16 Milestone Celebrity Birthdays in February

Christie Brinkley, Alice Walker, Jennifer Aniston, Mahershala Ali and Kyle MacLachlan toast another year

Nicholas DeRenzo,

AARP

Published January 31, 2024

collage of kyle maclachlan, christie brinkley, jennifer aniston, alice walker and mahershala ali on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Foc Kan/WireImage/Getty Images; Gotham/WireImage; Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images; Dana Nalbandian/WireImage/Getty Images; Axelle/Bauer-Griffen/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

Feb. 2: Christie Brinkley, 70

christie brinkley on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Gotham/WireImage)

After starting out life as a surfer girl and illustrator, Christie Brinkley was discovered and signed to a modeling agency, skyrocketing to fame in the 1970s. She became the face of CoverGirl cosmetics and even graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue three times in a row. Over the years, Brinkley has flexed her acting muscles, appearing in then-husband Billy Joel’s music video for “Uptown Girl” and later playing Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway, London’s West End and Las Vegas. This spring, she’s set to launch a lifestyle and apparel brand called TWRHLL, which is aimed at women of any age and body type.

Feb. 5: Laura Linney, 60

An actor’s actor with a mile-wide range, Laura Linney is an awards magnet: She’s won four Emmys, including for her roles as first lady Abigail Adams (John Adams) and a high school teacher living with cancer (The Big C); has a trio of Oscar nominations under her belt; and has been nominated for five Tonys for her work on the Broadway stage. For four seasons, Netflix subscribers have had the chance to watch her and Jason Bateman break bad as a couple on Ozark who launder money for a Mexican drug cartel. Most recently, Linney appeared in the Flannery O’Connor biopic Wildcat as the Southern Gothic author’s conservative Catholic mother.

Feb. 5: Michael Sheen, 55

After taking the U.K. theater world by storm with his performances as Romeo and Henry V, the Wales-born actor has found great success on the big and small screens playing modern historic figures: He’s starred as Prime Minister Tony Blair three times (including in The Queen), channeled talk show host David Frost in Frost/Nixon (a part he originated onstage), and earned a Golden Globe nomination for his turn as the pioneering sex researcher William Masters in Showtime’s Masters of Sex. Following his turn as the angel Aziraphale in the cult favorite Amazon Prime series Good Omens, he’s set to play royal son–turned–tabloid fixture Prince Andrew in the miniseries A Very Royal Scandal.

Feb. 9: Alice Walker, 80

alice walker on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Dana Nalbandian/WireImage/Getty Images)

Born in Georgia, the eighth child of sharecroppers, Alice Walker began writing after she was partially blinded in a BB gun accident. In college, she began her activism in the civil rights movement in Mississippi and then began publishing short stories, essays and poetry. In 1982, Walker released her most popular novel to date, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Color Purple, which was adapted into a Steven Spielberg–directed film, a Broadway musical and a movie musical that hit theaters in December.

Feb. 9: Judith Light, 75

After picking up back-to-back Daytime Emmys for her celebrated role as Karen Wolek on the soap opera One Life to Live, Judith Light moved to prime-time TV, starring as ad exec Angela Bower on Who’s the Boss? A stage veteran, she returned to Broadway after three decades away, earning two Tonys for best performance by a featured actress for Other Desert Cities and The Assembled Parties. Her role in the Amazon Prime dramedy Transparent, in which she played a woman whose spouse comes out as transgender, kicked off a robust second act on television, including most recently the horror comedy Shining Vale and the Max bioseries Julia, on which she plays Julia Child’s publisher Blanche Knopf.

Feb. 10: Elizabeth Banks, 50

Known for her quick wit and charm, the University of Pennsylvania graduate proved a scene stealer in films like Wet Hot American Summer, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and especially the Hunger Games franchise, in which she played the perky (and extravagantly dressed) chaperone Effie Trinket. After appearing as a commentator in Pitch Perfect, Banks helmed the sequel about the a cappella group and later directed the Charlie’s Angels reboot and the comedy thriller Cocaine Bear. Next up, Banks is executive producing an animated reboot of The Flintstones called Bedrock, on which she’ll voice a grownup Pebbles at the dawn of the Bronze Age.

Feb. 11: Tina Louise, 90

The last surviving cast member from Gilligan’s Island, Tina Louise broke through with her role in the 1958 film God’s Little Acre, for which she won the Golden Globe for most promising female newcomer. TV fans will of course best remember her as “the movie star” Ginger Grant, one of the seven unlucky castaways on the CBS sitcom, and in the years after the show ended in 1967, she appeared in films like The Stepford Wives, released a memoir and children’s books, recorded an album of standards and even exhibited her paintings at galleries.

