Famous Birthdays on June 6

June 6 has 120 recorded notable births across history, from 1436 to 2001. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

Kenny Pickett

1998 — Kenny Pickett

American football player

By · Wikipedia

Famous Birthdays 120 source records 1436 – 2001 Gemini

Major events on June 6

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1934 New Deal: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Source
  2. 1982 1982 Lebanon War: The war begins as forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon during Operation Peace for the Galilee, eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut. Source

Did you know about Kenny Pickett

Pickett was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round of the 2022 NFL draft, spending two seasons as the primary starter and helping the team clinch a playoff appearance in 2023.

Did you know about Steve Vai

Additionally, Vai has toured with live-only acts G3, Zappa Plays Zappa, Beat and the Experience Hendrix Tour, as well as headlining international tours.

Did you know about Sunil Dutt

Regarded as one of the most successful and finest actors in the history of Indian cinema, Dutt was known for his unique style and delivering impactful messages through his films.

Did you know about Colin Quinn

Colin Quinn first gained widespread attention for his work as a cast member and writer on Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2000, and he became known for anchoring Weekend Update, the show's news parody segment.

Did you know about D. Ramanaidu

D. Ramanaidu founded Suresh Productions in 1964 which became of one of the largest film production companies in India.


More major people born on June 6

Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.

1960 Steve Vai

Steve Vai

American musician
Steven Siro Vai is an American guitarist, songwriter, and producer. A three-time Grammy Award winner and fifteen-time nominee, Vai started his music career in 1978 at the age of eighteen as a transcriptionist for Frank Zappa, and played in Zappa's band from 1980 to 1983. He embarked on a solo career in 1983 and has released 11 solo albums to date. He has recorded and toured with Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth, and Whitesnake, as well as recording with artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, Public Image Ltd, Mary J. Blige, Spinal Tap, Alice Cooper, Motörhead, and Polyphia. Additionally, Vai has toured with live-only acts G3, Zappa Plays Zappa, Beat and the Experience Hendrix Tour, as well as headlining international tours.
1929 Sunil Dutt

Sunil Dutt

Indian actor, director, producer, and politician (died 2005)
Balraj Raghunath Dutt, publicly known as Sunil Dutt, was an Indian actor, film producer, director, and politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He acted in more than 80 films over a career spanning five decades and was the recipient of three Filmfare Awards, including two for Best Actor. Regarded as one of the most successful and finest actors in the history of Indian cinema, Dutt was known for his unique style and delivering impactful messages through his films. In 1968, the Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award, for his contribution to Indian cinema.
1959 Colin Quinn

Colin Quinn

American comedian and actor
Colin Edward Quinn is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. He first gained widespread attention for his work as a cast member and writer on Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2000, and he became known for anchoring Weekend Update, the show's news parody segment. Prior to SNL, he was best known as the announcer/sidekick/co-host on MTV's 1980s game show Remote Control. Following his departure from SNL, Quinn went on to host Comedy Central's late-night panel show Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, where he and a panel of New York's big names in stand-up comedy discussed and debated news stories of the day. Notable film work includes his role as Dooey in A Night at the Roxbury, Dickey Bailey in the Grown Ups films, and playing Amy Schumer's father in the film Trainwreck. Comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Tina Fey, Chris Rock, and Dave Attell have cited Quinn as the quintessential "comic's comic" and New York comedian.
1936 D. Ramanaidu

D. Ramanaidu

Indian actor, director, and producer, founded Suresh Productions (died 2015)
Daggubati Ramanaidu was an Indian film producer known for his work in Telugu cinema. He founded Suresh Productions in 1964 which became of one of the largest film production companies in India. He was one of the most influential movie moguls in Indian cinema. He was placed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most films produced by an individual, with more than 150 films in all official Indian languages. He also served as a Member of Parliament for the Bapatla constituency in Andhra Pradesh in the 13th Lok Sabha from 1999 to 2004.
1919 Peter Carington

