Famous May Birthdays a to z

Dixie Carter was an actress who most TV viewers remember from the hit series Designing Women.

Helena Bonham Carter is a British actress known for her roles in historical dramas, as well as quirkier movies including Fight Club and Dark Shadows. She is married to director Tim Burton.

Howard Carter was a British archaeologist who excavated King Tut's tomb beginning in 1922.

Singer and guitarist Mother Maybelle Carter began performing with The Carter Family in the 1920s and influenced country and folk music for decades to come.

At the height of his career, boxer Rubin Carter was twice wrongly convicted of a triple murder and was imprisoned for nearly two decades.

Rosanne Cash is an American singer and songwriter best known for her country hits "Seven Year Ache" and "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me."

Anthony Casso is a member of the Lucchese crime family who was the first major crime boss to be kicked out of the witness protection program.

Brazilian racecar driver Helio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500 three times, and finished first on the television dance competition show Dancing with the Stars.

Catherine II was empress of Russia, and led her country into the political and cultural life of Europe, carrying on the work begun by Peter the Great.

Henry Cavill is a TV and film actor known for his roles in The Tudors and The Immortals and as Superman in Man of Steel.

Michael Chabon is an acclaimed, bestselling author who's won the Pulitzer Prize. He's known for several books, including The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and for his work as a screenwriter on Spider-Man 2 and John Carter.

Mark David Chapman is a U.S. convicted murderer and former security guard, best known for shooting and killing Beatles member John Lennon.

Charles II was the monarch of England, Ireland and Scotland during much of the latter half of the 17th century, marking the Restoration era.

U.S. short-story writer and novelist John Cheever’s story collections include The Stories of John Cheever, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1978.

As famous for her unusual outfits as she is for her musical talent, Cher is an American singer and actress who got her start as half of Sonny and Cher in the 1960s.

Caryl Chessman is best known for his controversial conviction for sex crimes and his execution in 1960.

Nationalist revolutionary Ho Chi-Minh was president of North Vietnam from 1954 to 1969. He ranks among the most famous and influential politicians of the 20th century.

Septima Poinsette Clark was a pioneering educator and activist who championed teacher’s rights with organizations like the NAACP.

People's sexiest man alive George Clooney is an Oscar-winning actor best known for playing Dr. Doug Ross on TV's ER and Danny Ocean in the Ocean's Eleven films.

Rosemary Clooney was a popular singer beginning in the 1950s and had a No. 1 hit with "Come On-a My House." She was aunt to actor George Clooney.

Jacqueline Cochran is a pioneering 20th century pilot who was an advocate for female aviators during WWII and the first woman to break the sound barrier.

Comedian and talk show host Stephen Colbert was a mock news correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show before hosting his own spin-off, The Colbert Show.

Actress Joan Collins played Alexis Carrington Colby, the vicious, vengeful ex-wife of patriarch Blake Carrington, on Aaron Spelling’s prime-time drama Dynasty.

A folk-pop singer, Judy Collins rose to fame in the 1960s and 1970s with such hits as "Both Sides Now" and "Send In the Clowns."

Singer Perry Como is best known for his warm baritone crooning which came to characterize popular music in the 40s and 50s.

Rita Coolidge is an American two-time Grammy Award–winning singer best known for her hits in the 1970s, including the album Anytime...Anywhere.

Gary Cooper's movie career spanned from silent films into the 1950s. He won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Alvin York in Sergeant York.

Sofia Coppola is a film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. She directed The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, winning an Oscar for the latter.

Film actor Joseph Cotten was a member of Orson Welles Mercury Theater radio ensemble. He also appeared in the movie Citizen Kane.

Bing Crosby sang such hit songs as the ever-popular holiday classic "White Christmas." The beloved crooner was also a star of radio, movies and television.

David Nelson Crosthwait, Jr. was an African American pioneer in the field of heating and air conditioning, best known for heating up Radio City Music Hall.

French physicist Pierre Curie was of founding fathers of modern physics and is best known for being a pioneer in radioactive studies.

Leon Frank Czolgosz is known as the assassin who killed President William McKinley.

Notorious sex offender and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 men between from 1978 to 1991. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms, and then murdered by a fellow prison inmate in 1994.

Barbara West Dainton survived the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, and was the second-to-last remaining survivor when she died in 2007.

Stephen Daldry is a three-time Oscar nominated director known for the films Billy Elliot, The Hours and The Reader.

Salvador Dali is best known for his long surrealist painting career.

Poet, writer, political thinker. Dante was a Medieval Italian poet and philosopher whose poetic trilogy, The Divine Comedy, made an indelible impression on both literature and theology.

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

Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton was a French naturalist who introduced Merino sheep to France.

David Suchet is a British actor who became known to international audiences as Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot.

