Famous July Birthdays a to z

Van Cliburn was an acclaimed pianist who played with the New York Philharmonic and founded an international piano competition.

Chuck Close is noted for his highly inventive techniques used to paint the human face. He rose to fame in the late 1960s for his large-scale, photo-realist portraits.

Samuel Colt was an inventor and industrialist who created the revolver—most notably the .45-calibre Peacemaker model, which was introduced in 1873—and paved the way for the interchangeable parts system of manufacturing.

Calvin Coolidge was president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Coolidge was known for his quiet demeanor, which earned him the nickname "Silent Cal."

Stewart Copeland is best known as the drummer for The Police. Copeland is also an accomplished producer and composer of soundtracks for movies and television.

Jeff Corwin is a conservationist and the television host and producer of The Jeff Corwin Experience on the Animal Planet network.

Bill Cosby is an American comedian, actor and producer, who has played a major role in the development of more positive portrayal of African-Americans on television.

Cheryl Crane is the daughter of Hollywood legend Lana Turner. In 1958 when she was just 14 years old she committed murder, stabbing Turner's boyfriend after hearing him threaten to kill her mother.

A-list actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise is the star of many box office hits, including Risky Business, A Few Good Men, The Firm, and Jerry Maguire.

Famous in the NBA for his zealous management of the Dallas Mavericks, entrepreneur Mark Cuban has also owned multiple Internet startups and a theater chain.

Benedict Cumberbatch is a British screen actor, best known for his role on the BBC television show Sherlock.

Willem Dafoe is a gravelly voiced actor known for such films as Platoon, The Last Temptation of Christ and Finding Nemo.

Nicknamed "the Black Dahlia," Elizabeth Short was brutally murdered in Los Angeles in 1947, her body cut in half and severely mutilated. The Black Dahlia's killer was never found, making her murder one of the oldest cold case files in L.A. to date, and the city's most famous.

Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr., was the first African-American general for the U.S. Army, after starting as a volunteer in the Spanish-American War.

Oscar de la Renta is one of the world’s leading fashion designers. Famous for his women's evening wear and suits, his line is distinctly modern yet feminine.

Painter and sculptor Edgar Degas was a highly celebrated 19th-century French Impressionist whose work helped shape the fine art landscape for years to come.

Jamaican born singer Desmond Dekker was best known for creating several musical hits in the ska and reggae genres.

Actor Brian Dennehy was born on July 9, 1938, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. One of his first film roles was in Looking for Mister Goodbar (1977). Dennehy went on to act in more than 60 films and 70 television roles. He also won Tony awards for his stage

Jacques Derrida was an influential postmodern French philosopher who developed the analytic method known as Deconstruction.

Jack "Legs" Diamond was a Prohibition-era mob leader, hit man and bootlegger who was based in New York.

Vin Diesel is an actor known for his high-energy action movies, such as The Fast and the Furious franchise.

First noticed as a contestant on Groucho Marx's game show in 1955, Phyllis Diller went on to become a successful comedian, actress and author.

David Dinkins was the mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1994, and he was the first black mayor of the city.

Bob Dole is a former member of the U.S. House (1961-69) and U.S. Senate (1969-96) from Kansas. In 1996, he was the Republican Party's candidate for the presidency.

Tanya Donelly is a musician who was influential in the alternative music scene in the 1980s and 1990s with bands such as Throwing Muses.

Alexandre Dumas was a 19th-century French novelist and playwright whose best known works are The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Well regarded for her ability to portray quirky and eccentric characters, actress Shelley Duvall has starred in Thieves Like Us, Popeye and The Shining, among other films.

Thomas Eakins was a naturalist figure painter, portraitist and sculptor. He is considered one of the most influential artists in U.S. history.

Amelia Earhart, the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, mysteriously disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

Blake Edwards was an American film director, producer and screenwriter who was perhaps best known for The Pink Panther and its sequels.

Teresa Edwards is an American basketball player best known for winning five Olympic medals in women’s basketball including four gold and one bronze.

Missy Elliott is a Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist. A rapper and producer, she won the BET Award for best female hip-hop artist numerous times.

Tracey Emin is a British artist who emerged in the 1980s, during the "Young British Artists" movement. She is noted for her provocative and controversial pieces, including "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995," "My Bed" and "The Last Thing I Said To You is Don't Leave Me Here."

Actress Kathryn Erbe starred on the HBO prison drama Oz, and was also cast on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a spin-off of the popular crime drama Law & Order.

Boxer Marlen Esparza is the first American female to qualify in her sport at the Olympics. At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, she won a bronze medal.

Arthur Evans was a noted archaeologist and curator known for unearthing the remains of ancient Minoan civilization.

Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist who organized voter-registration efforts, demonstrations and boycotts of companies that practiced discrimination.

Actress Edie Falco starred in independent films and TV shows before her role as Mafia wife Carmela Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos made her a star.

Tim Ferriss is an author, blogger and motivational speaker known for his books The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body.

Actor Laurence Fishburne has appeared in Boyz N The Hood, What's Love Got to Do With It? (for which he received an Academy Award nomination) and The Matrix.

Pianist Leon Fleisher is best known for his compositions and performances of classical music.

Figure skater Peggy Fleming won the only U.S. gold medal in the 1968 Olympics. Later, she publicly battled breast cancer, beating it with radiation therapy.

Gerald Ford became the 38th president of the United States following Richard Nixon's resignation, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.

Harrison Ford is one of Hollywood's leading men, with an acting career that has spanned nearly 40 years and included iconic roles.

One of America's foremost industrialists, Henry Ford revolutionized assembly-line modes of production for the automobile.

Composer Stephen Foster is lauded as the progenitor of American popular music, penning classics like “Oh! Susanna” and “Swanee River.”

Vivica Fox is an African-American film and television actress. She got her start in the soap opera Days of Our Lives and is known for her role in the film Soul Food.

British chemist Rosalind Franklin is best known for her role in the discovery of the structure of DNA ,and for her pioneering use of X-ray diffraction.

Spanish professional basketball player Pau Gasol is a two-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was Spain's flag bearer during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a Tuscan, Baroque-period painter. She studied under her father, artist Orazio Gentileschi, and was also influenced by Caravaggio.

Estelle Getty played Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls, and was one of television’s most popular comedic actresses of the 1980s.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, writer and lecturer, best known for her semi-autobiographical short story The Yellow Wallpaper.