Curated playlist

1962 births

Clyde DrexlerClyde Drexler couldn't make his high school basketball team as a sophomore. He later reached the Hall of Fame twice.
Demi MooreIn 2025, Demi Moore received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. That same year, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. The honors landed on a career that reaches back to the early 1980s and has…
Marley MarlMarley Marl's studio mistake with a snare drum changed how hip-hop beats were built.
Sha-RockSha-Rock began in hip hop as a breakdancer, not a rapper. She later became known as the first female rapper.
Patrick EwingPatrick Ewing crossed North Carolina off his list after seeing a nearby Ku Klux Klan rally. He chose Georgetown.
Philippa BoyensAll three children of screenwriter Philippa Boyens have appeared in films she helped write.
David FincherDirector David Fincher demanded 99 takes from Rooney Mara for a single scene in The Social Network.
MC HammerMC Hammer started out as an 11-year-old selling baseballs in a parking lot. The Oakland A's owner hired him on the spot.
Adam SilverFour days after a racist recording leaked, Adam Silver banned Donald Sterling from the NBA for life.
Tom CruiseTom Cruise attended fifteen schools in fourteen years. He was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on the 3rd of July 1962 in Syracuse, New York. Today he is an American actor and film producer, and his career has now run for forty-five years. A…
Lewis GordonPhilosopher Lewis Gordon argues that racists are not irrational but hyper-rational.
Ralph FiennesRalph Fiennes has played a Nazi camp commandant, a dark wizard, a British spymaster and a flirtatious hotel concierge, and audiences have believed every one of them. Born in 1962, the English actor and director carries the full name Ralph…
Bhikkhu AnalayoBhikkhu Analayo reached Sri Lanka in 1994 to meet a monk who had just died. The young German stayed.
Axl RoseAxl Rose, the lead singer of Guns N' Roses, was ninety minutes into a July 1991 concert at the Riverport Amphitheater near St. Louis when he decided to deal with a problem himself. He had asked security on stage to confiscate a fan's video…
Flea (musician)Flea, the bassist born Michael Peter Balzary, once played so hard that he wore a hole through his thumb. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins first saw him perform in 1984 and remembered him crying out in pain between songs. Someone kept…
Anthony KiedisAnthony Kiedis was born on the 1st of November 1962, and as a young man he walked on stage with a band that existed to play one song, one time. The group called itself Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem. Its only…
John KnollJohn Knoll, born on the 6th of October 1962, is an American visual effects supervisor and the chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic, better known as ILM. The director Guillermo del Toro, who first worked with Knoll on the film…
John StocktonJazz fans greeted John Stockton's 1984 draft pick with stunned silence.
Abdullah II of JordanIn 1996, a man who would become King Abdullah II of Jordan appeared on screen in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager titled Investigations. At the time he was a prince commanding his country's Special Forces, and his part had no lines. He was…
Jordan BelfortJordan Ross Belfort is an American former stockbroker who spent 22 months in prison for fraud. He is also the author of a memoir that became a major film. For years he ran a brokerage that defrauded its own customers. Then he helped the…
James Dallas Egbert IIIA Michigan State student vanished in 1979, and a Dungeons & Dragons theory made national news.
Hironobu SakaguchiHironobu Sakaguchi named his film's heroine after his mother, who died in a house fire.
Jim Farley (businessman)Jim Farley now runs Ford, where his grandfather worked in 1918. That job was at Henry Ford's River Rouge Plant.
Jennifer HigdonJennifer Higdon taught herself flute from an old method book. She later won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Manuel AmorosFootballer Manuel Amoros won the 1992-93 Champions League with Marseille. He later coached Comoros and Benin.
Jon Bon JoviJon Bon Jovi, born John Francis Bongiovi Jr. on the 2nd of March 1962, has played more than 3,000 concerts with his band in over 50 countries. The crowds added up to more than 35 million fans. He is an American singer, songwriter and…
Scott BessentScott Bessent won Senate confirmation as United States secretary of the treasury on the 27th of January 2025, by a vote of 68-29. On that same day, a man carrying several Molotov cocktails and a knife, who intended to murder him, was…
Avi LoebIn 2024, Avi Loeb stood before an audience and declared his view that the Messiah will be an alien arriving from outer space. Loeb is an Israeli-American theoretical physicist whose formal name is Abraham Loeb. He was born on the 26th of…
Kevin J. AndersonKevin J. Anderson sold his first story for just $12.50 in high school.
Victor PelevinSome people have seriously suggested Russian novelist Victor Pelevin is really a computer. He rarely appears in public.
Jodie FosterJodie Foster was a teenager when she acted as a French interpreter at a press conference during the Cannes Film Festival. The film was Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d'Or that year, and the journalists in the room came away impressed. By…
Gabe NewellGabe Newell, the president and majority owner of Valve Corporation, has lived mostly at sea since the COVID-19 pandemic. He is an American video game developer and businessman, and he co-founded the company he now controls. His path to…
Larry Hall (criminal)Larry DeWayne Hall has confessed to more than thirty-five murders, and he has taken back every single confession. He is an American man convicted of kidnapping and suspected of far worse. Hall was devoted to the history of the American…
Stuart J. RussellStuart Russell called the AGI race "a race towards the edge of a cliff." He wrote it in January 2025.
Viktor TsoiSoviet rock star Viktor Tsoi kept his boiler room job while filling a stadium.
Kalpana ChawlaKalpana Chawla was born in 1962 in Karnal, a city in Haryana, India, and in 1997 she was circling the Earth aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. She became an astronaut and aerospace engineer, and she was the first woman of Indian origin to fly…