 1878: Herbert Chapman. At Yorkshire team Huddersfield Town in the 1920s, and North London team Arsenal in the 1930s, he was the 1st modern soccer team manager (head coach and general manager). 

4. January 19, 1839: Paul Cézanne. The founder of modern art? Both Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse thought so, calling him "the father of us all."

3. January 19, 1809: Edgar Allan Poe. He wasn't the 1st American writer to develop a following overseas (that was Washington Irving), but he practically invented both detective stories and horror stories as we now understand them.

He was also a precursor to rock stars: He was a raging alcoholic (though sober for a few months at the time of his death, and the legend of his drug use is apparently not true), he died young under mysterious circumstances (42), and, like Jerry Lee Lewis, he married his cousin when she was only 13 years old. Maybe I should've made him a "Somewhat Honorable Mention."

2. January 19, 1736: James Watt. His development of an improved steam engine wasn't the most important thing that happened in 1776, but it did launch the Industrial Revolution. The watt, as a measurement of power, was named for him.

He should not be confused with the later James Watt who was U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Ronald Reagan, an insane, bigoted evangelical.

1. January 19, 1946: Dolly Parton. If she were only the singer of her songs, or only the writer of songs, or only an actress in her movies, she would still make this list. But she has been an icon for women in all fields (including former co-star Sally Field), and few people have given as much back to their original community than she has.

She has overcome all the jokes -- including her own, "You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap" -- and with the recent death of Betty White, Dolly Parton may now be America's secular saint.

Still alive as of this writing: Buttigieg, Lester, Anderson, Hedren, Crawford, Fabares, Caliendo, Sweetin, MacNeil, Parton.