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Kennedy Center honorees

  • Bob DylanOn the 24th of May 1941, Robert Allen Zimmerman entered the world at St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth, Minnesota. His parents ran a furniture and appliance…
  • Frank SinatraFrancis Albert Sinatra entered the world on the 12th of December 1915 inside a tenement building at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey.
  • Martin ScorseseMartin Scorsese was born on the 17th of November 1942 in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. He grew up in the Little Italy section of Manhattan where his…
  • Al PacinoAlfredo James Pacino was born on the 25th of April, 1940, in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. His parents divorced when he was two years old.
  • Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber was born on the 22nd of March 1948 at Westminster Hospital in London. His father William worked as a composer and organist while his…
  • Steven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg was born on the 18th of December 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother Leah Adler ran a kosher dairy restaurant and played concert…
  • Tennessee WilliamsThomas Lanier Williams III arrived in Columbus, Mississippi on the 26th of March 1911. He was the second child born to Edwina Dakin and Cornelius Coffin…
  • Elton JohnOn the 25th of March 1947, Reginald Kenneth Dwight entered the world in Pinner, Middlesex. His father served in the Royal Air Force and his mother worked as…
  • George LucasGeorge Walton Lucas Jr. was born on the 14th of May 1944 in Modesto, California. He grew up as the son of Dorothy Ellinore Lucas and George Walton Lucas Sr.
  • Aretha FranklinAretha Louise Franklin was born on the 25th of March 1942, at her family's home located at 406 Lucy Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • James StewartJames Maitland Stewart was born on the 20th of May 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania. He grew up as the eldest child and only son of Elizabeth Ruth Jackson and…
  • Katharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was born on the 12th of May 1907 in Hartford Connecticut. Her mother Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn led the Connecticut Woman…
  • Led ZeppelinIn August 1968, four musicians gathered in a room below a record store on Gerrard Street in London to play their first song together.
  • Meryl StreepMary Louise Streep was born on the 22nd of June 1949 in Summit, New Jersey. Her mother Mary Wilkinson Streep worked as an artist while her father Harry…
  • Ella FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald was born on the 25th of April 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. Her mother Temperance Fitzgerald and father William Ashland Fitzgerald…
  • Kirk DouglasKirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on the 9th of December 1916, in Amsterdam, New York. He grew up as the fourth of seven children and the only son of…
  • Elizabeth TaylorElizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born on the 27th of February 1932 at Heathwood, her family's home at 8 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb.
  • Johnny CarsonJohn William Carson entered the world on the 23rd of October 1925, in Corning, Iowa. He grew up moving between small towns like Avoca and Clarinda before…
  • Jack NicholsonJohn Joseph Nicholson entered the world on the 22nd of April 1937 in Neptune City, New Jersey. His mother June Frances Nicholson was a showgirl who performed…
  • James BrownJames Joseph Brown was born on the 3rd of May 1933, inside a small wooden shack in Barnwell, South Carolina. His mother Susie Behling was only sixteen years…
  • Earth, Wind & FireIn 1969, Maurice White joined two friends in Chicago to form a songwriting team called The Salty Peppers. They secured a recording contract with Capitol…
  • Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney was born on the 18th of June 1942 at Walton Hospital in the Walton area of Liverpool. His mother Mary Patricia Mohin worked as a nurse and…
  • Bette DavisRuth Elizabeth Davis arrived in the world on the 5th of April 1908, within the industrial city of Lowell, Massachusetts.
  • Clint EastwoodClinton Eastwood Jr. arrived at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco on the 31st of May 1930. Nurses nicknamed him Samson because he weighed more…
  • Elia KazanElias Kazantzoglou entered the world on the 7th of September 1909 in the Kadıköy district of Constantinople. His parents were Cappadocian Greeks originally…
  • Ginger RogersVirginia Katherine McMath stood in Fort Worth, Texas, during the summer of 1925. She was only fourteen years old when she entered a Charleston dance contest.
  • Joni MitchellRoberta Joan Anderson was born on the 7th of November 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta. Her father served as a Royal Canadian Air Force flight lieutenant during…
  • Chuck BerryCharles Edward Anderson Berry was born on the 18th of October 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. He grew up in a neighborhood called the Ville where many…
  • Tom HanksThomas Jeffrey Hanks arrived in the world on the 9th of July 1956 inside a hospital in Concord, California. His mother Janet Marylyn worked as a hospital…
  • Johnny CashJohnny Cash was born J. R. Cash on the 26th of February 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas. His family moved to Dyess, Arkansas, in March 1935 when he was three…
  • Lucille BallLucille Désirée Ball was born on Sunday, the 6th of August 1911, at 69 Stewart Avenue in Jamestown, New York. Her father Henry Durrell Ball worked as a…
  • Aaron CoplandAaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on the 14th of November 1900. He grew up above his family's store at 628 Washington Avenue.
  • Arthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was born on the 17th of October 1915 in Harlem, Manhattan. He grew up as the second child of Augusta and Isidore Miller.
  • Brian WilsonBrian Douglas Wilson was born on the 20th of June 1942, at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, California. His father Murry Wilson worked as a…
  • John WilliamsJohn Towner Williams was born on the 8th of February 1932, in Queens, New York. His father Johnny Williams played drums and percussion for the Raymond Scott…
  • David LettermanDavid Michael Letterman was born on the 12th of April 1947 in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father worked as a florist and his mother served as a church…
  • Dolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton was born on the 19th of January 1946, inside a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tennessee.
  • LL Cool JJames Todd Smith was born on the 14th of January 1968 in Bay Shore, New York. His childhood home became a crime scene when his father shot his mother and…
  • Julie AndrewsJulia Elizabeth Wells arrived in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on the 1st of October 1935. Her mother Barbara Ward Wells had married Edward Charles Ted Wells in…
  • Gloria GaynorGloria Fowles entered the world on the 7th of September 1943 at Beth Israel Hospital in Newark. Her family lived nearby with her grandmother playing a key…
  • Lorne MichaelsLorne David Lipowitz entered the world on the 17th of November 1944 in Toronto, Ontario. His parents were Florence and Abraham Lipowitz, a man who worked as…
  • Diana RossDiana Ross was born on the 26th of March 1944, in Detroit, Michigan. Her family lived at 635 Belmont Street in the North End section of the city before…
  • Marian AndersonMarian Anderson was born on the 27th of February 1897 in Philadelphia. Her father sold ice and coal at the Reading Terminal while her mother worked as a…