Did you know about Martin Scorsese
One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential directors in the history of cinema.
Famous Birthdays on November 17
November 17 has 247 recorded notable births across history, from 9 to 2005. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1942 — Martin Scorsese
American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Famous Birthdays
247 source records
9 – 2005
Scorpio
Today in history
Major events on November 17
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 1970 Luna programme: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and is released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft. Source
- 1811 José Miguel Carrera, Chilean founding father, is sworn in as President of the executive Junta of the government of Chile. Source
Did you know about RuPaul
RuPaul Andre Charles is an American drag queen, television host, singer, producer, writer, and actor.
Did you know about Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio made her Broadway debut as an understudy in the 1980 revival of West Side Story, and went on to appear in the 1983 film Scarface as Al Pacino's character's sister, Gina Montana, which proved to be her breakout role.
Did you know about Gemini Ganesan
A recipient of the Padma Shri in 1971, he had also won several other awards including the Kalaimamani, the MGR Gold Medal, and the Screen Lifetime Achievement Award.
Did you know about Sarah Harding
Sarah Harding's professional career began in 2002 when she successfully auditioned for the ITV reality series Popstars: The Rivals, during which Harding won a place in the girl group Girls Aloud.
More major people born on November 17
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1960
RuPaul
American drag queen performer, actor, and singer
RuPaul Andre Charles is an American drag queen, television host, singer, producer, writer, and actor. He produces, hosts, and judges the reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race and has received several accolades, including 14 Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award, in addition to two Billboard Music Awards, a Critics' Choice Television Award, five GLAAD Media Awards, and a Guinness World Records title. He has been dubbed the "Queen of Drag" and is considered the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States, with Fortune saying that he is "easily the world's most famous drag queen." In 2017, RuPaul was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.
1958
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
American actress and singer
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is an American actress and singer. She made her Broadway debut as an understudy in the 1980 revival of West Side Story, and went on to appear in the 1983 film Scarface as Al Pacino's character's sister, Gina Montana, which proved to be her breakout role. For her role as Carmen in the 1986 film The Color of Money, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her other film roles include The Abyss (1989), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), and The Perfect Storm (2000). In 2003, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the Broadway revival of Man of La Mancha.
1920
Gemini Ganesan
Indian actor and director (died 2002)
Ramasamy Ganesan, better known by his stage name Gemini Ganesan, was an Indian actor who worked mainly in Tamil cinema. He was referred as Kaadhal Mannan for his romantic roles in films. Ganesan was one of the "three biggest names of Tamil cinema", the other two being M. G. Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan. While Sivaji Ganesan excelled in dramatic films and M. G. Ramachandran was popular as an action hero, Gemini Ganesan was known for his romantic films. A recipient of the Padma Shri in 1971, he had also won several other awards including the Kalaimamani, the MGR Gold Medal, and the Screen Lifetime Achievement Award. He was one of the few college graduates to enter the film industry then.
1981
Sarah Harding
English singer, dancer, and actress (died 2021)
Sarah Harding was an English singer, model, and actress. Her professional career began in 2002 when she successfully auditioned for the ITV reality series Popstars: The Rivals, during which Harding won a place in the girl group Girls Aloud. The group achieved twenty consecutive top ten singles in the UK, six albums that were certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), two of which went to number one in the UK, and accumulated a total of five BRIT Award nominations. In 2009, Girls Aloud won "Best Single" with their song "The Promise". As an actress, she has appeared on many television series and films, including St Trinian's, St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold, Run for Your Wife and Coronation Street.
1978
Reggie Wayne
American football player
Reginald Wayne is an American professional football coach and a former professional wide receiver who played 14 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL). He is currently the wide receivers coach for the Colts. He played college football for the Miami Hurricanes, and was selected by the Colts in the first round of the 2001 NFL draft with the 30th overall pick. A six-time Pro Bowl selection, Wayne was a member of the Colts' Super Bowl XLI winning team over the Chicago Bears. He ranks second in Colts' franchise history to Marvin Harrison in major receiving categories: receptions, receiving yards, targets, and receiving touchdowns. On December 14, 2014, Wayne played in both his 209th game and his 142nd win as a member of the Colts, breaking the franchise records set by Peyton Manning.
