Famous Birthdays on February 12

Darren Aronofsky is an American filmmaker. His films are noted for their surreal, dramatic, and often disturbing elements, frequently in the form of psychological realism. His accolades include a Golden Lion and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and the British Academy Film Award. Aronofsky studied film and social anthropology at Harvard University before studying directing at the AFI Conservatory. He won several film awards after completing his senior thesis film, Supermarket Sweep, which became a National Student Academy Award finalist. In 1997, he founded the film and TV production company Protozoa Pictures. His feature film debut, the surrealist psychological thriller Pi (1998), earned him the award for Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.

John Michael Higgins is an American actor, comedian and game show host whose film credits include Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, the role of David Letterman in HBO's The Late Shift, and a starring role in the American version of Kath & Kim. He portrayed Peter Lovett in the TV Land original sitcom Happily Divorced and provided the voice of Iknik Blackstone Varrick in The Legend of Korra and Mini-Max in Big Hero 6: The Series. He also starred in the NBC sitcom Great News as Chuck Pierce for two seasons. From 2018-2022, and 2026-present he hosted the game show America Says, which earned him a 2019 Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Game Show Host. Higgins attended Amherst College, graduating in 1985, and was a member of the a cappella group the Zumbyes. From 2023 to 2024, he hosted a new version of the game show Split Second on Game Show Network.

Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale was a British actor, film director, writer, and producer from Ely, England. He spent much of his childhood moving around owing to his father's career as an officer with the Royal Air Force (RAF). Poor eyesight prevented him from following a similar career in the RAF, so he instead planned to become a theatre director. Training at Studio 68 of Theatre Arts in London, he started work as an actor, making his West End debut in 1974. He went on to appear in numerous roles in television, including the series I, Claudius and Jesus of Nazareth, before starring as Simon Doyle in the film Death on the Nile (1978). This proved to be a breakthrough role. He appeared in a variety of films and TV series including Quatermass (1979), The Riddle of the Sands (1979), The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982) and Jaws 3-D (1983).

Michael Robert Henrion Posner is an American singer, rapper, songwriter, poet, and record producer from Detroit. He signed with J Records in 2009 and released his debut single "Cooler Than Me" the following year. The song peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 and received septuple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). His follow-up single, "Please Don't Go" peaked within the top 20 of the chart and received triple platinum certification; both songs preceded the release of his debut album, 31 Minutes to Takeoff (2010), which peaked at number 12 on the Billboard 200 and received mixed critical reception. In 2014, Posner parted ways with J Records in favor of Island Records.

Dayanand Saraswati born Mool Shankar Tiwari, was a Hindu philosopher, social leader and founder of the Arya Samaj, a reform movement of Hinduism. His book Satyarth Prakash has remained one of the influential texts on the philosophy of the Vedas and clarifications of various ideas and duties of human beings. He was the first to give the call for Swaraj as "India for Indians" in 1876. The word swaraj in the modern political sense, however, does not appear in his written communications. Denouncing the idolatry and ritualistic worship, he worked towards reviving Vedic religion. Subsequently, the philosopher and President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, addressed him one of the "makers of Modern India", as did Sri Aurobindo.

Rubén Amaro Jr. is an American former professional baseball outfielder, coach and executive. Amaro played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1991 to 1998. He was named the GM of the Philadelphia Phillies on November 3, 2008, succeeding Pat Gillick and remained in that position until September 10, 2015. He was previously the first base coach for the Boston Red Sox (2016–2017) and New York Mets (2018). He is the son of former MLB infielder and coach, Rubén Amaro Sr. Amaro is currently a color commentator on Philadelphia Phillies television broadcasts and a contributor to the 94.1 WIP Morning Show in Philadelphia. He worked as an analyst for a 2024 AL Wild Card Series on ESPN Radio.

Judd Winick is an American cartoonist, comic book writer and screenwriter, as well as a former reality television personality. He first gained fame for his stint on MTV's The Real World: San Francisco in 1994, before finding success as a comic book creator with Pedro and Me, an autobiographical graphic novel about his friendship with The Real World castmate and AIDS educator Pedro Zamora. Winick wrote lengthy runs on DC Comics' Green Lantern and Green Arrow series, created The Life and Times of Juniper Lee animated TV series for Cartoon Network, which ran for three seasons, and since 2015 has been the writer and cartoonist on his New York Times best selling graphic novel series Hilo.

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first, his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but Meredith gradually established a reputation as a novelist. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) briefly scandalised Victorian literary circles. Of his later novels, the most enduring is The Egoist (1879), though in his lifetime his greatest success was Diana of the Crossways (1885). His novels were innovative in their attention to characters' psychology, and also portrayed social change. His style, in both poetry and prose, was noted for its syntactic complexity; Oscar Wilde likened it to "chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning". Meredith was an encourager of other novelists, as well as an influence on them; among those to benefit were Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gissing. Meredith was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.

Ayşe Ajda Pekkan is a Turkish singer. She is known by the title "superstar" in the Turkish media.The queen of Turkish pop music. Pekkan became a prominent figure of Turkish pop music with her songs, which feature strong female figures. By keeping with the times and being influenced by Western elements, she managed to become one of Turkey's modern and enduring icons for over 50 years. Pekkan is highly respected in the music industry and has received praise from critics for both her vocal technique and her albums.In addition to Turkish, she has sung songs in French, English, German, Italian, Greek, and Japanese. She has albums recorded in these languages.She has duets with Demis Roussos, Gloria Gaynor, and Enrico Macias.

