Top 10 January 21 Birthdays

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1951: Eric Holder. U.S. Attorney General for the 1st 6 years of the Obama Administration, he was the 1st black person to hold the job. Since the 1960s, no one has fought harder for voting rights than he has.

Somewhat Honorable Mention: January 21, 1813: John C. Frémont. Yes, "the Pathfinder" was one of the great explorers of the American West, secured California during the Mexican-American War, made a lot of money in the State's Gold Rush, served as one of the State's 1st 2 U.S. Senators, and was opposed to slavery.

In 1856, he was the Republican Party's 1st nominee for President, losing because the anti-slavery vote was split and the pro-slavery vote was united behind James Buchanan. He closed his career by serving as Governor of the Arizona Territory.

On the other hand, he and his men -- first as civilians, and then in the U.S. Army -- massacred Native Americans along the way west. He didn't take California from Mexico, he took it from the people who did, the California Republic, and got court-martialed over it, eventually getting reinstated. Abraham Lincoln relieved him of his Civil War command for insubordination. And he lost all his money, first in a doomed railroad scheme, and then in the stock market Panic of 1873.

Somewhat Honorable Mention: January 21, 1940: Jack Nicklaus. Still the greatest golfer of all time, and it's not his fault that golf is not a sport. But supporting Donald Trump was a choice, and he made it.

Somewhat Honorable Mention: January 21, 1941: Plácido Domingo. One of the greatest opera singers of the 20th Century, his story is tainted by allegations of his behavior toward women. He has never been criminally charged, and has apologized for his behavior. Being a Spaniard of a previous generation, he may not have understood the harm his actions caused.

Dishonorable Mention: January 21, 1824: Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. A tactical genius who betrayed his country to fight for slaveholders. He was killed by "friendly fire" at the Battle of Chancellorsville, possibly costing the Confederacy its best chance to win the American Civil War, or to at least keep its independence through a stalemate.

Dishonorable Mention: January 21, 1869: Grigori Rasputin. The movement to rehabilitate him and debunk the myths about him is nearly as pernicious as the movement to make those myths. He wasn't the villain that the Disney cartoon Anastasia suggested, but he was bad enough. And because Czar Nicholas II trusted him, the Russian Empire collapsed, and was replaced by the Soviet Union.

10. January 21, 1738: Ethan Allen. The furniture store chain named themselves after the founding father of the State of Vermont, who led his "Green Mountain Boys" to capture Fort Ticonderoga in the War of the American Revolution.

9. January 21, 1916: Pietro Rava. The left back for Turin team Juventus was too young to be a member of the Italian national soccer team that won the 1934 World Cup in Rome, but he was with them when they won the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the 1938 World Cup in Paris.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1925: Alex Forbes. The Scottish winger was the last survivor of the Arsenal teams that won the 1948 and 1953 Football League titles and the 1948 FA Cup.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1933: Tony Marchi. So that's 1 for each of the 2 "big clubs" in North London. The central midfielder is the last survivor of the Tottenham Hotspur team that won the 1951 Football League title, and was also a member of the 1961 "Spurs" team that won the League and the FA Cup in 1961, the 1st English soccer team to win "The Double" in the same year since 1897.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1954: Phil Thompson. The centreback helped Liverpool FC win 7 League titles, the 1974 FA Cup, and the European Cup in 1977, 1978 and 1981.

8. January 21, 1905: Karl Wallenda. Founder of the Flying Wallendas daredevil troupe, he is the best-known high-wire walker of all time. Unfortunately, I never knew he was alive until I knew he was dead: I was 8 years old, and he was 73, when he fell attempting a walk in Puerto Rico.

7. January 21, 1942: Mac Davis. Before the country singer got his own NBC variety show in 1974, and was known for his own hits like "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me," "I Believe in Music" and "It's Hard to Be Humble," he made his name writing 4 songs for Elvis Presley: "A Little Less Conversation," "Memories," "In the Ghetto" and "Don't Cry Daddy." (That's in chronological order.)

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1941: Richie Havens. Part of the folk music boom of the early 1960s, he led off the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1942: Edwin Starr. "War? Huh! Good God, y'all! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'! Say it again!" If that had been all he had ever sung, it would have been enough to make him a legend. But he had a few other hits, including one that made him possibly the 1st person to publicly imagine a black James Bond: "Agent Double-O-Soul."

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1950: Billy Ocean. The Trinidadian soul man took a Ringo Starr malaprop, and turned it into "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car," and made it sound worth it instead of clumsy -- or creepy.

