Top 10 April 5 Birthdays

10. April 5, 1920: Arthur Hailey. He wrote Hotel, which became an ABC drama series; and Airport, which inspired 4 disaster films -- 6 if you count the two Airplane! films that spoofed the previous 4.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1917: Robert Bloch. He wrote Psycho, which was turned into Alfred Hitchcock's defining film; and "Wolf in the Fold," the "Jack the Ripper episode" of Star Trek.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1950: Ann C. Crispin. She wrote novels set in the realms of both Star Trek and Star Wars, including biographies of Sarek (Spock's father) and Han Solo (published long before the production of the film Solo: A Star Wars Story, and since contradicted).

9. April 5, 1827: Joseph Lister. A pathologist, he was a pioneer in antiseptic surgery and preventative medicine.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1649: Elihu Yale. In 1701, he founded the New College of Connecticut. It was renamed for him: Yale University. Graduates are known as Sons of Old Eli, or just Elis.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1949: Judith Resnik. The 1st Jewish woman to fly in space, she was a doctor of engineering and a pilot who flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1984. Unfortunately, she was also a member of the doomed crew of the Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

8. April 5, 1982: Hayley Atwell. She plays Agent Peggy Carter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I love her.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1883: Walter Huston. One of the leading Broadway actors of the early 20th Century, he won an Oscar for his performance in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, directed by his son, John Huston. The acting dynasty he began has now stretched to a 4th generation.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1901: Curt Bois. He may have had the longest film acting career ever, appearing in a German silent film at age 6 in 1907, and in the short film Das letzte Band at age 88 in 1989. But he will be forever remembered as the unnamed pickpocket in Casablanca: "This place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere!"

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1901: Melvyn Douglas. He won a Tony Award for The Best Man in 1960, an Oscar for Hud in 1963, and an Emmy for CBS Playhouse: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night in 1968.

His wife, Helen Gahagan Douglas, was an actress who served 3 terms as a Congresswoman from California, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 1950, losing to Richard Nixon, and giving him the nickname that would follow him for the rest of his life: "Tricky Dick." Their granddaughter is actress and producer Ileana Douglas.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1922: Gale Storm. She starred on My Little Margie from 1952 to 1955, and The Gale Storm Show from 1956 to 1960. She also sang, her biggest hit being a whitebread cover of Smiley Lewis' "I Hear You Knockin'."

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1926: Roger Corman. He specialized in directing B-movies in the 1950s, including the original 1954 version of The Fast and the Furious. In the 1960s, he directed a series of films based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1933: Frank Gorshin. He started as an impressionist, best known for imitation actor Kirk Douglas. But he became a legend playing supervillain the Riddler on the 1966-68 Batman series.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1946: Jane Asher. She could have been remembered as one of the rising stars of British drama, but, at the time, she was dating Paul McCartney of The Beatles, and that's overshadowed everything she's ever done, even though they never married. Her brother Peter Asher was half of the British singing duo Peter & Gordon.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1952: Mitch Pileggi. He played Walter Skinner on The X-Files, Colonel Steven Caldwell on Stargate Atlantis, Ernest Darby in Sons of Anarchy, and Harris Ryland on the revival of Dallas.

7. April 5, 1942: Allan Clarke. He was the lead singer and main songwriter of the British band The Hollies.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1928: Tony Williams. The lead singer of The Platters.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1929: Joe Meek. He produced the 1st record by a British rock band to hit Number 1 in America -- and it wasn't The Beatles. It was The Tornadoes, with the instrumental "Telstar" in 1962. He also produced "Have I the Right?" by The Honeycombs.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1931: Jack Clement. "Cowboy Jack" played guitar on Jerry Lee Lewis' "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," wrote Johnny Cash's "Ballad of a Teenage Queen," and produced Cash's "Ring of Fire," coming up with the idea for the mariachi horns.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1939: Ronnie White. An original member of The Miracles, he and groupmate Smokey Robinson wrote "My Girl." Ronnie also discovered Stevie Wonder.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1950: Agnetha Fältskog. She and Anni-Fri Lyngstag were the A's in ABBA, as Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson were the B's.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1966: Mike McCready. The lead guitarist for Pearl Jam.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1968: Paula Cole. She'll forever be remembered for "I Don't Wanna Wait," because it became the theme from the TV show Dawson's Creek.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1973: Pharrell Williams. He either co-wrote, co-produced, or both, the following and more: Wreckx-n-Effect's "Rump Shaker" ("All I wanna is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom-and-a-boom-boom"), Mystikal's "Shake Ya Ass" (there seems to be a pattern developing), Nelly's "Hot In Herre" (the theme takes a bit of a turn), Britney Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U," Justin Timberlake's "Rock Your Body," Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot," Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl," Daft Punk's "Get Lucky," and Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines." (Which, while abominable on multiple levels, was very successful.)

