10 Milestone Celebrity Birthdays in May
Bono, Tina Fey, Clint Eastwood and more celebrate big ones this month
by Susan Wloszczyna, AARP, April 30, 2020
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PHOTO BY: Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage
May 4: Will Arnett, 50
En español | A Canadian-born comic actor and in-demand voice artist, Arnett has loads of fans from his role as George Oscar “Gob” Bluth II on the cult sitcom Arrested Development. You may recognize his voice as the title character on Netflix's animated series BoJack Horseman and the grouchy Batman in the Lego movie franchise. The Lego Batman Movie 2 is due out in 2022, with Arnett again voicing Bruce Wayne.
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PHOTO BY: Amy Sussman/FilmMagic
May 6: Roma Downey, 60
The Northern Ireland native played the heaven-sent Monica on the CBS series Touched by an Angel, which ended its nine-season run in 2003. In 2013, the actress and her TV producer husband, Mark Burnett, collaborated on a 10-hour History Channel docudrama, The Bible, with Downey as Mary, that has been seen by more than 100 million U.S. viewers. The pair also produced the 2019 Netflix series Messiah.
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PHOTO BY: Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic
May 8: Toni Tennille, 80
Love did keep this singer and her keyboardist partner Daryl Dragon together, even after the duo known as Captain & Tennille divorced in 2014. She was at her ex's side when he died in 2019 at age 76. They had a string of best-selling hits, including 1975's “Love Will Keep Us Together,” which won a Grammy for record of the year, “Muskrat Love” and “Do That to Me One More Time.” In 2016, Tennille wrote a tell-all, Toni Tennille: A Memoir.
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PHOTO BY: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images
May 10: Bono, 60
The famed front man for the Irish band U2 is probably just as well known for his philanthropic efforts to fight poverty and hunger, among many other causes. Most recently, Bono lobbied for medical equipment and diagnostic kits to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in his homeland. In March, he shared his first new song since 2017, “Let Your Love Be Known,” inspired by quarantined Italians singing on their balconies.
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PHOTO BY: Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images
May 12: Gabriel Byrne, 70
The Dublin-born actor has starred in more than 70 films, including the Coen brothers’ Miller's Crossing in 1990 and Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects in 1995. He's also headlined prominent TV projects such as HBO's In Treatment and the recent TV adaptation of War of the Worlds. In 2010, Ireland declared Byrne the country's cultural ambassador, tasked with forging cultural bonds with the U.S.
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PHOTO BY: Al Pereira/Getty Images
May 12: Billy Squier, 70
Squier, whose style combined glam, pop and hard rock, was a staple on MTV in the 1980s, with huge hits such as “The Stroke,” “My Kinda Lover” and “Everybody Wants You.” His career tumbled after a misguided video for “Rock Me Tonite” showed him weirdly prancing about. But he later found a little hip-hop fame when artists such as Jay-Z, Alicia Keys and Kanye West mixed samples of his songs into their music.
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PHOTO BY: Rich Polk/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
May 13: Stevie Wonder, 70
This blind child prodigy signed with Motown at age 11 and scored a number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at age 13 with his live version of “Fingertips.” His career eventually soared. By the 1970s, Wonder dominated the pop world with such songs as “Superstition,” and he's now a music legend who's won 25 Grammys over the decades.
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PHOTO BY: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
May 18: Tina Fey, 50
This self-described “super nerd” who's admired for her self-effacing humor went from the Chicago improv comedy scene to Saturday Night Live, where she was the show's first female head writer. Fey is the mastermind behind wildly successful projects like the 2004 film Mean Girls (recently adapted for Broadway with a score by her husband, composer Jeff Richmond), the Netflix series The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and the NBC series 30 Rock. She's now working on an upcoming NBC show about a know-nothing Los Angeles mayor.
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PHOTO BY: Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images
May 22: Naomi Campbell, 50
The British supermodel was the face of fashion in the late 1980s — along with Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista, known as the “Trinity” for their collective mega fame — when she became the first black model to be the cover girl for American Vogue's all-important September issue, in 1989. She's dabbled in acting on such TV shows as Empire, and you can catch her as a judge on Amazon Prime's Making the Cut.
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PHOTO BY: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
May 31: Clint Eastwood, 90
From TV cowboy on Rawhide and spaghetti Western movie star to Oscar-winning filmmaker and mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, Eastwood has influenced our cultural landscape for seven decades. He has directed more than 30 films, including two Academy Award best-picture winners: 1992's Unforgiven and 2004's Million Dollar Baby. His latest effort was directing last year's Richard Jewell, starring Kathy Bates.