Feb. 11: Jennifer Aniston, 55

jennifer aniston on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images)

For her Emmy-winning role as Rachel Green on Friends, Jennifer Aniston launched into a stratosphere of superstardom that few sitcom stars ever enjoy — even inspiring a hairstyle known as “The Rachel.” Over the years, she’s enjoyed a somewhat more subdued big-screen career, appearing in indie films like the chronic pain drama Cake and broader comedies, such as Horrible Bosses and We’re the Millers. In 2019, TV gold struck again when Aniston was cast as complicated network broadcaster Alex Levy in the glossy, ripped-from-the-headlines Apple TV+ drama The Morning Show, for which she nabbed a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Feb. 13: Stockard Channing, 80

Often known for playing witty and powerful characters, Stockard Channing had her biggest break in 1978 when, at the age of 33, she stole scenes as high school “tough girl” Betty Rizzo in the blockbuster movie musical Grease. Despite two failed sitcoms, Channing persevered with a variety of projects, earning an Oscar nomination for Six Degrees of Separation and then earning the love of political junkie TV fans as first lady Abbey Bartlet on The West Wing. Following a recurring turn on The Good Wife, Channing returned to the stage in a 2021 London production of the Pulitzer-winning ’night, Mother, and she stayed put across the pond for her next gig on the Isle of Man–set TV series Maryland.

Feb. 15: Matt Groening, 70

The Oregon-born cartoonist got his start with the comic strip Life in Hell, about an anxiety-riddled rabbit named Binky, but he would forever change the state of American animation with his next creation: In the late 1980s, he birthed the Simpsons family, first in a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show and then for their own sitcom, The Simpsons, which has gone on to earn 37 Emmys over the span of its 35 seasons and counting — making it the longest-running prime-time series in American television history. Over the years, he has also launched the Netflix fantasy adventure Disenchantment and the sci-fi workplace comedy Futurama, which returned last year for its revived 11th season a decade after its second cancellation.

Feb. 16: John McEnroe, 65

Nicknamed “SuperBrat” due to his penchant for on-court tantrums, John McEnroe racked up 149 combined singles and doubles titles throughout his career, the most of any player in the Open Era, and his rivalries with the likes of Björn Borg and Jimmy Connors revitalized the sport as must-watch television. After retiring from professional tennis in 1992, the future Hall of Famer became an announcer, and he later wrote two autobiographies, 2002’s You Cannot Be Serious and 2017’s But Seriously. Most recently, he played against type by narrating the Mindy Kaling–produced coming-of-age comedy Never Have I Ever.

Feb. 16: Mahershala Ali, 50

mahershala ali on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Axelle/Bauer-Griffen/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

After acclaimed turns as D.C. power player Remy Danton in House of Cards and as Boggs in the Hunger Games franchise, Mahershala Ali emerged as one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed actors: In fact, he won two best supporting actor Oscars in the span of three years for his work as a warmhearted drug dealer in Moonlight and as real-life classical pianist Don Shirley in Green Book. His critically acclaimed streak continued with Emmy-nominated roles on True Detective and Ramy, and in December, he starred opposite Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke in the mysterious thriller Leave the World Behind. Next up, he’ll follow Wesley Snipes into the role of Marvel’s half-man, half-vampire vampire slayer in the Blade film franchise.

Feb. 17: Rene Russo, 70

A former Vogue cover model, Rene Russo made her film debut in Major League and was soon stealing scenes as an internal affairs sergeant in the Lethal Weapon franchise and a B-movie queen in the gangster comedy Get Shorty. But the role that would most define her trademark brand of sexy cool was as Catherine Banning in the heist remake The Thomas Crown Affair. She stepped away from Hollywood for six years, returning as Thor’s mother, Frigga, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and most recently, she collaborated with her director husband Dan Gilroy on the art world satire Velvet Buzzsaw.

Feb. 22: James Hong, 95

Born in Minnesota to Chinese immigrants, James Hong has been breaking boundaries since the 1950s, and his decades-long career has seen him appearing in intense dramas like Chinatown and Blade Runner, as well as animated family fare like Mulan and the Kung Fu Panda franchise, in which he voiced a goose father with an adopted panda son. Hong came roaring back to relevance with his role in the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once, becoming the oldest performer ever to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and later being part of the ensemble that won the Screen Actors Guild Award for best motion picture cast.

Feb. 22: Kyle MacLachlan, 65

kyle maclachlan on colorful, flashy background with all sorts of shapes and symbols

Photo Collage: MOA Staff; (Source: Foc Kan/WireImage/Getty Images)

Known for his off-kilter characters, Kyle MacLachlan made his feature debut in David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune, and he teamed back up with the director for Blue Velvet and the cult-classic TV show Twin Peaks, earning two Emmy nominations for his role as Special Agent Dale Cooper. He’s remained a regular presence on the small screen, on shows like Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives, but he also moonlights as a winemaker: He co-owns the Washington state winery Pursued by Bear, which takes its name from an absurd stage direction in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and on occasion hosts tastings with MacLachlan himself.

Feb. 28: Frank Gehry, 95

The Canadian-American starchitect is known for his instantly recognizable postmodern creations, works that often feel more like sculptures than buildings, such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The 1989 recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Gehry is one of the contemporary architecture world’s few household names. Want proof? He even played himself on The Simpsons! Following the construction of his first skyscraper (8 Spruce Street in New York City), the Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree is hard at work on the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which is set to open in 2025.

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Nicholas DeRenzo is a contributing writer who covers entertainment and travel. Previously he was executive editor of United Airlines’ Hemispheres magazine and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Sunset and New York magazine.