“Big Daddy” Don Garlits is 80. Garlits was long the most prominent name in drag racing; he was the first to reach speeds above 170 in the quarter-mile, eventually topping 270.
Musician, composer, producer Allen Toussaint is 74.
Faye Dunaway is 71. Her name at birth was Dorothy Faye Dunaway. She won the best actress Oscar for Network; she was also nominated for Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown.
NPR’s Nina Totenberg is 68.
Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch is 65. Branch won the prize for Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63, part of his trilogy.
Joseph Henry “T-Bone” Burnett is 64. Once a member of Bob Dylan’s band, Burnett’s fame is as a music producer, including artists John Mellencamp, Los Lobos, Counting Crows, Elton John, Leon Russell and Natalie Merchant. He has won Grammy Awards for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Walk the Line and Crazy Heart, and for his work with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. He was nominated for Oscar for his songwriting contribution to the film Cold Mountain, and won the Oscar for best original song for “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart (shared with Ryan Bingham).
Apollo Creed is 64 today. That’s actor Carl Weathers.
Four-time Oscar nominee — writer, director, producer — Lawrence Kasdan is 63. Kasdan’s nominations were for The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist and Grand Canyon.
The columnist Maureen Dowd is 60. Dowd won the Pulitzer Prize for her commentary on the Clinton-Lewinsky nonsense. She has been an op-ed columnist at the Times since 1995.
Sidney Biddle Barrows is 60. Her occupation is listed as madam. More specifically she was the “Mayflower Madam” because of her well-established family.
Steven Soderbergh is 49 today. He won the best director Oscar for Traffic and was nominated for Erin Brockovich.
Emily Watson is 45. She has made some odd career choices: Watson turned down the role of Amélie, Audrey Tautou parlayed it into international fame; Watson also turned down the role of Elizabeth, which worked out well for Cate Blanchett. Watson has still garnered two best actress Oscar nominations.
James Todd Smith is 44. It might help if I gave his stage name: LL Cool J.
Jason Bateman is 43.
Andy Rooney would have been 93 today.
Guy Williams, Zorro and Professor John Robinson of Lost in Space, was born on January 14, 1924. He died of a brain aneurysm in 1989. At birth in New York City, Guy Williams was Armand Joseph Catalano.
William Bendix was born on this date in 1906. Bendix played the title role in The Babe Ruth Story and the eponymous role on radio and TV in The Life of Riley.
The theologian, missionary, musician, music scholar and Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer was born on this date in 1875.
It’s the birthdate of Benedict Arnold (1741), so no national holiday ever possible on January 14th, even if it is the anniversary of Today, whose first broadcast was January 14, 1952.