Peter Carington

6th Baron Carrington, English army officer and politician, 6th Secretary General of NATO (died 2018)
Peter Alexander Rupert Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, Baron Carington of Upton, was a British Conservative Party politician and hereditary peer who served as Defence Secretary from 1970 to 1974, Foreign Secretary from 1979 to 1982, chairman of the General Electric Company from 1983 to 1984, and Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. In Margaret Thatcher's first government, he played a major role in negotiating the Lancaster House Agreement that ended the conflict in Rhodesia and enabled the creation of Zimbabwe. Carington later served as the Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Bilderberg Group's meetings from 1990 to 1998.
1955 Lee Smolin

Lee Smolin

American theoretical physicist
Lee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo, and a member of the graduate faculty of the philosophy department at the University of Toronto. Smolin's 2006 book The Trouble with Physics criticized string theory's viability. He has made contributions to quantum gravity theory, in particular the approach known as loop quantum gravity. He advocates that the two primary approaches to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity and string theory, can be reconciled as different aspects of the same underlying theory. He also advocates an alternative view on space and time that he calls temporal naturalism. His research interests also include cosmology, elementary particle theory, the foundations of quantum mechanics, and theoretical biology.
1944 Monty Alexander

Monty Alexander

Jamaican jazz pianist
Montgomery Bernard "Monty" Alexander OJ CD is a Jamaican American jazz pianist. His playing has a Caribbean influence and bright swinging feeling, with a strong vocabulary of bebop jazz and blues rooted melodies. He was influenced by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Les McCann, and Frank Sinatra. Alexander also sings and plays the melodica. He is known for his surprising musical twists, bright rhythmic sense, and intense dramatic musical climaxes. His recording career has covered many of the well-known American songbook standards, jazz standards, pop hits, and Jamaican songs from his original homeland. Alexander has resided in New York City for many years and performs frequently throughout the world at jazz festivals and clubs.
1898 Ninette de Valois

Ninette de Valois

English ballerina, choreographer, and director (died 2001)
Dame Ninette de Valois was an Irish-born British ballet dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. She danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, later establishing The Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Royal Ballet School and the touring company which became the Birmingham Royal Ballet. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the "godmother" of English and Irish ballet.
1929 James Barnor

James Barnor

Ghanaian photographer
James Barnor Hon. FRPS, OV is a Ghanaian photographer who has been based in London since the 1990s. His career spans six decades, and although for much of that period his work was not widely known, it has latterly been discovered by new audiences. In his street and studio photography, Barnor represents societies in transition in the 1950s and 1960s: Ghana moving toward independence, and London becoming a multicultural metropolis. He has said: "I was lucky to be alive when things were happening...when Ghana was going to be independent and Ghana became independent, and when I came to England the Beatles were around. Things were happening in the 60s, so I call myself Lucky Jim." He was Ghana's first full-time newspaper photographer in the 1950s, and he is credited with introducing colour processing to Ghana in the 1970s. It has been said: "James Barnor is to Ghana and photojournalism what Ousmane Sembène was to Senegal and African cinema."
1926 Klaus Tennstedt

Klaus Tennstedt

German conductor (died 1998)
Klaus Hermann Wilhelm Tennstedt was a German conductor from Merseburg. Known for his interpretation of the Austro-German repertoire, especially his sympathetic approaches towards Gustav Mahler, Tennstedt is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential conductors of the late 20th century. He worked with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, and other highly regarded ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and most notably the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), which he was the principal conductor of from 1983 to 1987. With the LPO, he recorded extensively, including a complete cycle of Mahler's 10 symphonies for EMI.
1850 Karl Ferdinand Braun

