Top 10 January 22 Birthdays

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1890: Fred Vinson. He served 14 years in Congress from a district in his native Kentucky, as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury right after World War II, and then 7 years as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1893: Conrad Veidt. His role as a tragic figure in the 1928 German silent film The Man Who Laughs was, along with an American silent film titled The Bat, an inspiration for the characters of Batman and the Joker. Ironically from our perspective, The Bat was a villain, while The Man Who Laughs was a reluctant hero.

When the Nazis came to power in his homeland, Veidt and his Jewish wife fled to America. He chose to accept roles as Nazis to show how evil they were. His best-known role is that of SS officer Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca

He did not live to see the Nazis fall, but it wasn't war that killed him: He died of a heart attack mere months after Casablanca was released.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1934: Graham Kerr. TV's "Galloping Gourmet."

Somewhat Honorable Mention: January 22, 1552: Walter Raleigh. He played a prominent role in England's colonization of the Americas. But he also pushed England toward war with Spain, twice in 30 years, and finally paid for it with his life.

Somewhat Honorable Mention: January 22, 1875: D.W. Griffith. David Wark Griffith was film's 1st great director. He made Birth of a Nation in 1915, and Intolerance in 1916, and in spite of a century's passage and the invention of sound film, they remain epics today.

But Birth of a Nation was an adaptation of a novel about the original version of the Ku Klux Klan, and the film made the KKK look like heroes and black men look like monsters. 

Regardless of innovation, it was disgusting, not least because it led to a revival of the Klan: Within 10 years, it had reached its all-time peak, to the point where it hijacked the Presidential nomination process at the 1924 Democratic Convention.

And it's not as if there was no resistance to Griffith's epic in 1915: The criticism he got was enough to convince him to make a film about, and titled, Intolerance.

In 1919, he, Charlie Chaplin, and the husband-and-wife team of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford founded one of the leading film studios, United Artists. Griffith's career never reached the same heights again, and he only directed 3 films after the switch to "talkies."

Somewhat Honorable Mention: January 22, 1968: Guy Fieri. The celebrity chef looks and acts ridiculous. And, dovetailing with his fiery-sounding name, he loves spicy stuff, which I can't stand. But everybody who knows him seems to think he's a terrific guy. Maybe I've misjudged him.

Dishonorable Mention: January 22, 1898: Ross Barnett. As Governor of Mississippi in 1962, he tried to prevent the desegregation of the University of Mississippi. President John F. Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard, taking it from Barnett's control. A riot resulted, and Barnett sided with the rioting racists. But Kennedy and the would-be 1st black student at "Ole Miss," James Meredith, won.

Although Barnett was a Democrat -- the kind then called a "Dixiecrat" -- today's Republican Party would probably like to put up a statue of him, and dare today's civil rights activists to tear it down.

10. January 22, 1940: George Seifert. The San Francisco native served as an assistant coach to Bill Walsh at Stanford University, and then with the San Francisco 49ers, winning 3 Super Bowls. When Walsh retired, Seifert took them to 2 more, winning Super Bowls XXIV and XXIX.

9. January 22, 1898: Sergei Eisenstein. The Russian director made the silent Soviet propaganda films Battleship Potemkin (1925, about the failed 1905 Revolution) and October (1928, about the successful 1917 Revolution). In the sound film era, he made the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944).

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1934: Bill Bixby. If you're in my parents' generation, you might remember him starring in My Favorite Martian and The Courtship of Eddie's Father. If you're in my generation, you might remember him as Dr. David Banner (a re-imagining of the comic books' Dr. Bruce Banner) in The Incredible Hulk. If you're in a later generation, check them all out.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1940: John Hurt. In the 1984 film version of George Orwell's 1984, he opposed Big Brother. In the 2005 film version of V for Vendetta, he was Big Brother. He also starred in A Man for All Seasons, I, Claudius, Midnight Express, Alien, The Elephant Man, Scandal, Rob Roy, and the Harry Potter films, varying between heroes and villains.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1959: Linda Blair. For the record, she has done a lot more than play Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, its sequels, and even some of its parodies.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1965: Diane Lane. She has gone from starring as teenage girls to cheating wives to Superman's adoptive mother, Martha. You know why I said that name.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1969: Olivia d'Abo. She played a Bond Girl in The Living Daylights, and the reminiscing narrator's hippie sister on The Wonder Years, doing a great job of hiding her London accent both times.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1981: Beverley Mitchell. The former Lucy Camden on 7th Heaven is now a singer and a regular in Hallmark Channel Christmas movies.

8. January 22, 1927: Joe Perry. Joe the Jet was a member of the 49ers' "Million Dollar Backfield" in the 1950s, and became pro football's all-time leading rusher, although he was still active when he was surpassed by Jim Brown. Unlike fellow 49er legend Seifert, he is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1927: Lou Creekmur. A native of Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey, the offensive tackle helped the Detroit Lions win 3 NFL Championships. Stop laughing: It was a long time ago -- in 1952, 1953 and 1957 -- but it happened. He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

7. January 22, 1561: Francis Bacon. The Father of Empiricism, he was the top scientist in the world in his time, valued enough that he kept the favor of both Queen Elizabeth I and King James I -- something Sir Walter Raleigh was never able to do. (King James named him Viscount St. Alban.)

