Famous People Born in 1936 a to z

Actor and director Alan Alda has starred in several films, but is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce on the long-running television series M*A*S*H.

African-American entrepreneur Wally Amos founded the Famous Amos cookie brand. He also worked as a talent agent and discovered Simon & Garfunkel.

Civil rights activist Marion S. Barry Jr. has served four terms as mayor of D.C., with his career surviving numerous scandals.

Silvio Berlusconi is best known as a controversial Italian politician who was elected as Prime Minister three times.

J. Michael Bishop is a Nobel Prize winning physician and scholar who made groundbreaking discoveries in cancer research.

Cellular and molecular biologist Günter Blobel won the Nobel Prize in 1999 for his discoveries about proteins and their placement in the cell.

Chuck Brown, known as the "Godfather of Go-Go," played with Jerry Butler and The Earls of Rhythm in the early 1960s, and later joined Latin-American band Los Latinos. His hit songs include "I Need Some Money" and "Bustin' Loose."

Jim Brown is a record-holding, former NFL fullback who's been elected to his sport's Hall of Fame and who's also worked as a model and film actor.

Glen Campbell is best known for his country music career, and his later crossover success as an actor in films such as 1969's True Grit.

Wilt Chamberlain was the first NBA player to score more than 30,000 cumulative points over his career, and the first and only player to score 100 points in a single game.

Andrei Chikatilo was a former school teacher who murdered more than 50 young people in the Soviet Union.

Lucille Clifton is a poet whose works generally examine family life, racism and gender issues.

Teacher Marva Collins was one of the most influential education activists of the 20th century, working to gain equal access for minorities to quality education.

American television icon Don Cornelius created and hosted Soul Train, which spent more than 30 years on the air.

Bobby Darin was an American singer, songwriter and actor who became a ubiquitous presence in pop entertainment in the late 1950s and 1960s.

F.W. de Klerk was president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994, during which time he worked with Nelson Mandela to successfully end the country's apartheid system of racial segregation.

Albert Finney is an Oscar-nominated English actor known for playing Audrey Hepburn's love interest in Two for the Road and the title role in the musical version of A Christmas Carol, among several other roles.

James Hanratty was hanged in 1962 after being convicted of shooting a couple near London, but his guilt is still disputed.

Václav Havel is a playwright who in 1989 became the president of Czechoslovakia, contining on after the country became the Czech Republic until 2003.

Jim Henson was an American puppeteer best known for creating TV characters, including the Muppets, and for his work on the popular children's show Sesame Street.

Buddy Holly was a singer/songwriter whose records, conveying a sense of the wide-open spaces of West Texas and unstoppable joie de vivre, remain vital today.

Actor/director Dennis Hopper came to fame with 1969's Easy Rider. Later films like Blue Velvet and River's Edge cemented his legend.

British singer Engelbert Humperdinck made it big in 1967 with hit song "Release Me (And Let Me Love Again)."

Glenda Jackson is best known for her Academy Award winning roles in Women in Love and A Touch of Class.

Barbara Jordan was a U.S. congressional representative from Texas and was the first African American congresswoman to come from the Deep South.

Anthony Kennedy is an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court who was appointed by Ronald Reagan.

Michael Landon was an American actor, writer, director and producer known for his roles in I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie.

Henry Lee Lucas was a murderer best known for allegedly killing hundreds of people in the 1960s and '70s, though only three (including his mother) were confirmed.

Winnie Mandela was the controversial wife of Nelson Mandela who spent her life in varying governmental roles.

John McCain is a military hero and Republican U.S. Senator defeated by Barack Obama in the 2008 United States presidential election.

Writer Larry McMurtry is noted for his novels set on the frontier, in contemporary small towns, and in increasingly urbanized and industrial areas of Texas.

For three decades, Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has served in the U.S. Congress and been a strong supporter of women's issues.

Donald Neilson is best known as "The Black Panther", the English armed robber and murderer.

Singer-songwriter Roy Orbison wrote romantic 1960s pop ballads like "Oh, Pretty Woman." In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Famed pianist and composer Eddie Palmieri won nine Grammy Awards throughout his career, for albums like The Sun of Latin Music, Solito and Masterpiece.

Reggae artist and music producer Lee Perry was an early pioneer of reggae music and its offshoot, dub music, and recorded a young Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church in March 2013, becoming Pope Francis. He is the first pope from the Americas.

Robert Redford is a Hollywood legend, starring in several blockbuster films in his day, and producing and directing many others. He also helped start the Sundance Film Festival in the late 1970s.

Yves Saint Laurent was best known as an influential European fashion designer who impacted fashion in the 1960s to the present day.

Antonin Scalia is best known as an Associate Justice for the U.S. Supreme Court, appointed in 1986 by Ronald Reagan.

Police officer Frank Serpico exposed corruption in the New York City police department. He was the first officer to testify against another officer.

Tom Snyder co-anchored the first noon news show in the country. He was the host of the NBC interview show Tomorrow and The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder.

Mary Tyler Moore is an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress and television star know for her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Bill Wyman is best known for being the bass player for The Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.