Karl Ferdinand Braun

German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate in 1909 for physics (died 1918)
Karl Ferdinand Braun was a German applied physicist who shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi for their contributions to the development of radio. With his two circuit system, long range radio transmissions and modern telecommunications were made possible. His invention of the phased array antenna in 1905 led to the development of radar, smart antennas, and MIMO. Braun built the first cathode-ray tube in 1897, which led to the development of television, and the first semiconductor diode in 1874, which co-started the development of electronics and electronic engineering.
1917 Kirk Kerkorian

Kirk Kerkorian

American businessman, founded the Tracinda Corporation (died 2015)
Kerkor "Kirk" Kerkorian was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was the president and CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private holding company based in Beverly Hills, California. Kerkorian was one of the important figures in the shaping of Las Vegas and, with architect Martin Stern Jr., is described as the "father of the mega-resort". He built the world's largest hotel in Las Vegas three times: the International Hotel, the original MGM Grand Hotel (1973) and the current MGM Grand (1993). He purchased the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio in 1969.
1933 Heinrich Rohrer

Heinrich Rohrer

Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2013)
Heinrich Rohrer was a Swiss physicist who shared half of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gerd Binnig for the design of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The other half of the Prize was awarded to Ernst Ruska. The Heinrich Rohrer Medal is presented triennially by the Surface Science Society of Japan with IBM Research – Zurich, Swiss Embassy in Japan, and Ms. Rohrer in his memory. The medal is not to be confused with the Heinrich Rohrer Award presented at the Nano Seoul 2020 conference.
1923 V. C. Andrews

V. C. Andrews

American author, illustrator, and painter (died 1986)
Cleo Virginia Andrews, better known as Virginia C. Andrews or V. C. Andrews, was an American novelist. She was best known for her 1979 novel Flowers in the Attic, which inspired two movie adaptations and four sequels. While her novels are not classified by her publisher as Young Adult, their young protagonists have made them popular among teenagers for decades. After her death in 1986, a ghostwriter who was initially hired to complete two unfinished works has continued to publish books under her name.
1948 Arlene Harris

Arlene Harris

American entrepreneur, inventor, investor and policy advocate
Arlene Joy Harris is an entrepreneur, inventor, investor, and policy advocate in the telecommunications industry. She is the president and co-founder of Dyna LLC, an incubator for start-up and early-stage organizations historically in the wireless technology field. Harris is widely recognized as a pioneer in mobile and wireless enterprise and an innovator of consumer products and services. In May 2007, she became the first female inductee of the Wireless Hall of Fame, and was named to the Consumer Technology Hall of Fame in 2017.
1956 Björn Borg

Björn Borg

Swedish tennis player; winner of eleven Grand Slam singles titles including five consecutive Wimbledons
Björn Rune Borg is a Swedish former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 109 weeks. Borg won 66 singles titles during his career, including eleven majors: six at the French Open and five consecutively at Wimbledon. Borg was ATP Player of the Year from 1976 to 1980, the year-end No. 1 in the ATP rankings in 1979 and 1980, and the ITF World Champion from 1978 to 1980.
1944 Tommie Smith

Tommie Smith

American sprinter and football player; winner of 1968 Olympic 200m gold medal in a world record time
Tommie C. Smith is an American former track and field athlete and wide receiver in the American Football League. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, Smith, aged 24, won the 200-meter sprint finals and gold medal in 19.83 seconds – the first time the 20-second barrier was broken officially. His Black Power salute with John Carlos atop the medal podium caused controversy, as it was seen as politicizing the Olympic Games. It remains a symbolic moment in the history of the Black Power movement.
1952 Harvey Fierstein

Harvey Fierstein

American actor and playwright; winner of four Tony Awards
Harvey Forbes Fierstein is an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter, known for his distinctive gravelly voice. He gained notice for his theater work in Torch Song Trilogy, winning both the Tony Award for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play. He went on to win the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for La Cage aux Folles, then Best Actor in a Musical for playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, a role he reprised for the Hairspray Live! television special.
1875 Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann

German author and critic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1955)
Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modern versions of German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arthur Schopenhauer.

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