Famous Birthdays on March 31

Gordon Howe was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. From 1946 to 1980, he played 26 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) and six seasons in the World Hockey Association (WHA); his first 25 seasons were spent with the Detroit Red Wings. Nicknamed "Mr. Hockey", Howe is often considered the most complete player ever to play the game and one of the greatest of all time. At his retirement, his 801 goals, 1,049 assists, and 1,850 total points were all NHL records that stood until they were broken by Wayne Gretzky, who himself has been a major champion of Howe's legacy. A 23-time NHL All-Star, he shares the NHL record for seasons played with Chris Chelios, and his all-time NHL games played record of 1,767 was only surpassed in 2021 by Patrick Marleau. In 2017, Howe was named one of the "100 Greatest NHL Players".

Richard Paul Kiley was an American stage, film, and television actor and singer. He is best known for his distinguished theatrical career in which he twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Kiley originated the role of Don Quixote in the original 1965 production of the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha and was the first to sing and record "The Impossible Dream", the hit song from the show. In the 1953 hit musical Kismet, he played the Caliph in the original Broadway cast and as such was one of the quartet who sang "And This Is My Beloved". He also won four Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards during his five-decade career and his "sonorous baritone" was also featured in the narration of a number of documentaries and other films. At the time of his death, Kiley was described as "one of theater's most distinguished and versatile actors" and as "an indispensable actor, the kind of performer who could be called on to play kings and commoners and a diversity of characters in between."

Michael Alan Weiner known by his professional name Michael Savage, is an American author, political commentator, activist, and former radio host. Savage is best known as the host of The Savage Nation, a nationally syndicated talk show that aired on Talk Radio Network across the United States until 2021, and in 2009 was the second most listened-to radio talk show in the country with an audience of over 20 million listeners on 400 stations across the United States. From October 23, 2012, to January 1, 2021, Michael Savage had been syndicated by Cumulus Media and Westwood One. He holds master's degrees from the University of Hawaii in medical botany and medical anthropology, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in nutritional ethnomedicine. As Michael Weiner, he has written books on nutrition, herbal medicine, and homeopathy; as Michael Savage, he has written several political books that have reached The New York Times Best Seller list.

Maaya Sakamoto is a Japanese actress and singer. She made her debut as a voice actress in 1992 as the voice of Chifuru in the anime Little Twins, and became known as the voice of Hitomi Kanzaki in The Vision of Escaflowne. Other major anime roles include Shinobu Oshino in Monogatari, Haruhi Fujioka in Ouran High School Host Club, Shiki Ryōgi in The Garden of Sinners, Ciel Phantomhive in Black Butler, Crona in Soul Eater, Leila Malcal in Code Geass: Akito the Exiled, Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell: Arise, Merlin in The Seven Deadly Sins, Eto in Tokyo Ghoul, and Echidna in Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World. In video games, she has voiced Aerith Gainsborough in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series, Aigis in Persona 3, Lightning in the Final Fantasy XIII games, the adult Sherry Birkin in Resident Evil, and Maki Harukawa in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. In the Japanese-dubbed versions of international films, Sakamoto has voiced Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars franchise and Rosalina in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

Ashleigh Adele Ball is a Canadian voice actress and musician. She is known for voicing characters in several toyetic movies and television series, notably the Barbie film series, Bratz, Johnny Test, Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot, Littlest Pet Shop, Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, LoliRock, The Deep, Sonic Prime and Ready Jet Go!. She is the subject of the documentary A Brony Tale directed by Brent Hodge, which follows her through her first interactions with the brony community at BronyCon 2012. She is also a member of the pop rock band Hey Ocean!.

Steven Delano Smith is an American former professional basketball player who is a basketball analyst for Turner Sports. After a collegiate career with Michigan State, he played with several teams in his 14-season National Basketball Association career, including the Miami Heat, the Portland Trail Blazers and the San Antonio Spurs, but is perhaps best known for his five-year stint with the Atlanta Hawks which included an All-Star Game appearance in 1998. He won a championship with the Spurs in 2003. Smith was widely regarded as an excellent three-point shooter, and is one of three players to make seven 3-pointers in a quarter.

Jean-Christophe Lafaille was a French mountaineer, alpinist and rock climber who was noted for difficult first ascents and first solo winter ascents, in the Alps and in the Himalaya, as well as setting new milestones in free solo climbing. Considered one of the strongest alpinists of his generation, he is also remembered for what has been described as "perhaps the finest self-rescue ever performed in the Himalaya", when he was forced to descend the mile-high south face of Annapurna alone with a broken arm after his climbing partner had been killed in a fall. He climbed eleven of the fourteen eight-thousanders, many of them alone or by new climbing routes. He disappeared during a solo attempt to make the first winter ascent of Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain.

Thomas Patrick Barrasso is an American professional ice hockey coach and former professional ice hockey goaltender. He played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 18 seasons. Barrasso began his time in the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres, who selected him fifth overall in the 1983 NHL entry draft out of high school. He was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1988, where he would best be remembered and spend the majority of his career. Barrasso spent parts of 12 seasons with the Penguins, and was a Stanley Cup champion in 1991 and 1992. After being traded to the Ottawa Senators in March 2000 and sitting out the 2000–01 season, his final two seasons were split playing for the Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, and St. Louis Blues. Barrasso was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2023.

