Top 10 February 21 Birthdays

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1875: Jeanne Calment. She died in 1997, at the age of 122, making her the oldest person whose age has ever been verified. She lived in Arles, France, and, as a teenager, knew painter Vincent van Gogh, who lived there at the time.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1937: King Harald V of Norway. A 2nd cousin of Queen Elizabeth II (they're both great-grandchildren of Britain's King Edward VII), he represented his country in the sailing competitions in 3 Olympics.

Dishonorable Mention: February 21, 1794: Antonio López de Santa Anna. The victorious general at the Battle of the Alamo was called "The Napoleon of the West" and "The Man of Destiny." Apparently, his destiny was to get the hopes of the Mexican people up, then let them down, go into exile, and then come back and try it all over again. 

He lost Texas in 1836, then he lost 1/3rd of Mexico's territory in 1847. Still, he served as President on 10 separate occasions: For 18 days in 1833, for another 17 days in 1833, for another 49 days in 1833, for 5 years from 1834 to 1839, for a year in 1841 and 1842, for 8 months in 1843, for 3 months in 1844, for 12 days in 1847, for another 4 months in 1847, and for 2 more years from 1853 to 1855. That's 10 terms -- adding up to 9 1/2 years, but that's longer than all but 1 President of the United States.

Dishonorable Mention: February 21, 1924: Robert Mugabe. The founding father of the African nation of Zimbabwe, at first he picked up the pieces of the white-supremacist nation of Rhodesia and built a functioning state. Unfortunately, he followed the pattern of too many dictators all over the world, and made the state function pretty much to serve him.

10. February 21, 1925: Sam Peckinpah. He wasn't the 1st director to make "Revisionist Westerns," but with The Wild Bunch in 1969, he became one of the most revisionist. And most of his films, both Western and set in what was then the present day, were among the most violent yet seen.

9. February 21, 1907: W.H. Auden. He aptly called the 1930s and 1940s, the years of the Great Depression and World War II, the years of his poetic peak, The Age of Anxiety.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1903: Anaïs Nin. She's become so identified with interwar Paris that it's easy to forget she was Cuban. "Bohemian" is an ethnicity as well as a style, and she was one of the leading exemplars of the style of her generation.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1927: Erma Bombeck. America's postwar humorist housewife.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1962: Chuck Palahniuk. He wrote Fight Club. I don't want to talk about it.

8. February 21, 1934: Rue McClanahan. I was a bit too young to appreciate her as Vivian Harmon on Maude. For those who were old enough, it must have been a shock to see her very different persona as Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1915: Ann Sheridan. In 1939, a poll of American men chose her as the actress with "the most oomph." It was justified.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1946: Anthony Daniels. As the "protocol droid" C-3PO, he is the only actor to appear in all 9 "Episodes" of Star Wars.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1946: Tyne Daly. Starred as one of the titular New York detectives on Cagney & Lacey, and as the title character's social worker mother on Judging Amy.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1946: Alan Rickman. He played a bad guy in Die Hard, but a good guy in Galaxy Quest, and a bad guy who turned out to be a good guy in the Harry Potter films. By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Worvan, he has been avenged.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1955: Kelsey Grammer. It's been done in both daytime and nighttime drama, but, having played Dr. Frasier Crane on both Cheers and Frasier, he's the only person to play the same character in sitcoms for 20 straight years, albeit on 2 different shows.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1979: Jennifer Love Hewitt. She was the breakout character on Party of Five, and she wasn't even one of the five. She's currently on the Fox series 9-1-1, so now you know what she did last Summer.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1979: Jordan Peele. After being half of the comedy team of Key & Peele, he's turned to serious directing. Ten years from now, he may well be in the Top 10 here.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1987: Elliot Page. Born and initially credited as Ellen Page, the actor first got noticed playing a pregnant teenager in Juno, moved on to hosting and producing short gay activist films, and completed a transition to male.

7. February 21, 1946: Bob Ryan. A native of Trenton, New Jersey, closer to Philadelphia than to New York, he went to Boston College and got hooked on the Hub's teams, especially the dynastic Celtics. From 1969 to 2012, he wrote for The Boston Globe, and even after retirement as a writer, he still appears regularly on ESPN.