A contemporary of William Shakespeare, there are those who believe that Bacon was the actual author of Shakespeare's plays. This is ridiculous.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1573: John Donne. A contemporary of Bacon and Shakespeare, he was an official in the Church of England, and a poet. In one particular stanza, from his poem titled Meditation XVII, published in 1623, he entered 3 sayings into the English lexicon:

No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor
of thy friend's or of thine own were:
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

Somewhat Honorable Mention: January 22, 1788: George Gordon, Lord Byron. He was genuinely both a great poem and a war hero. He was also, in the words of one of his mistress, "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

6. January 22, 1957: Mike Bossy. Despite a back injury that cut his hockey career short at age 30, he scored 573 goals, peaking at 69 in the 1978-79 season. He then led the New York Islanders to 4 straight Stanley Cups. Denis Potvin might be the most important player in Islander history, but Bossy is up there with Martin Brodeur as the greatest hockey player in New York Tri-State Area history.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1916: Bill Durnan. He won 6 Vezina Trophies as the NHL's top goalie, and helped the Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup in 1944 and 1946.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1918: Elmer Lach. The center on the Canadiens' "Punch Line," with Maurice "the Rocket" Richard on the right and Hector "Toe" Blake on the left. He helped the Habs win the Stanley Cup in 1944, 1946 and 1953. In 1945, he won both the Hart Trophy as Most Valuable Player and the Art Ross Trophy as leading scorer. He won the Ross again in 1948.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1939: Jean-Claude Tremblay. How many Canadiens legends have January 22 as a birthday? J.C. was not the last. A 7-time All-Star, the defenseman helped them win the Cup in 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969 and 1971. He later helped the Quebec Nordiques win the WHA title in 1977.

Honorable Mention: January 22, 1946: Serge Savard. "The Senator" was another legendary Habs defenseman, winning the Cup in 1968, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979, the last of these as Captain. In 1969, he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP.

5. January 22, 1907: Dixie Dean. Not to be confused with his contemporary, American baseball pitcher Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean, William Ralph Dean had been known as "Digsy," and this became "Dixie." He was the leading scorer in English soccer in the 1920s and 1930s, including 60 goals in the 1927-28 season, a Football League record that still stands. So, if there were a baseball legend to whom he could be fairly compared, it was more likely Babe Ruth.

Another comparison with Ruth: Uniform numbers were first worn during his career. But, in English "football," numbers were given not to a player, but to a position. He was a "centre-forward," so he was given Number 9. He was the 1st player to wear the number, and is sometimes still considered the greatest, at least in the British Isles.

A native of Birkenhead, outside Liverpool, he led Everton, the city's "blue club," to the League title in 1928 and 1932, and the FA Cup in 1933. A statue of him now stands outside the team's stadium, Goodison Park.

4. January 22, 1949: Steve Perry. From San Francisco, but white, so no relation to Joe Perry. The lead singer of Journey, he knows full well that there is no "South Detroit," unless you want to count Windsor, Ontario, Canada. But, like the nonexistent "East Side of Chicago" in the multiply-screwed-up song "The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace, it just seemed to work. And if "Don't Stop Believin'" were the only song he ever wrote and sang, I'd still have him as an Honorable Mention on this list.

3. January 22, 1920: Alf Ramsey. It's hard to imagine a figure in English soccer with the same birthday as Dixie Dean who is more important. But Sir Alf is the one. A right back, the Dagenham native starred for Hampshire team Southampton, then came to North London to play for Tottenham Hotspur, helping them to win the 1951 League title.

That wouldn't be enough to put him on this list. In 1962, he managed Ipswich Town of Suffolk to their only League title. Add that, and he's an Honorable Mention for this list. But this title led the Football Association to hire him to manage the England national team. He led them to victory in a game to honor The FA's Centennial in 1963, against a "Rest of the World" all-star team. That led him to believe he could manage England to win the World Cup on home soil in 1966.

He got his players to the Final, against West Germany, and told them, "If, on the morrow, the Germans beat us at our national game on our soil, we'd do well to remember that, twice this century, we have beaten them at theirs on their soil." They did beat the Germans to win the World Cup. And that gets Sir Alf onto this list.

2. January 22, 1931: Sam Cooke. He left a career that could have seen him become the greatest male gospel singer of the 20th Century -- Mahalia Jackson already had the women's title wrapped up -- and switched to rock and roll. From 1957 to 1963, he cranked out hits like "You Send Me," "Chain Gang," "Cupid," "Twistin' the Night Away" and "Another Saturday Night."

The Civil Rights Movement led him to change course again. He'd told friends that he was ashamed that he hadn't written "Blowin' in the Wind," while Bob Dylan had. He recorded a great version of it. In 1964, he wrote and recorded "A Change Is Gonna Come." But, under suspicious circumstances, he was shot and killed before it could be released. We'll never know if he had a What's Going On in him, like Marvin Gaye later showed he had. (And his ending, while not exactly the same, was all too similar to Sam's.)

1. January 22, 1909: U Thant. (Pictured above.) That's pronounced "Ooh tahnt." In Myanmar, known as Burma during his lifetime, "U" is an honorific, similar to "Sir" in English-speaking countries and "Don" or "Dom" in countries where the leading tongue is a Romance language. A close friend of U Nu, the 1st Prime Minister after independence, he served in multiple Cabinet posts. In 1961, the United Nations elected him their Secretary-General, and he served 10 years as one of the world's great peace activists.

Still alive as of this writing: Kerr, Fieri, Seifert, Blair, Lane, d'Abo, Mitchell, Bossy, Savard, Perry. 

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