Did you know about Glen Hansard
In 1990, he co-founded the Irish rock band the Frames, which he fronted.
Famous Birthdays on April 21
April 21 has 164 recorded notable births across history, from 1132 to 2008. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1970 — Glen Hansard
Irish singer-songwriter (died 2026)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Famous Birthdays
164 source records
1132 – 2008
Taurus
Today in history
Major events on April 21
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 1967 A few days before the general election in Greece, Colonel George Papadopoulos leads a coup d'état, establishing a military regime that lasts for seven years. Source
- 1789 George Washington's reception at Trenton is hosted by the Ladies of Trenton as he journeys to New York City for his first inauguration. Source
Did you know about Toby Stephens
From 2014 to 2017, he starred as Captain Flint in the Starz television series Black Sails, followed by one of the lead roles in the Netflix science fiction series Lost in Space from 2018 to 2021.
Did you know about Tony Danza
In 1998, Danza won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Television Series for his work on the 1997 sitcom The Tony Danza Show.
Did you know about Paul Davis
Paul Davis's most successful songs are 1977's "I Go Crazy", a No. 7 pop hit that once held the record for the longest chart run on the Billboard Hot 100, and 1982's "'65 Love Affair", which at No. 6 is his highest-charting single.
Did you know about Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine Masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2).
More major people born on April 21
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1969
Toby Stephens
English actor
Toby Stephens is an English actor who has appeared in films in the United Kingdom, United States, and India. He is known for the roles of Bond villain Gustav Graves in the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day, for which he was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor; William Gordon in the 2005 Bollywood film Mangal Pandey: The Rising; and Edward Fairfax Rochester in the 2006 BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre. From 2014 to 2017, he starred as Captain Flint in the Starz television series Black Sails, followed by one of the lead roles in the Netflix science fiction series Lost in Space from 2018 to 2021. He portrays the Greek god Poseidon in Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
1951
Tony Danza
American actor and producer
Tony Danza is an American actor and retired professional boxer. He is known for co-starring in the television series Taxi (1978–1983) and Who's the Boss? (1984–1992), for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award and four Golden Globe Awards. In 1998, Danza won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Television Series for his work on the 1997 sitcom The Tony Danza Show. He has also appeared in films such as The Hollywood Knights (1980), Going Ape! (1981), Cannonball Run II (1984), She's Out of Control (1989), Angels in the Outfield (1994), Crash (2004), and Don Jon (2013).
1948
Paul Davis
American singer-songwriter and musician (died 2008)
Paul Lavon Davis was an American singer and songwriter, best known for his radio hits and solo career that started worldwide in 1970. His career encompassed soul, country, and pop. His most successful songs are 1977's "I Go Crazy", a No. 7 pop hit that once held the record for the longest chart run on the Billboard Hot 100, and 1982's "'65 Love Affair", which at No. 6 is his highest-charting single. Another pop hit, "Cool Night", was released in 1981. In the mid-1980s, he also had two No. 1 country hits as a guest vocalist on songs by Marie Osmond and Tanya Tucker.
1919
Licio Gelli
Italian financer (died 2015)
Licio Gelli was an Italian Freemason, businessman, and terrorist. A fascist volunteer in his youth, he is chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal and in the Bologna massacre. He was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine Masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2). This would lead to him getting arrested in Switzerland in 1982. He managed to escape from prison the next year, but eventually agreed to surrender back into the custody of Swiss authorities for a short period of time in 1987. From 1996 until his death in 2015, Gelli remained mostly under house arrest at his home in Arezzo.
1941
David Boren
American lawyer and politician, 21st Governor of Oklahoma (died 2025)
David Lyle Boren was an American lawyer and politician from Oklahoma. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 21st governor of Oklahoma from 1975 to 1979 and three terms in the United States Senate from 1979 to 1994. A conservative Democrat, to date, he is the last in his party to have served as U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. He was the 13th and second-longest serving president of the University of Oklahoma from 1994 to 2018. He was the longest serving chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. On September 20, 2017, Boren officially announced his retirement as president of the University of Oklahoma, effective June 30, 2018.