1972
Kimya Dawson
American singer-songwriter and guitarist
Kimya Dawson is an American folk singer-songwriter, one half of the anti-folk duo the Moldy Peaches. Dawson's work with the Moldy Peaches earned them a cult following and critical acclaim, with their 2001 song "Anyone Else but You" landing a spot in multiple acclaimed indie film soundtracks. "Anyone Else but You" as performed by Michael Cera and Elliot Page charted on the Billboard Hot 100 after its prominent inclusion in the 2007 film Juno, the soundtrack of which includes several songs by Dawson and her associated musical acts. The song remains Dawson's highest charting single to date. In addition to her work with the Moldy Peaches, Dawson has released seven solo studio albums and collaborated with various other artists from a diverse range of genres, including Aesop Rock, They Might Be Giants, The Mountain Goats, and Third Eye Blind.
1951
Butch Davis
American football player and coach
Paul Hilton "Butch" Davis Jr. is an American football coach. He was most recently the head football coach at Florida International University. After graduating from the University of Arkansas, he became an assistant college football coach at Oklahoma State University and the University of Miami before becoming the defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). He was head coach of the University of Miami's Hurricanes football team from 1995 to 2000 and the NFL's Cleveland Browns from 2001 to 2004. Davis served as the head coach of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Tar Heels football team from 2007 until the summer of 2011, when a series of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) investigations resulted in his dismissal. He was hired by the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an advisor in February 2012.
1969
Ryōtarō Okiayu
Japanese voice actor and singer
Ryōtarō Okiayu is a Japanese actor, voice actor and singer affiliated with Aoni Production. His major roles include Byakuya Kuchiki in Bleach, Treize Khushrenada in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Hisashi Mitsui in Slam Dunk, Meisuke Nueno in Hell Teacher Nūbē, Kunimitsu Tezuka in The Prince of Tennis, Alucard in Castlevania, Zero in Mega Man X, Yuu Matsuura in Marmalade Boy, Shigure Sohma in Fruits Basket, Dark in D.N. Angel, Toriko in Toriko and Kokushibo in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. As a singer, he was one of the members for Entertainment Music Unit from 1995 to 2000. He is married to voice actress Ai Maeda. His range is A～E♯ and his dialect is Osakan. His older sister is an animator. He is the official voice-over dub for Scott Foley, Taylor Kitsch, Lin Gengxin and Stephen Fung.
1965
Amanda Brown
Australian violinist and composer
Amanda Gabrielle Brown is an Australian composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. She was the violinist of Australian indie rock band the Go-Betweens from 1986 to 1989 and recorded on their studio albums Tallulah (1987) and 16 Lovers Lane (1988). Brown has also worked as a session musician and, since 2000, as a screen music composer. She won the AACTA Award for Best Original Music Score in 2020 for Babyteeth (2019) and also Best Original Music Score in a Documentary for Brazen Hussies (2020). At the APRA-AGSC Screen Music Awards of 2009 she won Best Music for a Documentary for Sidney Nolan: Mask and Memory (2008) and Best Music for a Television Series or Serial for The Secrets She Keeps at the 2020 ceremony.
1925
Charles Mackerras
American-Australian oboe player and conductor (died 2010)
Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras (; was an American-born Australian conductor who lived for most of his adult life in London. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associated with the English National Opera and Welsh National Opera, and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He also specialized in Czech music as a whole, and his discography includes many recordings for the Czech label Supraphon among other labels. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera states that "his influence on the British opera scene, as a conductor both scholarly and mettlesome, has been significant".
