Famous July Birthdays a to z

Stanley Kunitz was an American poet who served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1974; 2000). He won the Pulitzer Prize for his work Selected Poems 1928-1958 (1958).

Member of the legendary Four Musketeers of French tennis, Renee Lacoste also invented the metal tennis racket and was founder of the Lacoste line of sportswear.

Steve Lacy was a jazz soprano saxophonist known for his work with Thelonius Monk and other jazz greats.

Dalai Lama, Tibet's political leader, has strived to make Tibet an independent and democratic state from China. He and his followers are exiled to India.

Ann Landers was the famous advice columnist who developed a newspaper readership counting into the millions.

Estée Lauder started her own company. Seven years later, her Youth-Dew beauty oil launched Estée Lauder, Inc., which became a billion-dollar-a-year business.

Anglo-American stage and film actor Charles Laughton starred in The Old Dark House and Mutiny on the Bounty. He also directed The Night of the Hunter.

Jerome Lawrence was an American playwright. He collaborated with Robert Edwin Lee for over 50 years. Inherit The Wind is their most well known play.

Matt LeBlanc is an American actor most famous for his role as Joey Tribbiani on the hit television series, Friends.

Sandra Lee is best known for hosting the Food Network shows Semi-Homemade Cooking and Sandra's Money Saving Meals. She is also the girlfriend of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Film actress Janet Leigh, once Tony Curtis’s wife, is best remembered for her shower scene as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, Psycho.

Lisa Leslie was an All-Star basketball player, Olympic gold medalist and WNBA league MVP.

Italian Jewish chemist Primo Levi survived a year at Auschwitz against all odds. He is best known his moving memoir, If This Is a Man.

Lindsay Lohan is an actress and pop singer who starred in the film Mean Girls and in the TV movie Liz & Dick.

Actress and singer Jennifer Lopez is one of Hollywood’s leading ladies who’s also forged a successful pop and dance music career.

Before she became the poster child for drugs and plastic surgery, Courtney Love was an alternative rock star married to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

Singer Darlene Love sang backup for hit artists including Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin but struggled to gain fame for her solo endeavors.

Comedian and actor John Lovitz was part of the Saturday Night Live cast for five years, during which time he created memorable characters like Hanukkah Harry.

Jane Lynch is a Golden Globe and Emmy-Award winning film and television actress. She is best known for her role as Coach Sue Sylvester on the TV series Glee.

M.I.A. is a British singer known for albums such as Arular and Kaya and hit singles such as "Paper Planes" and "O...Saya."

Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler became popular in the late 19th century for his emotionally charged and subtly orchestrated symphonies.

Theodore H. Maiman was a physicist, company leader, consultant and author who created the first working laser in 1960.

Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994. A symbol of global peacemaking, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Imelda Marcos spent more than 20 years as the first lady of the Philippines. She became infamous for her spending habits and enormous shoe collection.

Rudolph A. Marcus is a Canadian chemist known for his research in electron-transfer reactions. He established what is known as the Marcus Theory, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1992.

Herbert Marcuse was an American political philosopher whose Marxists theories of 20th-century Western society influenced liberal student groups in the 1960s.

Half of the famed stoner duo Cheech and Chong, Cheech Marin is an accomplished comedian, actor and director.

Damian Marley is a Grammy Award-winning reggae musician and the son of Bob Marley. His biggest hit is the song "Welcome to Jamrock."

Rita Marley is Bob Marley's widow, and is best known for carrying on her late husband's musical legacy and developing her own career as a solo artist.

Thurgood Marshall was instrumental in ending legal segregation and became the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court.

Republican New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez is best known for her role as the nation's first female Hispanic governor.

Maximilian was the Archduke of Austria and the Emperor of Mexico from 1863-1867. He was executed in 1867 by President Benito Juárez's victorious forces.

Brian May, lead guitarist of the rock band Queen, wrote the song "We are the Champions," applying his physics background in the recording studio.

Misty May-Treanor is a professional beach volleyball player and three-time Olympic gold medalist. She is the longtime competitive partner of Kerri Walsh-Jennings.

Louis B. Mayer was a film mogul and the most influential person in Hollywood from the mid-1920s to the late-1940s.

