As I noted last month, I am going to note some folks born in February 1953, so they are turning 70. I don’t have a full post. This is a one-year offering.
Mary Steenbergen (8th): I’ve seen her in a LOT of her early films. Time After Time (1979), followed by Melvin and Howard (1980), for which she won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. After that, A Midsummer’s Night Sex Comedy (1982), Parenthood (1989), Back To The Future Part III (1990), What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Philadelphia (1993), and Nixon (1995). Nothing else on film except The Help (2011).
She’s been married to Ted Danson since 1995. They met during the filming of the 1993 movie Pontiac Moon.
Here’s a seven-minute video of Mary on IMDb.
ABC News
Martha Raddatz (14th) has been on ABC News since 1999, initially covering the State Department. She became ABC’s senior national security correspondent in 2003, reporting extensively from Iraq. She’s been Chief Global Affairs Correspondent since 2008.
Also, she’s the co-anchor of the Sunday morning program This Week. I find her ability to herd the talking heads much better than the chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos.
She wrote the bestseller The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family. The book about the siege of Sadr City, Iraq, became a TV miniseries in 2017 on NatGeo.
Raddatz and Anderson Cooper were co-moderators for the second presidential debate in 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Many appreciated “their ‘no-nonsense approach’ and ‘aggressive style” though Raddatz was criticized for a challenge to one of Trump’s statements, which some journalists felt ‘fell outside of her mandate as moderator.'” As a viewer, I thought she was great.
More than SNL
Christine Ebersole (21st) has appeared in films I’ve seen, from Tootsie (1982) to Licorice Pizza (2021). She’s done episodic television; since 2019, she’s been a regular on Bob Hearts Abishola. She was a regular on Saturday Night Live from 1981-1982.
But her greatest success was on the stage. Her IBDb notes her Tonys for 42nd Street (2001) and Grey Gardens (2007), plus two more nominations.
X
Back in 2014, I wrote a post about the band X featuring John Doe (25th). (I have refreshed some of the links.)
In 2020, X put out its first album in 35 years, Alphabetland.
Economist
I’ve noted that people either admire or loathe economist Paul Krugman (28th). I’m in the former camp.
On Krugman’s Wikipedia page, economist J. Peter Neary contends that “‘no discussion of his work could fail to mention his transition from Academic Superstar to Public Intellectual. Through his extensive writings, including a regular column for The New York Times, monographs and textbooks at every level, and books on economics and current affairs for the general public … he has probably done more than any other writer to explain economic principles to a wide audience.”
For instance, he tweeted on January 20, 2023: “One thing I’ve been noticing in my correspondence is how many people think inflation is still running wild; the big deceleration in the 2nd half of 2022 hasn’t broken through to public consciousness.”
