10. March 2, 1917: Desi Arnaz. If I didn't at least include the Cuban bandleader who played Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy, I'd have some 'splaining to do.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1949: Gates McFadden. She might have been the best doctor in Star Trek history. Certainly, and Scotty agreed with me, she was the best-looking.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1952: Laraine Newman. One of the original Saturday Night Live "Not Ready for Prime Time Players," she is best remembered as Connie Conehead.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1968: Daniel Craig. For 16 years (2005 to 2021), longer than anyone, and over the course of 5 films, his name was Bond, James Bond.
9. March 2, 1962: Jon Bon Jovi. I've never been a fan of his music, but I appreciate what he's done with his fame and fortune.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1900: Kurt Weill. Best known for his work with Bertolt Brecht, their plays include The Threepenny Opera, which gave the world the song "Mack the Knife."
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1938: Lawrence Payton. One of the Four Tops.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1950: Karen Carpenter. My father adored her singing. We did not agree. But she was a huge star.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1971: Method Man. The Wu-Tang Clan member has moved into acting.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1977: Chris Martin. The lead singer of Coldplay.
8. March 2, 1940: Billy McNeill. Most American sports fans have never heard of him, but he is the greatest figure in the history of soccer in Scotland. As centreback and Captain of Glasgow team Celtic, he led them to win the European Cup (the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League) in 1967, making them the 1st British team to do so.
Between playing for Celtic and managing them, from 1957 to 1991, he won 13 League Championships and 10 Scottish Cups. A statue of him holding the European Cup now stands outside their stadium, Celtic Park.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1902: Moe Berg. The native of Belleville, New Jersey was a brilliant man and a good defensive catcher. He graduated from Princeton University and Columbia Law School. But he only batted .243 in a career that lasted from 1923 to 1939. It was said that he could speak 12 languages, but he couldn't hit in any of them.
He visited Japan in 1932, and learned the language. He was asked to accompany a team of major league stars, including Babe Ruth, on their 1934 tour of Japan, because he could translate, but also because he knew the country a bit, and could do some spying for the government. He worked for the OSS during World War II, and its successor, the CIA, afterward. Casey Stengel called him "the strangest man ever to play baseball."
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1917: Jim Konstanty. Distinctive due to his "Coke-bottle glasses," he helped the Philadelphia Phillies'"Whiz Kids" win the 1950 National League Pennant. He became the 1st relief pitcher ever to be named Most Valuable Player in either League. He later won another Pennant, in the American League with the New York Yankees in 1955.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1982: Henrik Lundqvist. The goalie for Sweden's Gold Medal winners at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, he found himself frustrated in the NHL. He made 5 All-Star Games, and won games in goal than any other New York Ranger, 459 -- and, given their record, with Lorne Chabot, Chuck Rayner, Eddie Giacomin, John Davidson, John Vanbiesbrouck and Mike Richter, that is a big deal.
But he only won the Vezina Trophy as best goaltender once, in 2012. And he only reached the Stanley Cup Finals once, in 2014. It was often said that he was betrayed by his teammates. But Ranger fans called him "King Henrik." That made no sense, given that, just 13 miles away, Martin Brodeur was the real king of NHL goalies.
Somewhat Honorable Mention: March 2, 1982: Ben Roethlisberger. He won 2 Super Bowls and reached another as the quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. But Big Ben had off-the-field issues with women that have forever tainted his record.
Somewhat Honorable Mention: March 2, 1985: Reggie Bush. The running back helped the University of Southern California win the 2003 and 2004 National Championships, and almost did it again in 2005. He was awarded the 2004 Heisman Trophy.
But the NCAA found he received improper benefits, and stripped USC of its national and league titles during his tenure. He voluntarily forfeited the Heisman Trophy, sparing himself the indignity of being the only winner ever to be asked to forfeit it. (Another USC running back, O.J. Simpson, lost his in legal proceedings, but that's not the same thing.)
He had a decent pro career, rushing for 5,490 yards, catching 477 passes for 477 yards, scoring 58 touchdowns, and winning Super Bowl XLIV with the New Orleans Saints. He is in their team Hall of Fame, though he will never make the College Football Hall (due to the scandal) or the Pro Football Hall (his career stats were good, but not good enough).
Somewhat Honorable Mention: March 2, 1990: Malcolm Butler. The 2015 Pro Bowl cornerback made the most famous interception in football history, clinching Super Bowl XLIX for his team. Unfortunately, that team was the New England Patriots. Hence, "Somewhat Honorable": I have no evidence that he cheated, but, surely, he benefited from the cheating of someone in the Pats' organization.
