Top 10 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...

Honorable Mention: February 18, 1892: Wendell Willkie.  A corporate lawyer from Indiana, he was unexpectedly chosen as a compromise candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 1940, preventing the nomination of an isolationist candidate, and thus guaranteeing that, whoever won the general election, the Republican nominee or a re-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that President would be willing and prepared to take on the Nazi threat. It was the closest of FDR's 4 runs for President, and he and Willkie built a bipartisan alliance afterward. Willkie spent much of 1941 speaking about the need to stand up to the Nazis, and much of 1942 and 1943 raising money for the war effort. Unfortunately, as the 1944 campaign got underway, while Republicans engaged in a whispering campaign that FDR was dying, both Willkie and his 1940 running mate, Senator Charles McNary of Oregon, died before that election, so FDR outlived both of them -- barely. Dishonorable Mention: February ...

  Honorable Mention: February 17, 1924: Margaret Truman Daniel.  The only child of President Harry Truman, she wanted to be an opera singer. A scathing review of a 1950 concert in  The Washington Post  led to a nasty response from her father. Fortunately, she found something she was very good at: Writing murder mystery novels set in Washington, D.C. Somewhat Honorable Mention: February 17, 1981: Paris Hilton.  Just because she's frequently self-centered doesn't mean she's a rotten person. And she's gotten pretty far on what little talent she has. 10. February 17, 1929: Chaim Potok.  A rabbi who proved equally adept at writing history and novels, both about how Jewish people fit into both their own world and the larger world around them. 9. February 17, 1942: Huey P. Newton.  One of the most misunderstood Americans of the late 20th Century, as co-founder of the Black Panther Party, he started support programs including food banks, clothing banks, medica...

10. February 16, 1974: Mahershala Ali.  He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2017, for  Moonlight , making him the 1st Muslim to win an Oscar; and again in 2019, for  Green Book . He now plays Blade, the half-vampire vampire hunter, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Somewhat Honorable Mention: February 16, 1903: Edgar Bergen.  A ventriloquist... on radio? Well, he was still funny, with his dolls, the stuck-up Charlie McCarthy and the well-meaning moron Mortimer Snerd. Even during his lifetime, his fame was outstripped by that of his model-turned-actress daughter, Candice Bergen, who said that her father treated Charlie better than he treated her. Honorable Mention: February 16, 1909: Hugh Beaumont.  He played Ward Cleaver, the father on  Leave It to Beaver . Honorable Mention: February 16, 1951: William Katt. He played Ralph Hinkley, a teacher who finds a superhero's costume and its powers, but loses its instruction manual, on Th...

Honorable Mention: February 15, 1935: Roger Chaffee.  A Navy engineer, he was set to make his first spaceflight aboard Apollo 1 in 1967, but was killed in a fire during an engine test, along with crewmates Gus Grissom and Ed White. 10.  February 15, 1951: Jane Seymour.  She's not a doctor, but she played one on TV. She's also played Marie Antoinette, Brett Ashley, Wallis Simpson, Maria Callas and a Bond Girl.   Honorable Mention: February 15, 1907: Cesar Romero.  A New Yorker whose parents were from Barcelona, he enjoyed playing "Latin lover" types, and played at least one hero, the Mexican caballero the Cisco Kid, before he became the 1st man to play supervillain the Joker. Honorable Mention:  February 15, 1918: Allan Arbus.  In recent years, the man best known for playing psychiatrist Sidney Freedman on  M*A*S*H  has seen his ex-wife, the late photographer Diane Arbus, become more famous. Honorable Mention:  February 15, 1927: Har...

10. February 14, 1972: Rob Thomas.  The lead singer of Matchbox Twenty had the Number 1 song in the world at the turn of the 21st Century, "Smooth," with guitar licks from Carlos Santana. 9. February 14, 1907: Johnny Longden.  Once the all-time winningest jockey, he won the Triple Crown aboard Omaha in 1943. 8. February 14, 1882: John Barrymore . "The Great Profile" was considered the greatest American actor of his time. Brother of Lionel and Ethel, and grandfather of Drew. Honorable Mention: February 14, 1916: Edward Platt.  He played the Chief of CONTROL on  Get Smart . Honorable Mention: February 14, 1927: Lois Maxwell.  She played Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond films from 1962 to 1985. Honorable Mention: February 14, 1929: Vic Morrow.  Starred on the TV show Combat! but his greatest contribution to acting may be his daughter, Jennifer Jason Leigh. Honorable Mention: February 14, 1934: Florence Henderson.  Mrs. Brady. Honorable Mention: February ...

Somewhat Honorable Mention: February 13, 1910: William Shockley.  He led the team that invented the transistor. But he was also a big believer in eugenics and in black people being inferior. Somewhat Honorable Mention: February 13, 1944: Jerry Springer.  He actually did a good job as Mayor of Cincinnati. As for his hosting of a talk show, well, if you consider that his job was to appeal to the lowest common denominator, then he did a good job there, too. Dishonorable Mention: February 13, 1883: Hal Chase.  He could hit a little, and was said to be the best-fielding 1st baseman the game had yet seen. So when he made errors, people tended to blame the infielders throwing to him. Some knew better, that he was mishandling throws to tank games because he'd bet on his own team to lose. It finally got him banned from baseball. Otherwise, he would have had a shot at the Hall of Fame. 10. February 13, 1933: Kim Novak.  One of the all-time movie "blonde bombshells." 9. Februar...