6. April 5, 1922: Tom Finney. The forward starred for Lancashire team Preston North End, scoring 210 goals, but never winning a major trophy, finishing 2nd in the Football League in 1953 and 1958, and losing the FA Cup Final in 1954. He played for England in the 1950, '54 and '58 World Cups, including the U.S. team's 1-0 win over England in 1950. A statue of him now stands outside Deepdale, Preston's stadium.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1901: Albert "Doggie" Julian. He coached Holy Cross to college basketball's National Championship in 1947, and was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1945: Tommy Smith. The right back for Liverpool FC was so tough. (How tough was he?) His manager, Bill Shankly, said, "Tommy Smith wasn't born, he was quarried." He helped the Mersey Reds win the Football League title in 1966, 1973, 1976 and 1977; the FA Cup in 1965 and 1974; and the European Cup (now the UEFA Champions League) in 1977.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1975: John Hartson. The Welsh forward starred for several English soccer teams, and won 3 Scottish league titles with Glasgow team Celtic.

5. April 5, 1900: Spencer Tracy. In 1937 and '38, he won back-to-back Oscars, for Captains Courageous and Boys Town. He became best known for his 9 films with Katharine Hepburn, from Woman of the Year in 1942 until Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, his last film, in 1967.

4. April 5, 1761: Sybil Ludington. On April 26, 1777, this 16-year-old girl outdid Paul Revere. Her father, Colonel Henry Ludington, commanded a Colonial militia in Putnam, New York. She had heard about British troops burning nearby Danbury, Connecticut. She rode 20 miles on a rainy night, reached her father, and convinced him to march his men east. They were too late to save Danbury, but they made the British troops regret it.

She married a local farmer, had a son, and lived in obscurity until 1839. As with Revere, the details of her ride have been questioned, mostly by people who can't handle the possibility of a teenage girl topping one of the Founding Fathers' achievements.

3. April 5, 1937: Colin Powell. The 1st black man to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 4-star U.S. Army General commanded all allied troops in the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91. Many Republicans wanted him to run for President in 1996, but many others, fearing that his being black meant that he wasn't conservative enough, didn't want him to run. He didn't, for one very big reason: He didn't need the job, not to feed his ego, nor to secure his legacy.

In 2001, George W. Bush appointed him U.S. Secretary of State. In 2002, he went before the United Nations, claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Unlike Ambassador Adlai Stevenson 40 years before, he didn't have the proof with him. He basically said, "Trust me," and left it at that. It left a terrible mark upon his reputation, and he left after Bush's 1st term. He endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, saying that the Republican Party had abandoned his principles.

Somewhat Honorable Mention: April 5, 1588: Thomas Hobbes. In 1651, in the early years of Oliver Cromwell's tenure as dictator of the British Isles, he published Leviathan, in which he argued for a social contract between a nation's government and its people. But he also argued that said government should be led by an absolute sovereign.

Honorable Mention: April 5, 1726: Benjamin Harrison V. A Signer of the Declaration of Independence, his son William Henry Harrison and his grandson Benjamin Harrison VI both served as President of the United States.

2. April 5, 1916: Gregory Peck. He was King David, Captain Horatio Hornblower, Captain Ahab, Abraham Lincoln, Ambrose Bierce, Connie Mack, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Josef Mengele, Douglas MacArthur, and, in roles that defied bigotry for decades thereafter, Philip Schuyler Green in Gentleman's Agreement and Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

1. April 5, 1856: Booker T. Washington. Part of the last generation of black Americans born into slavery, by the turn of the 20th Century, he was America's leading black activist, the founder of what is now Tuskegee University in Alabama.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt made Washington the 1st black person invited to dine at the White House. The South had a fit. TR didn't care: It was the right thing to do.

Still alive as of this writing: Atwell, Corman, Asher, Pileggi, Clarke, Fältskog, McCready, Cole, Williams, Hartson.