Top 10 January 3 Birthdays

Honorable Mention: January 3, 1909: Victor Borge. A decent composer, a fine pianist, and a great comedian. The native of Denmark would tell English-speaking audiences, "It's your language, I'm just using it!"

He hadn't used it all until 1940: Jewish, he escaped the Nazi invasion of his homeland disguised as a sailor, with $20 in his pocket. Bing Crosby gave him his big break, and Ed Sullivan gave him a bigger one. He thrilled audiences from Carnegie Hall to Sesame Street -- each including me. I also saw him at Lincoln Center. That's right: Twice, I put on a suit and took a bus into New York City to see him perform. That's enough to give somebody a swelled head. I don't think he had one, but he earned it.

But he's not the most important musical personality on this list.

Honorable Mention: January 3, 1945: Stephen Stills. Before he and Neil Young worked with David Crosby and Graham Nash, as big as that was, they worked together in the band Buffalo Springfield.

But he's not the most important musical personality on this list, either:

Honorable Mention: January 3, 1926: George Martin. He produced The Beatles' recordings. He also fired drummer Pete Best and replaced him with Ringo Starr. We will never know how much of a difference that made.

Honorable Mention: January 3, 1950: Victoria Principal. The former Pamela Barnes Ewing on Dallas was, for a time in the 1980s, the 2nd-biggest exercise-video seller behind Jane Fonda. She has made over $1.5 billion on skin care products. She now runs a ranch outside Los Angeles, and is involved in animal rescue. In that aspect, at least, she could be the new Betty White. And she's still gorgeous at 72.

Dishonorable Mention: January 3, 1956: Mel Gibson. In spite of his great acting talent, he would be a rotten person even without the anti-Semitism.

10. January 3, 2003: Greta Thunberg. She has raised more awareness of the effects of climate change than most scientists with long records. And she's only 19. What did you do with the 1st 19 years of your life?

9. January 3, 1937: Glen A. Larson. You may not know his name, his face, or his voice, but you know his work. The TV shows he made include Alias Smith and Jones. Quincy, M.E. B.J. and the Bear. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Battlestar Galactica. Magnum, P.I. The Fall Guy. And Knight Rider.

You may have noticed that they tend to have great theme music. What you may not know is that Larson was in music before any of that. He was a member of The Four Preps, the late 1950s Los Angeles-based vocal group, and wrote their hits "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)," "Big Man" and "Down By the Station."

8. January 3, 1923: Hank Stram. Coached the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs franchise to 3 American Football League Championships, including losing Super Bowl I and winning Super Bowl IV.

7. January 3, 1929: Sergio Leone. An Italian director filming American actors, recreating the Old West in the sparse southern deserts of Spain, he invented the "Spaghetti Western." He turned Clint Eastwood from a secondary member of the cast of the TV show Rawhide into "The Man With No Name" in A Fistful of Dollars. He turned the beloved Henry Fonda into a villain with Once Upon a Time In the West. And he moved up a few decades to tell a gangster story in Once Upon a Time In America.

6. January 3, 1964: Cheryl Miller. She might be the best basketball player in her own family, which is saying something, because her younger brother is Reggie Miller. She is still on the short list for the title of greatest player in the history of women's basketball. She was already into coaching when the WNBA was founded, but the league wouldn't have happened without her.

5. January 3, 1882: J.R.R. Tolkien. John Ronald Ruel survived the Battle of the Somme in World War I, and put his experience to work in writing The Lord of the Rings, inspiring writers as diverse as George R.R. Martin and Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant.

Speaking of Zep:

Honorable Mention: January 3, 1946: John Paul Jones. Real name John Richard Baldwin, he was the bass guitarist and keyboard player for Led Zeppelin.

4. January 3, 1883: Clement Attlee. Leader of Britain's Labour Party from 1935 to 1955, he served as Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951, and instituted all kinds of reforms, most importantly the National Health Service.

3. January 3, 1939: Bobby Hull. The Golden Jet was the most exciting hockey player between Maurice Richard and Wayne Gretzky. He was the 1st player to score more than 50 goals in a season. Before Bobby Orr, the Chicago Black Hawks' left wing was the player who did the most to make hockey accessible to Americans.

His brother Dennis Hull was a Chicago teammate, a good but not great player known as the Silver Jet. His son Bobby Hull Jr. played in the Canadian Football League. And his son Brett Hull, known as the Golden Brett, actually scored more NHL goals than Bobby did -- although not more when Bobby's World Hockey Association goals are counted.

2. January 3, 106 BC: Marcus Tullius Cicero. Unlike most people who lived in the 1st Century before Christ, much of what he wrote, and thus much of what he thought, survives. It is believed that three-quarters of all Latin writing from his lifetime that survives, he wrote. That shows what esteem he was held in during his lifetime: His work was preserved even after he lost favor.

In 63 BC, he exposed the conspiracy of Catiline that threatened to turn Rome from a republic to a dictatorship. But he couldn't do it a second time, and his speeches against Julius Caesar ultimately led to the deaths of both men, as the Brutus-Cassius conspiracy assassinated Caesar and Mark Antony took his revenge on Caesar's enemies, including Cicero.

To this day, he is cited by people speaking of the classical period. American Revolutionaries such as Thomas Jefferson would cite him while making the case for American independence.

1. January 3, 1981: Eli Manning. He was never a better quarterback than his brother Eli -- except when playing Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. He is the greatest quarterback in New York football history, greater than Phil Simms, greater even than Joe Namath. Most importantly of all, he taught Tom Brady that you don't have to cheat to win a Super Bowl. Or two.

Honorable Mention: January 3, 1980, David Tyree. His "Helmet Catch" helped Eli get to that status. It is rather neat that they share a birthday, just one year apart.

Still alive at this writing: Stills, Principal, Gibson, Thunberg, Miller, Jones, Hull, Manning and Tyree.