Weird: That was one of 3 songs he sang that had 8 words in the title that went on to hit Number 1 on the U.S. charts, the others being "Caribbean Queen (No More Love On the Run)" and "There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)." He's had a few other hits, whose titles range from 1 word like "Suddenly" to 9 words like "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going." But only his songs with 8-word titles hit Number 1.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1965: Jam Master Jay. Jason William Mizell was the backbone of the best and most influential rap group of the mid-1980s, Run-D.M.C.

Somewhat Honorable Mention: January 21, 1976: Emma Bunton. She was assigned the name Baby Spice, because she was the youngest member of the Spice Girls, only 20 when they first hit it big.

6. January 21, 1956: Geena Davis. She won an Academy Award for The Accidental Tourist, and an Emmy Award for playing the fictional 1st female President of the United States in Commander-in-Chief. In between, she starred in Tootsie, The Fly, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own and The Long Kiss Goodnight. She now has a recurring role on Grey's Anatomy.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1922: Paul Scofield. He won a Tony Award in 1962 for playing Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. He won an Oscar in 1966 for playing the role in the film version. He won an Emmy Award in 1969 for his role in the TV-movie Male of the Species. It took him 7 years to win all 3, which remains a record.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1926: Steve Reeves. No relation to Superman actor George Reeves, the bodybuilding champion, a precursor to Arnold Schwarzenegger, did play a legendary strongman, Hercules, in 2 films in the late 1950s. Despite only playing the role twice, it seemed like more, as he was popular among Italian directors looking to make "sword & sandal" films.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1947: Jill Eikenberry. Best known for playing lawyer Ann Kelsey on L.A. Law, co-starring with her real-life husband, Michael Tucker, whose character, tax lawyer Stuart Markowitz, marries Ann. 

5. January 21, 1905: Christian Dior. One of the most admired fashion designers of all time.

4. January 21, 1963: Hakeem Olajuwon. "Akeem the Dream" (as he was known at the time) couldn't quite lead the University of Houston to college basketball's National Championship, but he led the Houston Rockets to the NBA Championship in 1994 and 1995, the latter with his UH teammate Clyde Drexler.

He is the NBA's all-time leader in blocked shots, paved the way for African-born players to star in the NBA, and was named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players and its 75th Anniversary 75 Greatest Players.

He played for his native Nigeria on the junior level, but tried to play for the U.S. team at the adult level. As he had not yet completed the naturalization process, he was ineligible for the 1992 Olympic "Dream Team." But he was eligible for the 1996 team in Atlanta, was named Captain, and led them to the Gold Medal. His daughter, Abi Olajuwon, played in the WNBA, and is now a coach.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1963: Detlef Schrempf. Born the same day as Hakeem, he was a 3-time NBA All-Star, and had a similar effect on European players, paving the way for, for example, fellow German Dirk Nowitzki. 

3. January 21, 1887: Georges Vézina. The 1st great goaltender in professional hockey, and the man for whom the trophy for best goalie of the year is named. From the 1st game the franchise played in 1910 through the end of the 1924-25 season, he played 327 straight games for the Montreal Canadiens, 366 if you count the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which he helped them win in 1916 and 1924, also reaching the Finals in 1917, 1919 and 1925.

But, like baseball's Lou Gehrig, he is best remembered for how his career ended. Sick with tuberculosis, he tried to play the 1st game of the 1925-26 season, and couldn't, and had to leave the game. He was only 39 when he died, in those pre-antibiotic days.

He was a charter inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and, 90 years after he played his last game, he was named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players. Oddly, while the Canadiens have retired uniform numbers for more than 1 player, his Number 1 is not one of them: It's only retired for Jacques Plante.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1971: Doug Weight. A 4-time All-Star with the Edmonton Oilers, he won the 1996 World Cup with the U.S. national team, and the 2006 Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes. He is eligible for the Hockey Hall of Fame, but is not yet in it.

Honorable Mention: January 21, 1986: Jonathan Quick. A 3-time All-Star, he was the goalie for the Los Angeles Kings when they won the Stanley Cup in 2012 (he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Playoffs' Most Valuable Player) and 2014.

2. January 21, 1953: Paul Allen. He and Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft. He was one of the few people popular in both Seattle and Portland, as he bought, and thus saved from being moved, both the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers. It was his giveaways of his billions to great causes that inspired Gates to do the same.

1. January 21, 1922: Telly Savalas. The most familiar American of Greek descent, he played a hero as the titular cop on Kojak, a villain as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and a bit of both as Archer Maggott in The Dirty Dozen. "Who loves ya, baby?"

Still alive as of this writing: Holder, Nicklaus, Domingo, Marchi, Thompson, Ocean, Bunton, Davis, Eikenberry, Olajuwon, Schrempf, Weight, Quick.