Aside from those who've played the game, he may know more about the NBA than anyone. The Basketball Hall of Fame gave him its award for media personalities, the Curt Gowdy Award.

6. February 21, 1964: Mark Kelly. He flew on 4 Space Shuttle missions, commanding 2. Married to former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, he took up the cause of gun control after she was shot, and, in 2020, won the Senate seat that she probably would have won.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1964: Scott Kelly. Mark's identical twin brother also flew on 4 Shuttle missions, and spent more time in space than Mark did. They remain the only pair of siblings to fly in space.

5. February 21, 1943: David Geffen. Maybe the world's most powerful entertainment executive, he is a titan in the music industry, and also a major film producer. His $100 million gift toward the renovation of Avery Fisher Hall at New York's Lincoln Center led the Center to rename it David Geffen Hall. He is also the all-time largest donor to the University of California system, which renamed UCLA's medical school for him.

4. February 21, 1925: Jack Ramsay. One of the titans of Philadelphia basketball, he is one of the few coaches to have succeeded at the high school, college and professional levels. "Dr. Jack" (he got his doctorate of education from the University of Pennsylvania) coached St. Joseph's University to the 1961 NCAA Final Four; was the general manager of the 1967 NBA Champion Philadelphia 76ers; was the head coach of the 1977 NBA Champion Portland Trail Blazers; and also coached the 76ers, the Buffalo Braves, and the Indiana Pacers into the NBA Playoffs, before a long career as an analyst with ESPN.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1958: Alan Trammell. The captain and shortstop of the 1984 World Series-winning Detroit Tigers, he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1967: Leroy Burrell. Twice, he set the world record in the 100-meter dash, eventually lowering it to 9.85 seconds. In 1992, he was part of the U.S. 4x100-meter relay team that won the Gold Medal at the Olympics in Barcelona.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1969: Tony Meola. From Kearny, New Jersey, one of the capitals of American soccer, he was the goalkeeper, and perhaps the leader, of the generation of players that brought the country back into the sport. He helped the U.S. team win the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 1991 and 2002, and played in the 1990, 1994 and 2002 World Cups.

When Major League Soccer was founded in 1996, he was the starting goalie for his "home team," the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (now known as the New York Red Bulls). In 2000, he helped the Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City) win the MLS Cup, and was named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1973: Brian Rolston. The center helped the New Jersey Devils win the 1995 Stanley Cup, and the U.S. national team win the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1991: Riyad Mahrez. The winger helped Leicester City win the most improbable of Premier League titles in 2016. Manchester City bought him, and in 2019, he helped them win an unprecedented "Domestic Treble": The Premier League title, the FA Cup and the League Cup, all in the same season. That same year, he led Algeria to win the Africa Cup of Nations. He got Man City another Premier League title in 2021.

3. February 21, 1933: Nina Simone. She wasn't the first performer to sing civil rights songs to jazz music, but she was the most forceful.

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1938: Bobby Charles. He was only 18 when Billy Haley & His Comets were the 1st act to have a hit with a song he wrote, "See You Later, Alligator." He wrote Fats Domino's "Walking to New Orleans" and Clarence "Frogman" Henry's "(I Don't Know Why) But I Do."

Honorable Mention: February 21, 1986: Charlotte Church. At 12, she was an opera-singing world star. But while still a teenager, she became a favorite target of the tabloids.

2. February 21, 1936: Barbara Jordan. In 1966, she became the 1st black person since Reconstruction to be elected to the Texas State Senate. In 1972, she became the 1st black woman elected to Congress from a Southern State.

Her speech in the House Judiciary Committee, while the Articles of Impeachment against President Richard Nixon were being debated in 1974, made her a legend. Her keynote address at the 1976 Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden stands alongside any sporting event as an iconic moment there. 

1. February 21, 1940: John Lewis. As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he spoke at the March On Washington in 1963. In 1965, he tried to lead the Selma-to-Montgomery March, and was nearly killed for his effort.

In 1986, he was elected to Congress from an Atlanta-based District, and with many of the older figures in the Civil Rights Movement having died, became its living embodiment until his own death.

Still alive as of this writing: King Harald, Palahniuk, Daniels, Daly, Grammer, Hewitt, Peele, Page, Ryan, both Kelly twins, Geffen, Trammell, Burrello, Meola, Rolston, Mahrez, Church.