Garret, Shirley and 'Izzy'1913 Geraldine Fitzgerald actress (Wuthering Heights, The Mango Tree, Rachel Rachel)
1942 Billy Connolly, comedian, actor, 'Mr. Brown' (he who was beloved by Judi Dench) and 'Barry' (he who was poisoned by Michelle Pfeiffer)
1949 Manuel De Sica composer (The Garden of the Fitzi Continis), Son of Vittorio
1954 Emir Kusturica two-time Cannes winning Serbian filmmaker behind Underground & When Father Was Away on Business (Oscar nominee)
1964 Garret Dillahunt, terrific actor who has lately specialized in the skin-crawlingly creepy (The Road, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and the endearingly pathetic (No Country For Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) but a blog post to whoever can tell me what the hell movie that photo is from up top!?!
1965 Shirley Henderson helium voiced actress, who billions will recognize as "Moaning Myrtle" but she's been quite memorable in some films like Topsy Turvy, Yes and Miss Pettigrew...
1977 Colin Hanks, Son of Tom
1978 Katherine Heigl "difficult" actress... though sometimes that's code word for "won't suffer fools". The difficult ones are sometimes well regarded after the fact (see: Bette Davis) but that's not until the dust settles. Think Katherine is burning too many bridges or just warming up her inner screen fire?
And finally today is the 93rd anniversary of the birth of Irwin Allen, multihyphenate "master of disaster". He's the 70s force behind The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure and less heralded TV films with wonderfully literal titles like "Fire!" and "Flood!".Roland Emmerich is not his direct descendant, biologically speaking, but you're forgiven if you assumed so. The 2012 director is also fond of staging epic disasters and end of civilization scenarios (The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC, Independence Day). Who saw and loved that Palin 2012 spoof on SNL? You have to laugh or you'll be too terrified to go on living.
