Top 10 February 19 Birthdays

10. February 19, 1930: John Frankenheimer. He directed Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May and Black Sunday.

9. February 19, 1942: Paul Krause. A safety, he made 8 Pro Bowls, 2 with the Washington Redskins, 6 with the Minnesota Vikings. He was a member of all 4 Viking teams that reached the Super Bowl, but lost them all. He is the NFL's all-time leader with 81 interceptions, and returned 6 of them for touchdowns. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and both the Redskins’ and Vikings’ team halls of fame.

8. February 19, 1946: Karen Silkwood. She worked at a nuclear energy plant in Oklahoma, and discovered dangerous working conditions. She testified before the Atomic Energy Commission in 1974, and within months she was killed in a car crash. It may not have been an accident. She was played by Meryl Streep in the 1983 film Silkwood.

7. February 19, 1943: Homer Hickam. This guy is a real rocket scientist. No, he really is one. His memoir Rocket Boys became the film October Sky.

6. February 19, 1916: Eddie Arcaro. He won the Kentucky Derby 5 times, and the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes 6 times each. He is the only jockey to win all 3 races in the same year, the Triple Crown, twice: Aboard Whirlaway in 1941 and Citation in 1948.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1935: Dave Niehaus. Hall of Fame broadcaster for the Seattle Mariners.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1954: Sócrates. In full, Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira. Known as Doctor Sócrates, because he actually was a licensed physician, he was the greatest Brazilian soccer player of the 1980s.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1957: Dave Stewart. The pitcher won 20 or more games 4 straight seasons, 1987 to 1990. Three times with the Oakland Athletics, and once with the Toronto Blue Jays, "Smoke" reached the World Series. But he only made 1 All-Star Team, and never won a Cy Young Award. His career record was 168-129, and the A's retired his Number 34. (He wore it with them after Rollie Fingers did, and now, it's retired for both of them.) He went on to become one of the top pitching coaches in baseball.

Dishonorable Mention: February 19, 1959: Roger Goodell. It amazes me that a Commissioner of the National Football League could be this weak.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1961: Justin Fashanu. The forward starred for English soccer teams Norwich City and Nottingham Forest in the 1980s. "Fash" became the 1st English player, and the 1st player in the English league, to come out as gay. He faced terrible taunting from fans for this, to the point where no player has felt confident enough to come out since. A criminal investigation into his sex life, possibly a frame-up, led to his suicide in 1998.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1962: Hana Mandlíková. She won the Australian Open in 1980 and 1987, the French Open in 1981, and the U.S. Open in 1985; but she couldn't quite complete "the career Grand Slam," losing Wimbledon Finals in 1981 and 1986.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1986: Marta Vieira da Silva. Yes, female Brazilian soccer players also generally get referred to by just their first name, or a nickname. Like Pelé, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Neymar, she wore the Number 10 shirt for a Brazil national team. Until the U.S. teams of the 2010s, she was regarded almost universally as the greatest female soccer player of all time. She now plays for the Orlando Pride of the National Women's Soccer League.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1995: Nikola Jokić. Already a 4-time NBA All-Star, the center for the Denver Nuggets was named the league's Most Valuable Player last season. This "Joker" drives opponents bats, but would rather win the Larry O'Brien Trophy than an Oscar.

5. February 19, 1924: Lee Marvin. He was known for playing tough guys, none tougher than Major John Reisman in The Dirty Dozen.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1717: David Garrick. The foremost English stage actor of his time was best known for starring as Shakespeare's Richard III, and became the era's top theatrical producer as well.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1893: Cedric Hardwicke. Another giant of Shakespeare, he was just 41 when he was knighted, the youngest actor so honored.

That record wouldn't last long: Laurence Olivier was knighted at 40. He and Hardwicke teamed up for a film version of Richard III, with Olivier in the title role and Hadrwicke as his brother and predecessor, King Edward IV. That film's 1956 broadcast on NBC did more to popularize Shakespeare in America than any production. Later in the year, Hardwicke played the elder Pharoah in The Ten Commandments.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1911: Merle Oberon. She played Anne Boleyn, Catherine Earnshaw, Josephine Bonaparte and George Sand.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1955: Jeff Daniels. He's played dumb, and dumber, but also considerably smarter.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1966: Justine Bateman. She played Mallory Keaton on Family Ties, but has long since been surpassed in fame by her brother Jason.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1967: Benicio del Toro. He's not your usual suspect: He's played a bunch of tough guys, including Che Guevara and Pablo Escobar.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 2001: David Mazouz. He played the young, pre-Batman Bruce Wayne on Gotham.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 2004: Millie Bobby Brown. She plays Jane Hopper, a.k.a. Eleven, on Stranger Things. Aside from her name, she has no connection to any other famous person named Bobby Brown.

4. February 19, 1917: Carson McCullers. A pioneer in the writing genre known as "Southern Gothic," her best-known novel is The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1952: Amy Tan. With her 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club, she launched a career as America's leading writer of Asian descent.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1958: Helen Fielding. She writes the Bridget Jones novels.

3. February 19, 1940: Smokey Robinson. No less than Bob Dylan has called William Robinson Jr. "America's greatest living poet." For Mary Wells, he wrote "My Guy." For The Temptations, he wrote "My Girl." Both hit Number 1. For his group The Miracles, he wrote "Shop Around," "The Tracks of My Tears," "Ooh, Baby, Baby" and "The Tears of a Clown." For his solo career, he wrote "Cruisin'" and "Being With You."

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1940: Bobby Rogers. He was born on the exact same day as Smokey, and was his groupmate in The Miracles.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1943: Lou Christie. He came along a little too late to be a doo-wop singer, although he took the Frankie Valli falsetto style and made his own version. And he was a few years too early to be a disco singer, although by the late 1960s, he had the hair and clothes for it.

He still had a few hits, including the 1966 Number 1 hit "Lightnin' Strikes" -- a song that wouldn't make it in the #MeToo climate.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1948: Tony Iommi. An injury to his fingers caused a guitar-playing style no one had heard before. And so, as the guitarist for Black Sabbath, he is sometimes called the inventor of heavy metal.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1963: Seal. Born Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel, he was one of the top singers of the 1990s and 2000s.

Honorable Mention: February 19, 1993: Victoria Justice. A Disney-created star, launched on the Disney Channel show Victorious.

2. February 19, 1880: Álvaro Obregón. The Mexican Revolution lasted from 1910 to 1920, and threw the country into chaos. General Obregón was the leader who settled things, and then served as the 1st post-Revolution President, from 1920 to 1924. He is 2nd only to Benito Juarez among his country's heroes.

1. February 19, 1473: Nicolaus Copernicus. Or, in his native Polish, Mikołaj Kopernik. A mathematician and astronomer, he was the 1st person in the modern world to postulate that the Earth revolves around the Sun, instead of the other way around. He wrote his findings in On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, but suffered a stroke in 1543, and legend has it that he was shown the final copy that was ready to be released, and, satisfied, died.

Still alive as of this writing: Krause, Hickam, Stewart, Goodell (from the neck down, anyway), Mandlíková, Marta, Jokić, Daniels, Bateman, del Toro, Mazouz, Brown, Tan, Fielding, Robinson, Christie, Iommi, Seal and Justice.