Happy Birthday Stephen Colbert Gladys Knight and Frankie Valli Celeb
Happy Birthday Stephen Colbert, Gladys Knight and Frankie Valli, Celeb... Beauty & Style
Member Discounts! AARP Members! As the last of the and more baby boomers are retiring, AARP celebrates the generation that changed the world.
Happy May Birthday to
Stephen Colbert Gladys Knight and the Jersey Boy Himself Frankie Valli plus other celebs turning 50 60 70 or 80 this month
MAY 1
Rita Coolidge, 70: The Grammy winner (and former wife of country rocker Kris Kristofferson) hit it big in the ’70s with Boz Scaggs’s “We’re All Alone.” Exploring her Cherokee heritage, she later formed a Native American-inspired musical trio called Walela.MAY 3
Frankie Valli, 80: “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Rag Doll” are just two hits Valli performed with the iconic Four Seasons. Catch the band’s story on the big screen next month in Jersey Boys, a new film directed by Clint Eastwood and based on the award-winning Broadway musical.MAY 4
Pia Zadora, 60: She had roles in low-profile ’80s films (Butterfly, The Lonely Lady) and later toured with Frank Sinatra — who, she’s said, had such a temper he’d throw pasta at people, “sauce and everything.” She now sings regularly at a Vegas restaurant.MAY 8
Melissa Gilbert, 50: Gilbert was Laura Ingalls Wilder (“Half-Pint,” to Pa) on NBC’s Little House on the Prairie, and later played “Ma” onstage in a musical version. President of the Screen Actors Guild from 2001-05, she has a new hubby, the actor Timothy Busfield.MAY 13
Stephen Colbert, 50: Colbert’s satiric rendition of a conservative blowhard on Comedy Central’s Emmy-winning The Colbert Report is nearing its end. We’ll soon discover the mysterious “real” Colbert when he replaces David Letterman on CBS’s Late Show next year.MAY 14
George Lucas, 70: There are few who’ve had a greater influence on popular culture than Lucas, mastermind behind the immortal Star Wars franchise. He now plans to build a museum for his vast collection of American art and movie memorabilia.MAY 18
Dwayne Hickman, 80: In 1959 Hickman became the girl-chasing Dobie Gillis, with beatnik-ish pal Maynard (Bob Denver), on CBS’s The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Last year’s release of a DVD set with all 147 episodes was, as Maynard might have said, “Cool, daddy-o.”MAY 19
Jim Lehrer, 80: The go-to presidential debate moderator and venerable newsman of PBS NewsHour semiretired in 2011, but he’s still often on-air. Lehrer also writes novels, including White Widow, about a bus driver who falls for a beautiful stranger.MAY 20
Joe Cocker, 70: The bluesy British rocker’s huge hits include his version of “With a Little Help From My Friends” in 1968 and, later, “Up Where We Belong.” Besides his raspy voice, he’s known for, as Rolling Stone once put it, his “insane spastic contortions” onstage.MAY 22
Garry Wills, 80: The prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning historian has written many critiques of the Catholic Church (last year’s book was Why Priests? A Failed Tradition). His new tome, Making Make-Believe Real: Politics as Theater in Shakespeare’s Time, is out next month.MAY 23
Marvin Hagler, 60: The undisputed world middleweight champion in the ’80s, Marvelous Marvin Hagler is forever famous for his much-disputed 1987 loss to Sugar Ray Leonard. Leonard declined Hagler’s request for a rematch, and Hagler retired soon after.MAY 24
Patti LaBelle, 70: The Grammy winner, whose biggest hit was “Lady Marmalade” in 1974, was later a fixture on ’80s radio (“On My Own,” “New Attitude”). She’s also a foodie, with cookbooks, a line of Patti’s Good Life sauces and a widely praised mac-and-cheese recipe.MAY 26
Lenny Kravitz, 50: Most recently he’s played Katniss’s stylist Cinna in The Hunger Games movies, but Kravitz is really a rocker: The Grammy winner’s many hits include “Are You Gonna Go My Way” and “Fly Away.” His daughter, Zoë, 25, is an actress, singer and model.MAY 28
Gladys Knight, 70: The Empress of Soul is now a great-grandmother, but she was just a kid when she and family members formed Gladys Knight & the Pips, with chart-toppers such as “Midnight Train to Georgia.” She still performs a lot; she’ll be in seven cities this month.MAY 28
Rudolph Giuliani, 70: While he reigned as New York’s crime-fighting mayor from 1994 to 2001, the city’s murder rate plunged. But not everyone’s a fan (or gives Giuliani credit for the change); he lost the 2008 Republican presidential primary and now runs a consulting firm.MAY 30
Wynonna Judd, 50: She and mom Naomi were the hit-making country duo the Judds in the ’80s, before Wynonna went solo. These days she performs with her band the Big Noise at concerts — where for $250 you can meet and have a photo taken with the star.Boomers@50
Member Discounts! AARP Members! As the last of the and more baby boomers are retiring, AARP celebrates the generation that changed the world.