Alfred Nicholas Cervi was an American professional basketball player and coach in the National Basketball League (NBL) and National Basketball Association (NBA). One of the strongest backcourt players of the 1940s and 1950s, he was always assigned to defend against the opposing team's best scoring threat. He earned the nickname "Digger" because of his hard-nosed style of defense. He won the National Basketball League championship in 1946 with the Rochester Royals while being an All-NBL First Team in three straight seasons. He stayed with the NBL with the Syracuse Nationals in 1948, where he became player-coach that same year, which was the last one prior to joining the NBA. In that first year in the NBA, the Nationals won 51 games and reached the Finals, where they lost to the Minneapolis Lakers in six games. Cervi led the team back to the Finals in 1954 and 1955, which each saw the Nationals play in a Game 7; denied in 1954 to Minneapolis, the Nationals won Game 7 in 1955 for their first NBA championship. After twelve games in 1956, Cervi was fired from the Nationals, having coached them to eight postseason appearances in nine seasons. He coached one season with the Philadelphia Warriors in 1958 but elected to leave coaching for more lucrative ventures. Cervi was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1985.

Olivia Juliette Hooker was an American psychologist and professor. She was a survivor of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, and the first African-American woman to enter the U.S. Coast Guard. During World War II, she became a member of the United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve, earning the rank of Yeoman Third Class during her service. She served in the Coast Guard until her unit was disbanded in mid-1946. Hooker then used her G.I. Bill to obtain her master's degree in psychological services and went on earn her PhD in clinical psychology. In 1973, she helped form the American Psychological Association's Division 33: IDD/ASD, which is dedicated to "advancing psychological research, professional education, and clinical services that increase quality of life in individuals with IDD/ASD across the life course."

Josh Douglas Harrellson is an American professional basketball player for Saga Ballooners of the Japanese B.League. Standing 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m), he played center for the Kentucky Wildcats from 2008 to 2011. He was selected by the New Orleans Hornets as the 45th pick in the 2011 NBA draft, but was traded to the New York Knicks. He signed with the Miami Heat in 2012. In 2013, he joined the Brujos de Guayama in Puerto Rico, but he was released on May 18 so that he could join Chongqing Flying Dragons in the Chinese National Basketball League for a two-month period. In August 2013, Harrellson joined the Detroit Pistons.

Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental scientific concept. In a joint presentation with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.

Robert David Smith is a Canadian professional ice hockey executive and former player. He played for the Minnesota North Stars and Montreal Canadiens in the National Hockey League (NHL). In 184 Stanley Cup playoff games, he recorded 160 points, which is currently the 25th most in league history. He played in four Stanley Cup Finals and won the 1986 Stanley Cup with the Canadiens. He was the 32nd player to record 1,000 points in NHL history, doing so on November 30, 1991. Smith was the majority owner of the junior hockey team Halifax Mooseheads from 2003 to February 2023, which won the Memorial Cup once in 2013.

Paxton James Lynch is an American professional football quarterback for the Colorado Spartans of the National Arena League (NAL). He played college football for the Memphis Tigers, and was selected in the first round of the 2016 NFL draft by the Denver Broncos. Lynch played just two seasons in Denver and made four starts before being released prior to the 2018 season. Lynch was also a member of the Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL, the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL), the Michigan Panthers of the United States Football League (USFL), and the Orlando Guardians and San Antonio Brahmas of the XFL.

Sigmund Rascher was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) doctor. He conducted deadly experiments on humans pertaining to high altitude, freezing and blood coagulation under the patronage of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, to whom his wife Karoline "Nini" Diehl had direct connections. When police investigations uncovered that the couple had defrauded the public with their supernatural fertility by 'hiring' and kidnapping babies, she and Rascher were arrested in April 1944. He was accused of financial irregularities, murder of his former lab assistant, and scientific fraud, and brought to Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps before being executed. After his death, the Nuremberg trials judged his experiments as inhumane and criminal.

Radric Delantic Davis, known professionally as Gucci Mane, is an American rapper and music executive. He is credited, along with fellow Atlanta-based rappers T.I. and Jeezy, with pioneering the hip-hop subgenre trap music for mainstream audiences during the 2000s. His debut studio album, Trap House (2005), was released by the independent label Big Cat Records and entered the Billboard 200; it was followed by Hard to Kill (2006), which spawned his first Billboard Hot 100 entry with its single "Freaky Gurl". That same year, he released his third album, Trap-A-Thon, before signing with Atlantic Records to release his fourth album, Back to the Trap House (2007).

John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as the ninth president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) from 1920 to 1960 and the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which organized millions of industrial workers during the Great Depression, from 1935 to 1940. Lewis was a major figure in the history of coal mining and the American labor movement; his supporters credited him with high wages, pensions, and medical benefits in the mining industry. Throughout his career in the public eye, Lewis was frequently caricatured and came to represent the broader American labor movement.

Robert Peel was an English professional cricketer who played first-class cricket for Yorkshire between 1883 and 1897. Primarily a left-arm spin bowler, Peel was also an effective left-handed batsman who played in the middle order. Between 1884 and 1896, he was regularly selected to represent England, playing 20 Test matches in which he took 101 wickets. Over the course of his career, he scored 12,191 runs and took 1,775 wickets in first-class cricket. A match-winning bowler, particularly when conditions favoured his style, Peel generally opened the attack, an orthodox tactic for a spinner at the time, and was highly regarded by critics.