The arrest and trial of Larry Davis, arrested after a 1986 shootout with the NYPD, drew national interest and ignited racial tensions in New York City.

Nine-time Grammy Award winner Miles Davis was a major force in the jazz world, as both a trumpet player and a bandleader.

Gotye is a Belgian-Australian pop-music sensation. His eclectic music, which draws from a variety of sources, has topped charts and won awards worldwide.

Maximilien de Robespierre was an official during the French Revolution and one of the principal architects of the Reign of Terror.

Abolitionist Martin Robison Delany was both a physician and newspaper editor, and became one of the most influential and successful anti-slavery activists of the 19th century.

After playing with various rock bands in the early 1980s, C.C. DeVille became the lead guitarist for Poison, who wrote 1988's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," a No. 1 hit.

Scott Disick shares a son with socialite and reality television star, Kourtney Kardashian.

Serbian professional tennis player Novak Djokovic won the 2011 Wimbledon Championship, becoming the number one tennis player in the world.

Donovan emerged onto the musical scene in the 1960s as a folk singer, but he is best remembered for such hits as “Mellow Yellow” and “Sunshine Superman,” hippie odes to the counterculture revolution swelling at the time.

Aaron Douglas was an African-American painter and graphic artist who played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Author Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 60 mystery stories featuring the wildly popular detective character Sherlock Holmes and his loyal assistant Watson.

Dame Daphne du Maurier was a novelist and playwright whose famous works Rebecca and The Birds were made into films by Alfred Hitchcock.

Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped by Phillip Garrido in 1991, at age 11. She spent 18 years in captivity with Garrido—who raped Jaycee repeatedly and impregnated her twice—and his wife, Nancy Garrido.

Isadora Duncan was a trailblazing dancer and instructor whose emphasis on freer forms of movement was a precursor to modern dance techniques.

Golden Globe winner Lena Dunham is best known for writing, directing, producing and acting in Girls, the original series she created for HBO.

Bob Dylan is a folk rock singer-songwriter whose career began in the early 1960s with songs that chronicled social issues like war and civil rights.

Clint Eastwood has made his name as a popular TV and film actor. He went on to become a famed director, working on several Academy Award-winning films.

Bob Edwards is best known as the host of the long-running public radio news program Morning Edition, a post he held for close to 25 years.

Willem Einthoven was a physiologist who discovered the electrical properties of the heart and developed the EKG.

Actor and writer Chris Elliott wrote for and appeared on the David Letterman Show, winning four Emmy Awards for writing. He also starred in the cult comedy series Get a Life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American Transcendentalist poet, philosopher and essayist during the 19th century. One of his best-known essays is "Self-Reliance.”

Irish singer Enya performed with her family's band Clannad before making it big with her solo album Watermark in 1988.

Melissa Etheridge is a rock singer-songwriter and an environmental activist. Her hit songs include "I’m the Only One" and "Come to My Window."

Linda Evangelista is a Canadian-born model who was one of the leading faces of the supermodel era of the 1990s.

Rupert Everett is a British actor known for roles in the films My Best Friend’s Wedding, Shakespeare in Love and a Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Soccer player Cesc Fàbregas has starred for the Arsenal and FC Barcelona clubs and led Spain to multiple championships in international competition.

Charles W. Fairbanks was a U.S. attorney and senator who was the country’s 26th vice president under Theodore Roosevelt.

Silent movie star Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (1883–39) teamed up with his wife, Mary Pickford; Charlie Chaplin; and D.W. Griffith to launch United Artists in 1919.

Arab statesman Faisal I was king of Iraq from 1921 to 1933 and a leader in advancing Arab nationalism during and after World War I.

Louis Farrakhan has led the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined elements of Islam with black nationalism since 1978.

Alice Faye was a Broadway actress and chorus girl who played the mother of Shirley Temple in several films.

Tina Fey is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer best known for her roles on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock.

As a child star, actress Kim Fields played Tootie Ramsey on the popular sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. She reprised the role for the series' spin-off, The Facts of Life.

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.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was an opera singer known for his deep baritone and preeminence in the lieder.

Ian Fleming is a 20th-century novelist known for inventing popular spy character James Bond.

Dann Florek is an actor who once had a lead role on Law & Order and later on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Henry Fonda was an award-winning American actor best known for him film roles in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and On Golden Pond (1981).

Actor Glenn Ford rose to fame after serving in World War II, thanks to several film roles in the '30s and beyond.

Megan Fox is an starred in the first two blockbuster Transformers films. She is consistently ranked with the hottest up-and-coming young actresses.

Al Franken is the junior senator of Minnesota who first gained notice as a comedian and political satirist during his long tenure on Saturday Night Live.

At the 2012 London Olympics, Missy Franklin won gold in both the 100-meter and 200-meter backstrokes, and two more gold medals with the 4-by-200-meter and 4-by-100-meter relay teams.

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis.