Famous Birthdays on May 8

Jean-Marie Faustin Godefroid "João" de Havelange was a Brazilian lawyer, businessman, and athlete who was the seventh president of FIFA from 1974 to 1998. His tenure as president is the second longest in FIFA's history, behind that of Jules Rimet. He received the title of honorary president when leaving office, but resigned in April 2013. He was preceded by Stanley Rous and succeeded by Sepp Blatter. Havelange served as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1963 to 2011. He was the longest-serving active member upon his resignation. In July 2012, a Swiss prosecutor's report revealed that, during his tenure on FIFA's Executive Committee, he and his son-in-law Ricardo Teixeira took more than 41 million Swiss francs (£37M) in bribes in connection with the award of World Cup marketing rights.

David Lemuel Keith is an American actor and director. His breakout role was as aspiring Navy pilot Sid Worley in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), earning Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor and New Star of the Year. The role paved the way for leading performances in The Lords of Discipline (1983), Firestarter (1984) and the cult thriller White of the Eye (1987). Keith has since appeared in numerous supporting roles, among them Major League II (1994), The Indian in the Cupboard (1995), Poodle Springs (1998), U-571 (2000), Men of Honor (2000), Behind Enemy Lines (2001) and Daredevil (2003). He also portrayed Elvis Presley in Chris Columbus’s musical comedy Heartbreak Hotel (1988), singing several numbers on the soundtrack—including “Love Me” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love”—opposite Tuesday Weld.

Darren Stanley Hayes is an Australian singer, songwriter, music producer and composer. He was the singer of the pop duo Savage Garden from their 1993 establishment until their disbandment in 2001. Their 1997 album Savage Garden peaked at No. 1 in Australia, No. 2 in the United Kingdom, and No. 3 in the United States. It spawned the singles "I Want You", "To the Moon and Back", and Australian and US No. 1 hit "Truly Madly Deeply". The duo followed the success of their debut album with Affirmation (1999), which provided additional hits such as Australian and US No. 1 hit "I Knew I Loved You" and Australian No. 3 hit "The Animal Song".

Touko Valio Laaksonen, known by his pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist who made stylized erotic art featuring suggestively hypermasculine male characters. He worked primarily in pencil, producing drawings on paper and for publication in a variety of magazines and other formats. These works profoundly influenced late 20th-century gay culture and sexuality, their rise in popularity coinciding with gay law reform successes and the cultural and political emergence of LGBTQ+ communities from the 1960s onward. Tom of Finland has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. Over the course of four decades, he produced some 3,500 illustrations, mostly featuring men with exaggerated sexual traits, wearing tight or partially removed clothing. In 1984, he founded the Tom of Finland Foundation to preserve his catalogue of works and support erotic art generally; it continues to operate from TOM House in Los Angeles.

Kemba Hudley Walker is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is a player enhancement coach for the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was picked ninth overall by the Charlotte Bobcats in the 2011 NBA draft and also played for the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, and the Dallas Mavericks, before finishing his career with AS Monaco. He played college basketball for the Connecticut Huskies. In their 2010–11 season, Walker was the nation's second-leading scorer and was named consensus first-team All-American; he also led the Huskies to a 2011 NCAA championship victory and claimed the tournament's Most Outstanding Player award. Walker is a four-time NBA All-Star, a one-time All-NBA Team member, two-time winner of the NBA Sportsmanship Award, as well as a LNB Élite champion.

Robert Emerson Clampett Sr. was an American animator, director, producer and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated series from Warner Bros. Cartoons as well as the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil. He was born and raised not far from Hollywood and, early in life, showed an interest in animation and puppetry. After dropping out of high school in 1931, he joined the team at Harman-Ising Productions and began working on the studio's newest short subjects, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Clampett was promoted to a directorial position in 1937. During his 15 years at the studio, he directed 84 cartoons later deemed classic, and designed some of the studio's most famous characters, including Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Tweety. Among his most acclaimed films are Porky in Wackyland (1938) and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946). He left Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1946 and turned his attention to television, creating the puppet show Time for Beany in 1949. A later animated version of the series, Beany and Cecil, was initially broadcast on ABC in 1962 and rerun until 1967. It is considered the first fully creator-driven television series and carried the byline "a Bob Clampett Cartoon".

Galen Rupp is an American long-distance runner. He competed in the Summer Olympics in 2008 in Beijing, 2012 in London, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro and 2021 in Tokyo. He won the silver medal in the men's 10,000 meters in London and the bronze medal in the men's marathon in Rio de Janeiro. Rupp competed for the University of Oregon and trained under Alberto Salazar as a member of the Nike Oregon Project. He won the 2017 Chicago Marathon, becoming the first American to do so since Khalid Khannouchi in 2002. Rupp won the marathon at the 2020 United States Olympic Trials (marathon) in Atlanta with a time of 2:09:20, and qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, where he finished eighth.

Lars Fosgaard Eller is a Danish professional ice hockey player who is a centre for the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL). Nicknamed "the Tiger", he was drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the first round, 13th overall, in the 2007 NHL entry draft. Eller made his NHL debut in 2009 with the Blues and was traded to the Montreal Canadiens in 2010, where he played six seasons, before being traded to the Washington Capitals in 2016. He became the first person from Denmark to win the Stanley Cup when the Capitals won in 2018, scoring the Stanley Cup-winning goal. After a brief stint with the Colorado Avalanche, Eller joined the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2023, becoming the first Danish player to play in 1,000 NHL games, before being traded back to the Capitals in 2024. Internationally, Eller has played for the Danish national team at both the junior and senior level, including at five World Championships.

Paul Frappier, better known by his stage name Bad News Brown, was a Canadian entertainer, musician, and hip hop MC of Haitian origin. He was known for pairing the sound of his chief instrument, the harmonica, with hip-hop beats and rhymes. Frappier started out busking in Montreal in streets and subway stations. He later toured and opened for many well-known hip hop acts or as background musician. He also appeared as an impromptu host in Music for a Blue Train, the 2003 documentary about busker musicians in the Montreal Metro subway train system. In 2004, he signed a management deal with E-Stunt Entertainment Group. In 2009, he established his own record label, Trilateral Entertainment Inc., and released his debut album Born 2 Sin. Brown was found murdered in an alley near the Lachine Canal in Montreal on February 11, 2011. The feature film BumRush, featuring Brown in a leading role, premiered posthumously on April 1, 2011.

Barbara Howard was a Canadian sprinter and educator. Growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Howard gained national media attention as a sprinter in high school when she completed a time trial that broke the standing British Empire Games record for the 100-yard dash. She was selected as a member of the Canadian track and field team for the 1938 British Empire Games, becoming the first Black woman to represent Canada in international athletic competition. Although she did not place in the 100-yard dash, she helped her team win silver and bronze in the 440-yard and 660-yard relay events. The outbreak of the Second World War meant that most international sporting events over the next decade were cancelled, and Howard's window of opportunity as a sprinter ended before she could compete again.

Nicolaes Witsen was a Dutch statesman who was mayor of Amsterdam thirteen times, between 1682 and 1706. In 1693, he became administrator of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). In 1689, he was extraordinary-ambassador to the English court and became Fellow of the Royal Society. In his free time, he was a cartographer, maritime writer, and an authority on shipbuilding. His books on the subject are important sources on Dutch shipbuilding in the 17th century. Furthermore, he was an expert on Russian affairs. He was the first to describe Siberia, the Far East and Central Asia in his study Noord en Oost Tartarye [North and East Tartary].

Gary Sherman Snyder is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology". Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the American Book Award. His work, in his various roles, reflects an immersion in both Buddhist spirituality and nature. He has translated literature into English from ancient Chinese and modern Japanese. For many years, Snyder was an academic at the University of California, Davis, and for a time served as a member of the California Arts Council.

Gamini Kulawansa Lokuge was a Sri Lankan politician. He was a member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka for the Colombo Electoral District between 1989 and 2024, and had previously represented Kesbewa in the National State Assembly from 1983 to 1989. Throughout his time in Sri Lankan politics, Lokuge held many different cabinet positions, such as Minister of Power, Minister of Energy, Minister of Transport, Minister of Labour, Minister of Sports and Minister of Tourism, among many others, through many national governments. He also served as the President of the National Employees Union as well as the head of the United National Party’s Public Service Trade Union.

Edd J. Roush was an American professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a center fielder from 1913 to 1931, most prominently as a member of the Cincinnati Reds where he was a two-time National League (NL) batting champion and led the team to the 1919 World Series championship. He also played for the New York Giants, Chicago White Sox as well as the Newark Peppers and the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Federal League. Roush accumulated a .323 batting average over his 18-year playing career and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

Sir David Frederick Attenborough is an English broadcaster, natural historian, and writer. His presenting career began as host of Zoo Quest in 1954, and has spanned seven decades; it includes the nine documentary series forming The Life Collection, Natural World, Wildlife on One, the Planet Earth franchise, The Blue Planet and Frozen Planet. He is the only person to have won BAFTA Awards in black-and-white, colour, high-definition, 3D and 4K resolution. Over his life, he has collected dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Narrator and one Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Daytime Personality – Non-Daily.

Margarete Böhme was, arguably, one of the most widely read German writers of the early 20th century. Böhme authored 40 novels – as well as short stories, autobiographical sketches, and articles. The Diary of a Lost Girl, first published in 1905 as Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, is her best known and bestselling book. By the end of the 1920s, it had sold more than a million copies, ranking it among the bestselling books of its time. One contemporary scholar has called it “Perhaps the most notorious and certainly the commercially most successful autobiographical narrative of the early twentieth century.”

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April. Truman set up the Marshall Plan to rebuild the badly damaged economy of Western Europe. He established the Truman Doctrine and supported the founding of NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. A member of the Democratic Party, he proposed numerous New Deal coalition liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the United States Congress.

William Henry Vanderbilt was an American businessman and railroad magnate. Known as "Billy", he was the eldest son of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, an heir to his fortune and a prominent member of the Vanderbilt family. Vanderbilt became the richest American after he took over his father's fortune in 1877 until his own death in 1885, passing on a substantial part of the fortune to his wife and children, particularly to his sons Cornelius II and William. He inherited nearly $100 million from his father. The fortune had doubled when he died fewer than nine years later.

Alexander Arthur Van Halen is an American musician who was the drummer of the rock band Van Halen, which he formed with his younger brother Eddie Van Halen, who was the band's guitarist. Van Halen released 12 studio albums, and the brothers were the only two constant members during the band's existence. Noted for his technical prowess, speed, and power, Alex Van Halen is widely regarded as one of the greatest drummers of all time. In 2026 he was knighted in the Order of the Netherlands Lion for his contribution to music.