1976
Petero Civoniceva
Fijian-Australian rugby league player
Petero Civoniceva, is a Fijian-Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. A Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative prop forward, in 2009 he broke the record for most international matches for Australia of any forward in history. Civoniceva played his club football for the Brisbane Broncos, with whom he won the 1998, 2000 and 2006 NRL Premierships, as well as for the Penrith Panthers, whom he captained. Late in his career whilst playing for the Redcliffe Dolphins in the Queensland Cup, Civoniceva captained the Fiji national team in their 2013 Rugby League World Cup campaign. The Petero Civoniceva Medal is awarded to the Australian Fijian rugby league footballer of the year, while the Civoniceva Medal is awarded to the Queensland Cup player voted as the best and fairest.
1953
John Brumby
Australian politician, 45th Premier of Victoria
John Mansfield Brumby is the current Chancellor of La Trobe University and former Victorian Labor Party politician who was Premier of Victoria from 2007 to 2010. He became leader of the Victorian Labor Party and premier after the resignation of Steve Bracks. He also served as the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. He contested his first election as premier at the November 2010 Victorian state election. His government was defeated by the Liberal/National Coalition led by Ted Baillieu. Brumby resigned as Labor leader after the election, on 30 November, to be replaced by Daniel Andrews. Within weeks of this leadership change, Brumby left parliament, with a Broadmeadows by-election taking place on 19 February 2011.
1887
Joe McCarthy
American baseball manager (died 1978)
Joseph Vincent McCarthy was an American manager in Major League Baseball (MLB), most renowned for his leadership of the "Bronx Bombers" teams of the New York Yankees from 1931 to 1946. The first manager to win pennants with both National and American League teams, he won a total nine league pennants and seven World Series championships – the latter is a record tied only by Casey Stengel. McCarthy was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1957. He recorded a 100-win season six times, a record matched only by Bobby Cox. McCarthy's career winning percentages in both the regular season (.615) and postseason are the highest in major league history. His 2,125 career victories rank ninth all-time in major league history for managerial wins, and he ranks first all-time for the Yankees with 1,460 wins.
1913
Norman Parkinson
English photographer (died 1990)
Norman Parkinson was an English portrait and fashion photographer. His work revolutionised British fashion photography, as he moved his subjects out of the studio and used outdoor settings. While serving as a Royal Air Force photographer in World War II, he started with Vogue magazine, discovering several famous models. He became an official royal photographer in 1969, taking photographs for Princess Anne's 19th birthday and the Investiture portrait of Charles III as Prince of Wales. Many other royal portraits included official portraits of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother for her 75th birthday. He was known for using elements of humour in his photographs. Parkinson received many honours during his life including the Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society of Magazine Photographers, a Google Doodle, and a British postage stamp.
1783
Reginald Heber
English priest (died 1821)
Reginald Heber was an English Anglican bishop, a man of letters, and hymn-writer. After 16 years as a country parson, he served as Bishop of Calcutta until his death at the age of 42. The son of a rich landowner and cleric, Heber gained fame at the University of Oxford as a poet. After graduation he made an extended tour of Scandinavia, Russia and Central Europe. Ordained in 1807, he took over his father's old parish, Hodnet, Shropshire. He also wrote hymns and general literature, including a study of the works of the 17th-century cleric Jeremy Taylor.
1940
Jacques Caron
Canadian ice hockey player and coach
Jacques Joseph Caron is a Canadian former ice hockey player and coach. He played 72 games in the National Hockey League with the Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues, and Vancouver Canucks between 1967 and 1974, and 26 games in the World Hockey Association with the Cleveland Crusaders and Cincinnati Stingers between 1975 and 1977. After his playing career, he worked as an assistant coach with the Hartford Whalers, and then as the goaltending coach and special assignment coach with the New Jersey Devils from 1993 to 2017. With New Jersey, he won the Stanley Cup three times.
