Today's Famous Birthdays

[IceWizard]

Lionel Barrymore
(born Lionel Herbert Blythe; April 28, 1878 – November 15, 1954)

was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award
for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931), and remains best known to modern audiences
for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. He is also particularly
remembered as Ebenezer Scrooge in annual broadcasts of A Christmas Carol during his last two decades.
He is also known for playing Dr. Leonard Gillespie in MGM's nine Dr. Kildare films, a role he reprised in a
further six films focusing solely on Gillespie and in a radio series titled The Story of Dr. Kildare. He was
a member of the theatrical Barrymore family.








Carolyn Sue Jones
(April 28, 1930 – August 3, 1983)

was an American actress of television and film. Jones began her film career in the early 1950s, and by
the end of the decade had achieved recognition with a nomination for an Academy Award for
Best Supporting Actress for The Bachelor Party (1957) and a Golden Globe Award as one of the most
promising new actresses of 1959. Her film career continued for another 20 years. In 1964, she began
playing the role of matriarch Morticia Addams in the original 1964 black and white television series
The Addams Family. Carolyn Jones was born in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Chloe Jeanette Southern,
a housewife, and Julius Alfred Jones, a barber. After their father abandoned the family in 1934, Carolyn
and her younger sister, Bette Rhea Jones, moved with their mother into her maternal grandparents' Amarillo home.









Ann-Margret Olsson
(born April 28, 1941)

is a Swedish-American actress and singer credited as Ann-Margret. She has won five Golden Globe Awards
and been nominated for two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and six
Emmy Awards, winning in 2010 for a guest role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She is known for her
roles in Pocketful of Miracles (1961), State Fair (1962), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Viva Las Vegas (1964),
The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Train Robbers (1973), Tommy (1975), Magic (1978),
The Villain (1979), The Return of the Soldier (1982), Who Will Love My Children? (1983), 52 Pick-Up (1986),
Newsies (1992), Grumpy Old Men (1993), Grumpier Old Men (1995), Any Given Sunday (1999), Taxi (2004),
The Break-Up (2006) and Going in Style (2017). Her singing and acting careers span seven decades, starting
in 1961. Initially, she was billed as a female version of Elvis Presley. She has a sultry, vibrant contralto voice.
She had a Top 20 hit song in 1961 and a charting album in 1964, and she scored a disco hit in 1979. She
recorded a critically acclaimed gospel album in 2001 and an album of Christmas songs in 2004.









Marcia Ann Strassman
(April 28, 1948 – October 24, 2014)

was an American actress and singer. She played Nurse Margie Cutler on M*A*S*H, Julie Kotter on
Welcome Back, Kotter, and Diane Szalinski in the film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). Strassman was born
in New York City and raised in Passaic, New Jersey. Among her earliest acting credits was an appearance
in an episode of The Patty Duke Show. In 1963, at age 15, she succeeded Liza Minnelli in the role of
Ethel Hofflinger in the Off-Broadway musical Best Foot Forward.









James Douglas Muir Leno
(born April 28, 1950)

is an American television host, comedian, writer, actor, and automotive historian. After doing stand-up
comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's The Tonight Show from 1992 until 2009 when
Conan O'Brien took over as host. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show,
The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ET, also on NBC. When O'Brien turned
down NBC's offer to have Leno host a half hour monologue show before The Tonight Show to boost
ratings amid reported viewership diminishing, Leno returned to hosting the show on March 1, 2010.
He hosted his last episode of his second tenure on February 6, 2014. That year, he was inducted
into the Television Hall of Fame. From 2014 to 2022, he has hosted Jay Leno's Garage, and since
2021, has hosted the revival of You Bet Your Life.









Penélope Cruz Sánchez
( born 28 April 1974)

is a Spanish actress. Known for her roles in films of several genres, particularly those in the Spanish
language, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy
Film Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and
five Screen Actors Guild Awards. She is the only Spanish actress to have won an Academy Award,
as well as the only one to have received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Signed by an agent at the age of 15, Cruz made her acting debut on television at 16, and her feature
film debut the following year in Jamón Jamón (1992). Her subsequent roles included Belle Époque (1992),
Open Your Eyes (1997), Don Juan (1998), The Hi-Lo Country (1999), The Girl of Your Dreams (2000),
and Woman on Top (2000). She is known for her frequent collaborations with Spanish director
Pedro Almodóvar in Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006), Broken Embraces (2009),
I'm So Excited! (2013), Pain and Glory (2019), and Parallel Mothers (2021), as well as for her work
with director Woody Allen in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and To Rome with Love (2012).









Jessica Marie Alba
(born April 28, 1981)

is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and film appearances at age 13
in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the
lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress,
and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005),
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008),
Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016).
She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005),
Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020,
Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.









Nelle Harper Lee
(April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016)

was an American novelist. She wrote the 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird that won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize
and became a classic of modern American literature. Lee received numerous accolades and honorary degrees,
including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 which was awarded for her contribution to literature.
She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Capote was
the basis for the character Dill Harris in To Kill a Mockingbird. The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird
are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near
her hometown in 1936 when she was 10. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race
and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children. It was inspired by
racist attitudes in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Go Set a Watchman, written in the mid 1950s,
was published in July 2015 as a sequel to Mockingbird
but was later confirmed to be an earlier draft of Mockingbird.









James Addison Baker III
(born April 28, 1930)

is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the
10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President
Ronald Reagan and the 61st U.S. Secretary of State before returning as the 16th White House Chief
of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. Born in Houston, Baker attended The Hill School and
Princeton University before serving in the United States Marine Corps. After graduating from the
University of Texas School of Law, he pursued a legal career. He became a close friend of
George H. W. Bush and worked for Bush's unsuccessful 1970 campaign for the United States Senate.
After the campaign, he served in various positions for President Richard Nixon. In 1975, he was
appointed Under Secretary of Commerce for Gerald Ford. He served until May 1976, ran Ford's 1976
presidential campaign, and unsuccessfully sought election as the Attorney General of Texas.









Saddam Hussein
(28 April 1937– 30 December 2006)

was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who was the fifth president of Iraq, from 16 July 1979
until 9 April 2003. He also served as prime minister of Iraq, first from 16 July 1979 until
23 March 1991, and later from 29 May 1994 to 9 April 2003. He was a leading member of the
revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its
regional organization, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism
and Arab socialism.