Top 10 January 22 Birthdays
Honorable Mention: January 22, 1890: Fred Vinson. He served 14 years in Congress from a district in his native Kentucky, as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury right after World War II, and then 7 years as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Honorable Mention: January 22, 1893: Conrad Veidt. His role as a tragic figure in the 1928 German silent film The Man Who Laughs was, along with an American silent film titled The Bat, an inspiration for the characters of Batman and the Joker. Ironically from our perspective, The Bat was a villain, while The Man Who Laughs was a reluctant hero. When the Nazis came to power in his homeland, Veidt and his Jewish wife fled to America. He chose to accept roles as Nazis to show how evil they were. His best-known role is that of SS officer Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca . He did not live to see the Nazis fall, but it wasn't war that killed him: He died of a heart attack mere months aft...