1870
Edwin Stanton Porter
American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1941)
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American film pioneer, most famous as a producer, director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Famous Players Film Company. Of over 250 films created by Porter, his most important include What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City (1901), Jack and the Beanstalk (1902), Life of an American Fireman (1903), The Great Train Robbery (1903), The European Rest Cure (1904), The Kleptomaniac (1905), Life of a Cowboy (1906), Rescued from an Eagle's Nest (1908), The Prisoner of Zenda (1913), and Tess of the Storm Country (1914).
1912
Eve Arnold
Russian-American photojournalist (died 2012)
Eve Arnold, OBE (honorary), FRPS (honorary) was an American photojournalist and long time resident of Mayfair in the UK. She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951, and became a full member in 1957. She was the first woman to join the agency. She frequently photographed and was trusted by Marilyn Monroe, her work included candid-style photos on the set and post set of The Misfits (1961). Marilyn had invited Arnold, to John F. Kennedy's birthday party, to photograph her singing but she was too exhausted from other work to attend and always regretted declining the commission.
1814
Angela Burdett-Coutts
1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts, English art collector and philanthropist (died 1906)
Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts was a British philanthropist, the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet and Sophia, formerly Coutts, daughter of banker Thomas Coutts. In 1837 she became one of the wealthiest women in England when she inherited her grandfather's fortune of around £1.8 million following the death of her stepgrandmother, Harriot Beauclerk, Duchess of St Albans. She joined the surnames of her father and grandfather, by royal licence, to become Burdett-Coutts. Edward VII is reported to have described her as "[a]fter my mother, the most remarkable woman in the kingdom".
1935
Charles Grodin
American actor and talk show host (died 2021)
Charles Sidney Grodin was an American actor, comedian, author, and television talk show host. Known for his deadpan delivery and often cast as a put-upon straight man, Grodin became familiar as a supporting actor in many Hollywood comedies. After a small part in Rosemary's Baby in 1968, he played the lead in Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid (1972) where he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Grodin also starred in 11 Harrowhouse (1974), for which he also wrote the adaptation.
1947
Iggy Pop
American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
James Newell Osterberg Jr., known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor who was the lead vocalist of the proto-punk band the Stooges. Regarded as the "Godfather of Punk", he is noted for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics, poetic lyrics, and unique voice. He was named one of the 50 Great Voices by NPR, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Stooges in 2010, and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020 for his solo career.
1936
Reg Fleming
Canadian-American ice hockey player (died 2009)
Reginald Stephen "Reggie, the Ruffian" Fleming was a professional hockey player in the National Hockey League with the Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Black Hawks, Boston Bruins, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers and Buffalo Sabres. He also played for the Chicago Cougars of the World Hockey Association, as well as with a number of minor league teams in other professional leagues. His professional career spanned over 20 years. He was known as an aggressive and combative player who could play both forward and defence, as well as kill penalties.
1947
Al Bumbry
American baseball player
Alonza Benjamin Bumbry is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder who played for the Baltimore Orioles and San Diego Padres from 1972 through 1985. Bumbry was the 1973 American League Rookie of the Year, and went on to be an All-Star and World Series champion. He is an inductee of the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. Prior to his major league career, Bumbry served in the US Army during the Vietnam War and was awarded a Bronze Star.
1904
Odilo Globocnik
Italian-Austrian SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator (died 1945)
Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globočnik was a Nazi Party official and a perpetrator of the Holocaust. A high-ranking member of the SS, Globočnik was the leader of Operation Reinhard, the organized murder of around one and a half million Jews, mostly of Polish origin, during the Holocaust in the Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibór and Bełżec extermination camps. Historian Michael Allen described him as "the vilest individual in the vilest organization ever known". Globočnik committed suicide shortly after his capture and detention by British soldiers.