8 Milestone Celebrity Birthdays in December
Dionne Warwick, Daryl Hannah and other well-known people celebrate big ones this month
by Susan Wloszczyna, AARP, November 30, 2020
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PHOTO BY: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Dec. 1: Sarah Silverman, 50
This unflappable Emmy-winning female stand-up comic and Saturday Night Live alum isn't afraid of finding humor in taboo topics — racism, religion, politics, you name it. When the pandemic halted her stand-up tour, Silverman launched a humorous weekly podcast during which she takes calls from her listeners and answers questions. The coronavirus also delayed the opening of her memoir-based musical The Bedwetter, which was set to open last spring.
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PHOTO BY: Jim Bennett/WireImage
Dec. 3: Daryl Hannah, 60
This sweetly funny actress may be best known for her role as a mermaid who saves Tom Hanks after he falls overboard into the sea in the 1984 romantic comedy Splash. The avid environmentalist married rock icon Neil Young in 2018 and filmed his recent series of livestream “Fireside Sessions” acoustic home concerts.
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PHOTO BY: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images
Dec. 3: Julianne Moore, 60
The highly regarded actress won her first Oscar after acing her role as a Columbia University professor with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in 2014's Still Alice (she's said she spent months interviewing experts and women who had the disease to understand it better before filming). Earlier this year she played the adult version of Gloria Steinem in the movie The Glorias. Next? A starring role in the film version of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen.
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PHOTO BY: Ollie Millington/Redferns
Dec. 9: Joan Armatrading, 70
The British musician, who initially fused her acoustic sound with a jazz vibe, first broke out on the charts in 1976 with her third album (Joan Armatrading), that spawned her top-10 single “Show Some Affection.” She switched to a more pop sound in the ‘80s with tunes such as “Walk Under Ladders” and “Drop the Pilot.” Armatrading continues to tour and record new songs.
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PHOTO BY: Rich Fury/Getty Images for Palm Springs International Film Festival
Dec. 10: Kenneth Branagh, 60
This knighted Belfast-born actor and filmmaker first made a name for himself by directing and starring in a string of six well-received Shakespeare adaptations, starting with Henry V in 1989 and ending with As You Like It in 2006. After directing and starring in the 2017 mystery Murder on the Orient Express, Branagh returns as Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile.
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PHOTO BY: Paul Archuleta/Getty Images
Dec. 11: Donna Mills, 80
She played the conniving Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing Sumner on the prime time soap Knots Landing in the 1980s — with hair as big as her name — and costarred with Clint Eastwood in 1971's Play Misty for Me. The Chicago-born actress has more recently shown up on General Hospital as Madeline Reeves (2014-2018), and you might catch her this month in Christmas Wishes & Mistletoe Kisses during the Hallmark Channel's annual holiday-romance fest.
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PHOTO BY: Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Dec. 12: Jennifer Connelly, 50
Many a young man had a crush on this actress after seeing her in the 1986 fantasy Labyrinth featuring David Bowie, but her big break came when Ron Howard cast her as the wife to Russell Crowe's character in 2001's A Beautiful Mind, which won her a supporting actress Oscar. She joins Tom Cruise in the upcoming film sequel Top Gun: Maverick.
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PHOTO BY: Steve Granitz/WireImage
Dec. 12: Dionne Warwick, 80
The New Jersey-born Warwick landed 56 of her singles on the Billboard's Hot 100 Pop Singles Charts between 1955 and 1999, including biggies like “I'll Never Love This Way Again” and “Walk on By.” She seems far from retirement — she just wrapped up a Vegas residency earlier this year — but when she does stop singing, she told The Guardian in March, she plans to move back to Brazil, where she's spent many years. “It's my paradise,” she said.