7. March 2, 1935: Gene Stallings. He was one of Paul "Bear" Bryant's "Junction Boys" at Texas A&M University in the 1950s, and later served under Bryant as an assistant coach at the University of Alabama, winning National Championships in 1961 and 1964.
He returned to Texas A&M as head coach, winning the 1967 Southwest Conference Championship and the 1968 Cotton Bowl. Fellow Texan Tom Landry named him to the Dallas Cowboys' staff, and together, they won Super Bowl XII in 1978. He flopped as head coach of the team now known as the Arizona Cardinals, but Alabama, desperate to recapture the glory they knew under the Bear, hired him as head coach. In 1992, he led them to their 1st National Championship since the Bear. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
6. March 2, 1886: Willis O'Brien. The pioneer of stop-motion photography, he designed King Kong.
5. March 2, 1942: Lou Reed.In the 1960s, he led the Velvet Underground. In the 1970s, he launched a solo career as a glam-rocker. In the 1980s and '90s, he recorded some deep concept albums. He inspired artists ranging from English rocker David Bowie to Czech playwright and President Václav Havel.
4. March 2, 1909: Mel Ott. Here's a baseball trivia question: Who hit the most home runs in New York City? If you guessed Babe Ruth, surprise, it's not him. The leader, because of the close right-field fence at the Polo Grounds, and also because he played at Ebbets Field with another close right-field fence 11 times a season, is Master Melvin: 348, to Ruth's 272 and Mickey Mantle's 270.
He was the 1st National League player to hit 500 career home runs, finishing with 511. He wasn't a one-dimensional player: He had a .304 lifetime batting average, collected 2,876 hits, and had 1,860 RBIs, 3rd all-time behind Ruth and Lou Gehrig when he retired. He was a 12-time All-Star, and his home run in the top of the 10th inning of Game 5 clinched the 1933 World Series for the New York Giants.
3. March 2, 1904: Dr. Seuss. Theodor Seuss Geisel didn't much like children, but he liked writing for them.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1859: Sholem Aleichem. Born Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, he adopted as his pen name the Russian Yiddish version of the Hebrew phrase meaning "Peace upon you." He created the characters of Tevye the Dairyman, his wife Goldie, their 7 daughters, and various other characters in their village in Russian-controlled Ukraine, early in the 20th Century. The stories would be turned into the musical Fiddler On the Roof.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1930: Tom Wolfe. He went the opposite way of Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, making his name first as a journalist, with The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, then in nonfiction with The Right Stuff, and then as a novelist, with The Bonfire of the Vanities.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1942: John Irving. He's written The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany.
2. March 2, 1793: Sam Houston. He is the only man to serve as Governor of 2 different States. A former Congressman from Tennessee, he served as its Governor from 1827 to 1829. He then went west, and is considered the founding father of the State of Texas, whose largest city is named for him.
He was President of the Republic of Texas from 1836 to 1838, and from 1841 to 1844. He became 1 of its 1st 2 U.S. Senators, 1846 to 1859, and was Governor again 1859 to 1861. He begged the State legislature not to secede from the Union. It didn't listen, and he resigned, dying before the Civil War ended.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1779: Joel Roberts Poinsett. A Congressman from South Carolina, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico under President John Quincy Adams, and introduced to America the Christmas plant that bears his name: The poinsettia. He later served as U.S. Secretary of War under President Martin Van Buren.
Honorable Mention: March 2, 1810: Pope Leo XIII. Born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, he was Pope from 1878 until his death in 1903. At 93, he was the oldest ever to serve as Pope (although Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is now older). He was the 1st Pope to be filmed.
Somewhat Honorable Mention: March 2, 1876: Pope Pius XII. Born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, his Papacy, from 1939 to 1958, was tainted by accusations that he did too little to stop the Axis during World War II, and may even have favored it.
Somewhat Honorable Mention: March 2, 1931: Mikhail Gorbachev. For all he did to bring an end to the Soviet Union and the Cold War, he still sent tanks into the breakaway republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
1. March 2, 1769: DeWitt Clinton. He was Mayor of New York City 1803-07, 1808-10, and 1811-15. In 1812, he became the 1st Mayor of New York to think that he should be President of the United States, and was nominated by the Federalist Party, but, like his Uncle George, Governor of New York in 1808, he lost to James Madison.
In 1817, he became Governor of New York in his own right, and resumed the plan he had while he was Mayor, the building of the Erie Canal, which would connect the Great Lakes with the Hudson River, and therefore with New York City. It was completed in 1825, and made New York the richest city in the Western Hemisphere.
Still alive as of this writing: Newman, Craig, Bon Jovi, Method Man, Martin, Lundqvist, Roethlisberger, Bush, Butler, Stallings, Irving, Gorbachev.