James Deandre Jones is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the San Jose State Spartans and was selected by the Green Bay Packers in the third round of the 2007 NFL draft. With the Packers, he helped them win Super Bowl XLV over the Pittsburgh Steelers. He also played for the Oakland Raiders. After his playing career, Jones went into sports media and became an NFL Network analyst. In September 2024, he became a co-host on Fox Sports 1's (FS1) sports talk show The Facility.

Ashikaga Yoshiteru , also known as Yoshifushi or Yoshifuji, was a Japanese samurai, daimyo and the 13th shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1546 to 1565 during the late Muromachi period of Japan. He was the eldest son of the 12th shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshiharu, and his mother was a daughter of Konoe Hisamichi. When he became shogun in 1546 at age 11, Yoshiteru's name was Yoshifushi ; but some years later in 1554, he changed his name to the one by which he is conventionally known today. His childhood name was Kikubemaru (菊童丸). His younger brother Ashikaga Yoshiaki became the fifteenth shōgun.

John La Farge was an American artist whose career spanned illustration, murals, interior design, painting, and popular books on his Asian travels and other art-related topics. La Farge made stained glass windows, mainly for churches on the American east coast, beginning with a large commission for Henry Hobson Richardson's Trinity Church in Boston in 1878, and continuing for thirty years. La Farge designed stained glass as an artist, as a specialist in color, and as a technical innovator, holding a patent granted in 1880 for superimposing panes of glass. That patent would be key in his dispute with contemporary and rival Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Rhea Jo Perlman is an American actress and author. She is well-known for playing head waitress Carla Tortelli in the popular sitcom Cheers (1982–1993). Over the course of 11 seasons, Perlman was nominated for 10 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress, winning four, and was nominated for a record six Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series. She has also appeared in films, including Canadian Bacon (1995), Matilda (1996), The Sessions (2012), Poms (2019) and Barbie (2023). In 2025, Perlman had a guest role in the second season of the crime mystery series Poker Face.

Vardis Alvero Fisher was an American writer from Idaho who wrote popular historical novels of the Old West. After studying at the University of Utah and the University of Chicago, Fisher taught English at the University of Utah and then at the Washington Square College of New York University until 1931. He worked with the Federal Writers' Project to write the Works Project Administration The Idaho Guide, which was published in 1937. In 1939, Fisher wrote Children of God, a historical novel concerning the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ; which won the Harper Prize.

Nyamko Ana Sabuni is a Swedish politician who was Leader of the Liberals between June 2019 and April 2022. She previously served as Minister for Integration from 2006 to 2010 and as Minister for Gender Equality from 2006 to 2013 in the Swedish government. A member of the Liberal Party, Sabuni was elected a Member of Parliament in 2002. Sabuni made history in June 2019 by becoming the first party leader in the Swedish parliament coming from an ethnic minority and the first party leader of a refugee background. In April 2022, Sabuni resigned as party leader.

John Arthur Johnson, nicknamed the "Galveston Giant", was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first black world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). His 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries was dubbed the "fight of the century". Johnson defeated Jeffries, who was white, triggering dozens of race riots across the U.S. According to filmmaker Ken Burns, "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African American on Earth". He is widely regarded as one of the most influential boxers in history.

Mira Bellwether was an American author, artist, and sex educator best known for Fucking Trans Women, a single-issue zine in which she wrote and illustrated all articles. Described in Sexuality & Culture as "a comprehensive guide to trans women's sexuality", Fucking Trans Women was the first publication of note to focus on sex with trans women and was innovative in its focus on trans women's own perspectives and its inclusion of instructions for many of the sex acts depicted. Bellwether was also an advocate for transgender women and in opposition to trans-exclusionary feminism.

William David Daniels is an American actor, known for his television roles, notably as Mark Craig on the drama series St. Elsewhere, for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards; the voice of KITT on the television series Knight Rider; and George Feeny on the sitcom Boy Meets World, which earned him four People's Choice Award nominations. He reprised his Knight Rider role in the sequel TV movie Knight Rider 2000 and his Boy Meets World role in the sequel series Girl Meets World. He also portrayed Carter Nash in Captain Nice.

Dir En Grey is a Japanese heavy metal band formed in February 1997 and currently signed to Firewall Div., a sub-division of Free-Will. With a consistent lineup of vocalist Kyo, guitarists Kaoru and Die, bassist Toshiya, and drummer Shinya, they have released twelve full-length albums. Numerous stylistic changes have made the genre of their music difficult to determine, though it is generally considered to be a form of metal. Originally a visual kei band, the members later opted for more subtle attire, but have continued to maintain a dramatic image on stage.

Theodore Ian Post was an American film, television, and theatre director. He directed numerous episodes of well-known television series during the 1950s and '60s, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy and two Directors Guild of America Awards for his work. His feature film directing credits included the Clint Eastwood films Hang 'Em High (1968) and Magnum Force (1973), the Planet of the Apes film Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), the Vietnam War film Go Tell the Spartans (1978), and the Chuck Norris action picture Good Guys Wear Black.