Thinking about the next year, 2008, I was tooling around the Dead or Alive website and found a search mechanism by date. All of these folks were born in 1918, so are hitting the big 9-0 in 2008, barring events:
Oral Roberts 01/24 that guy with a university named after himself
Ernie Harwell 01/25 the great announcer for the Detroit Tigers who shows up on ESPN occasionally
Philip José Farmer 01/26 science fiction writer
John Forsythe 01/29 I remember him best as the lead in a sitcom called Bachelor Father MANY years ago. Oh yeah, he was on Dynasty and was the voice of Charlie on Charlie’s Angels
Janet Waldo 02/04 voice actress (Judy Jetson, Josie of the Pussycats)
Allan Arbus 02/15 the shrink on the M*A*S*H TV show
Patty Andrews 02/16 surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters (Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree)
Don Pardo 02/22 announcer for the original JEOPARDY program and other game shows, as well as Saturday Night Live
Marian McPartland 03/20 great jazz pianist who my late friend Donna loved
Bobby Doerr 04/07 2nd base, BoSox
Betty Ford 04/08 started a health clinic of some kind, had a husband involved in politics
Jørn Utzon 04/09 designed the Sydney Opera House (I did not know that!)
Mike Wallace 05/09 a game show and talk show host who became that 60 Minutes guy
Eddy Arnold 05/15 noted country singer for decades
Joseph Wiseman 05/15 noted stage actor who I was not familiar with
Yasuhiro Nakasone 05/27 former prime minister of Japan; I knew that name was familiar
Barry Morse 06/10 the original Lt. Gerard on The Fugitive
Abigail Van Buren 07/04 the original Dear Abby; twin sister of the late Ann Landers Nelson Mandela 07/18 spent lots of years in jail before leading South Africa
Marjorie Lord 07/26 Danny Thomas’ TV wife
Helen Wagner 09/03 my grandmother used to watch As the World Turns and the Nancy Hughes character; I think she’s still on!
Paul Harvey 09/04 radio commentator I listened to decades ago; good day
Baby Peggy 10/26 a silent film start I had never heard of
Griffin Bell 10/31 US Attorney General under Jimmy Carter
Bob Feller 11/03 Rapid Robert was a pitcher for Cleveland
Billy Graham 11/07 probably somewhere in my house I have a book he wrote that I received when I was 9 called A Talk with God
Claiborne Pell 11/22 senator from Rhode Island; those educational grants are named for him
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. 11/30 actor I remember from The FBI TV show
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn 12/11 author of The Gulag Archipelago
Helmut Schmidt 12/23/1918 once chancellor of West Germany
Ahmed Ben Bella 12/25/1918 led the Algerian independence movement and later led the country; not a name I knew
Oh, and these guys were born in 1908, thus potentially hitting the century mark:
Michael DeBakey 09/07 heart surgeon
Claude Lévi-Strauss 11/28 French anthropologist
This database says it only has living people over 50. So why does Rodney Allen Rippy, who’s only turning 40, show up?
ROG