Ornithologist Ernst Mayr demonstrated that the development of separate species in higher animals depends on the geographical isolation of precursor populations.

Elizabeth McGovern is an Academy Award-nominated actress known for playing Cora Crawley on the BBC series Downton Abbey.

Though he helped reform the Democratic Party, U.S. Senator George S. McGovern lost his 1972 presidential campaign to Richard Nixon.

Jay McGuiness is a British singer best known as a member of the five-member U.K. boy band the Wanted.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was a U.S.-born British painter who was highly influential in the late 19th century. His best-known work is "Whistler's Mother."

Gregor Mendel was an Austrian monk who discovered the basic principles of heredity through experiments in his garden. Mendel's observations became the foundation of modern genetics and the study of heredity, and he is widely considered a pioneer in the field of genetics.

Angela Merkel is a German politician best known as the first female chancellor of Germany and one of the architects of the European Union.

During the 2000s, actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers continued to shine in a wide array of film genres. Notable films include 2001’s Prozac Nation with Christina Ricci.

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

Michael N Milken is known as the "junk bond king." He was indicted for racketeering and securities fraud and served two years in prison.

Helen Mirren is a revered, award-winning actress who’s film and TV work includes Prime Suspect, Caligula, Shadowboxer, Elizabeth I and The Queen.

László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter, photographer and art teacher who took charge of the metal workshop of the Bauhaus.

Alex Morgan was the youngest member of the U.S. women's national team during the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, and won a gold medal with the U.S. Olympic women's soccer team in 2012

Wanya Morris' claims to fame are harmonizing with the ever-popular all-boy group Boyz II Men and dating singer Brandy in her teenage years.

Tommy Mottola is a high-powered music executive who is credited with launching the careers of Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, and Celine Dion, among others.

Prolific novelist Iris Murdoch won a Booker Prize for The Sea, the Sea. In 2001, she was portrayed by Kate Winslet and Judy Dench in the biographical film Iris.

Actor George Murphy starred in more than 45 films, including Little Miss Broadway opposite Shirley Temple. In 1964, he was elected to represent California in the U.S. Senate.

Benito Mussolini created the Fascist Party in Italy in 1919, eventually making himself dictator prior to World War II. He was killed in 1945.

As housewife and mother on the hit series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Harriet Nelson became one of television's best-loved characters during the 1950s.

St. Philip Neri was best known as an Italian priest who helped his congregation and others in need. He was canonized in 1622.

Pablo Neruda was a Nobel Prize–winning Chilean poet who was once called “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.”

Brigitte Nielsen is a Danish actress, model and singer best known for her brief marriage to actor/director Sylvester Stallone, which was heavily covered by the tabloid press.

Christopher Nolan is an innovative film director and screenwriter who's helmed several early 21st century megahits, including Memento, Inception and The Dark Knight Rises.

St Clare of Assisi was one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. She became the abbess of the convent of San Damiano, near Assisi in 1216. In 1958 she was declared the Patron of television.

Sandra Oh is a Canadian actress best known for her role as Dr. Cristina Yang on the hit television series Grey's Anatomy.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, noted for her style and elegance, was the wife of President John F. Kennedy and a U.S. first lady. She later married Aristotle Onassis.

Juan Carlos Onetti was an Uruguayan novelist and short-story writer whose existential works, including A Brief Life, chronicled the decay of modern urban life.

Legendary pitcher Satchel Paige became the oldest player to join Major League baseball, with a career that spanned 40 years.

Academy Award-winning actress Anna Paquin has appeared in such films as The Piano and X-Men, and the television drama True Blood.

Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator who was the highest-paid commercial artist in the United States by the 1920s.

Deval Patrick is governor of Massachusetts and the former U.S. assistant attorney general of civil rights.

Walter Payton was a running back for the Chicago Bears in the National Football League and is in the Football Hall of Fame.

Thomas Pendergast was a political boss of Kansas City in the early 20th century.

Richard Petty is a champion NASCAR driver who was nicknamed "The King" for his record setting Daytona 500 and NASCAR championship wins.

Camille Pissarro was a French landscape artist best known for his influence on Impressionist and Postimpressionist painting.