Top 10 January 5 Birthdays

10. January 5, 1917: Jane Wyman. In 1948, she received an Academy Award for Johnny Belinda. In 1984, 36 years later, she received a Golden Globe Award for Falcon Crest. That was also a good year for her ex-husband: She was the 1st woman to be married to Ronald Reagan.

9. January 5, 1928: Walter Mondale. First elected to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota in 1964, the Democratic Party nominated him for Vice President in 1976, under Jimmy Carter. Carter gave him more responsibility than any Vice President had ever received, and he is now regarded as one of the best Vice Presidents.

The Carter-Mondale ticket was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980. In 1984, Mondale earned the Democratic nomination for President, but the Reagan campaign ran against "The Carter-Mondale Administration," and won big. It's worth nothing that one of the buttons and bumper stickers the Mondale campaign produced in suggesting that Reagan be dumped read, "Jane Wyman was right!"

8. January 5, 1592: Shah Jahan. You may not know his name, you certainly don't know his face, and no one since his death in 1666 has known his voice. But you know his work. In what is now Agra, India, he built a tomb for his wife, completed in 1648, known as the Taj Mahal.

7. January 5, 1944: Ed Rendell. He was elected Mayor of Philadelphia in 1991 and 1995, and proved it was possible to improve a city in deep trouble. He was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 2002 and 2006, and did pretty well there, too. He'd probably still be Mayor -- without ever having been Governor -- if not for term limits.

6. January 5, 1779: Stephen Decatur. His father, Stephen Sr., was one of the leaders of the original U.S. Navy. But his son surpassed him, and most other officers who have ever served. At age 25, he became the youngest Captain in U.S. Navy history. His service in the Barbary Wars (1801-05) and the War of 1812 (1812-15) made him a hero to a young nation looking for them. He was killed in a duel in 1820. He had more to do: He would have been 81 when the American Civil War began, so he could have become a President whose leadership prevented it.

5. January 5, 1876: Konrad Adenauer. Someone had to be the 1st Chancellor of a post-World War II Germany, and, though he was only 73, he was the choice. He had opposed the Nazis from day one as Mayor of Cologne, and had been imprisoned twice, so he was lucky to get that far.

He led West Germany to what was called an "economic miracle," and was a staunch ally to his fellow NATO nations as an opponent of the Communist world. Time magazine named him its Man of the Year in 1953. When he left office at age 87 -- the oldest elected leader in European history -- it was by his choice, not his country's.

4. January 5, 1932: Chuck Noll. The Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers are bitter rivals. But Noll played on the line for the Browns, winning 2 NFL Championships with them. Then he coached the Steelers to 4 Super Bowl wins, helping put together perhaps the greatest football team of all time.

3. January 5, 1931: Robert Duvall. He was Boo Radley in the 1st film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. He was Frank Burns in the film version of M*A*S*H. Since then, he's played Robert E. Lee, Jesse James, Gus McCrae, Dr. John Watson, Adolf Eichmann, Josef Stalin, Tom Hagen, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lieutenant Colonels Bill Kilgore and Bull Meechum. At 91, he refuses to retire. And why should he?

Honorable Mention: January 5, 1946: Diane Keaton. Also in The Godfather, she was also in the original Broadway production of Hair. (Which might have offended Duvall -- on two levels!) By the time she was 35, she had also filmed Annie Hall and Reds.

That was enough to make any actress a legend, but, like Duvall, she's never quit. Her later films including Baby Boom, Father of the Bride, Marvin's Room, The First Wives Club, Something's Gotta Give, and, to be released this year, Mack and Rita.

2. January 5, 1923: Sam Phillips. The head of Sun Records in Memphis, he discovered Elvis Presley. That would be enough, all by itself, to get him on this list. He also discovered Johnny Cash. That, also, would be enough to get him on this list. He also discovered Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison. When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was established, and began inducting people in a non-performer category, he was the 1st person so honored.

1. January 5, 1914: George Reeves. What does it say about an actor when he was in Gone With the Wind, and that's not his biggest role? In 1951, Reeves starred in Superman and the Mole Men, a film that was a backdoor pilot for the TV series The Adventures of Superman. The series stopped with his death in 1959, which raises questions still not satisfactorily answered. But, until Christopher Reeve came along, for millions of people, he was Superman.