Happy Birthday To…

It might be a cold Monday but it’s a bumper birthday celebration today, so brave the cold and head over to the party. As most of the Birthday boys and girls live in America this won’t be possible for everybody, and lets face it the ones who do live in England won’t want to see out faces at their Birthday bash.

So lets see who is celebrating today.

Batman star and occasional foul mouthed ranter Christian Bale is 38 today, making his debut in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of The Sun Bale has carved out a career of intense and disturbing performances. This summer will see him hang up the Bat ears forever, Christopher Nolan’s conclusion to the Dark Knight legend hits cinemas in July.

The legendary Gene Hackman might have retired from movies but his body of work speaks for itself. From Superman to Unforgiven, to the gritty French Connection to the laugh out loud turn in Get Shorty, Hackman is one of the greats. Happy 82nd Birthday Gene!

Vanessa Redgrave is currently receiving rave reviews for her performance in Coriolanus, the one time Oscar winner (and nominated a further 5!) is a member of one of the most famous acting families. I’m sure the Redgrave/Richardson members will all be singing her a hearty chorus of ‘For She’s A Jolly good fellow”.

Olivia Coleman was best known for Channel 4′s comedy series Peep Show, in recent years she’s appeared in Hot Fuzz, Rev and last year’s Tyrannosaur which in my humble opinion was Oscar worthy in every way.

Wilmer Valderrama is best known for playing Fez in That 70′s Show. Well today he shares his birthday in esteemed company.

Charles S Dutton, made famous in David Fincher’s Alien 3 after a string of TV roles. Dutton spent time in prison, it was whilst inside that he started a theatre group and followed his new found passion. As well as appearing briefly in each episode, Dutton directed all 6 episodes of David (The Wire) Simon’s mini series The Corner. Happy Birthday sir!

And finally, Steven Zaillian the writer of Schindler’s List and musician and occasional actor Phil Collins are both celebrating today. Phil Collins other screen credit was Buster but who can forget him from Steven Spielberg’s Hook, he played that cop who popped round to tell them that’s their kids were likely dead. Hmmm, now that could be a song!

Merry Birthday one and all!