1891
Lester Allen
American screen, stage, vaudeville, circus actor, and film director (died 1949)
Lester M. Allen was an American actor, dancer, singer, comedian, and circus performer. After beginning his career as a child acrobat with the Barnum and Bailey Circus, he became a performer in minstrel shows, burlesque, and vaudeville. He worked as primarily a dancer and acrobat in the Broadway musical revues George White's Scandals and Ziegfeld Follies in the 1910s and early 1920s; ultimately progressing to singing and comedic acting parts. He starred as a comic actor in several musical comedies on Broadway during the 1920s and the early 1930s. He transitioned into work as a film actor, appearing in more than 15 films released from 1941 to 1950. He was killed after being struck by a motor vehicle in 1949.
1966
Sophie Marceau
French actress, director, and screenwriter
Sophie Marceau is a French actress. As a teenager, she achieved popularity with her debut films La Boum (1980) and La Boum 2 (1982), receiving a César Award for Most Promising Actress. She became a film star in Europe with a string of successful films, including L'Étudiante (1988), Pacific Palisades (1990), Fanfan (1993) and Revenge of the Musketeers (1994). She became an international film star with her performances in Braveheart (1995), Firelight (1997), Anna Karenina (1997) and as Elektra King in the 19th James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999). Some of her later films tackle critical social issues such as Arrêtez-moi (2013), Jailbirds (2015) and Everything Went Fine (2021).
1587
Joost van den Vondel
Dutch poet and playwright (died 1679)
Joost van den Vondel was a Dutch playwright, poet, literary translator and writer. He is generally regarded as the greatest writer in the Dutch language as well as an important figure in the history of Western literature. In his native country, Vondel is often called the "Prince of Poets" and the Dutch language is sometimes referred to as "the language of Vondel". His oeuvre consists of 33 plays, a large number of poems in different genres and forms, an epic poem and many translations of predominantly classical literature. Vondel lived in the Dutch Republic during the Eighty Years' War and became the leading literary figure of the Dutch Golden Age.
1949
Nguyễn Tấn Dũng
Vietnamese soldier and politician, eighth Prime Minister of Vietnam
Nguyễn Tấn Dũng is a Vietnamese politician who served as the Prime Minister of Vietnam from 2006 to 2016. He was confirmed by the National Assembly on 27 June 2006, having been nominated by his predecessor, Phan Văn Khải, who retired from office. At a party congress held in January 2011, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was ranked 3rd in the hierarchy of the Communist Party of Vietnam, after President Trương Tấn Sang. Following the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was not able to maintain his post in the party and stepped down from his position as Prime Minister on 7 April 2016.
1923
Bert Sutcliffe
New Zealand cricketer and coach (died 2001)
Bert Sutcliffe was a New Zealand Test cricketer. Sutcliffe was a successful left-hand batsman. His batting achievements on tour in England in 1949, which included four fifties and a century in the Tests, earned him the accolade of being one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year. He captained New Zealand in four Tests in the early 1950s, losing three of them and drawing the other. None of Sutcliffe's 42 Tests resulted in a New Zealand victory. In 1949 Sutcliffe was named the inaugural New Zealand Sportsman of the Year, and in 2000 was named as New Zealand champion sportsperson of the decade for the 1940s.
1886
Walter Terence Stace
English-American philosopher, academic, and civil servant (died 1967)
Walter Terence Stace was a British civil servant, educator, public philosopher and epistemologist, who wrote on Hegel, mysticism, and moral relativism. He worked with the Ceylon Civil Service from 1910 to 1932, and from 1932 to 1955 he was employed by Princeton University in the Department of Philosophy. He is most renowned for his work in the philosophy of mysticism, and for books like Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) and The Teachings of the Mystics (1960). These works have been influential in the study of mysticism, but they have also been severely criticised for their lack of methodological rigor and their perennialist pre-assumptions.
1944
Jim Boeheim
American basketball player and coach
James Arthur Boeheim Jr. is an American former college basketball coach and current Special Assistant to the Athletic Director at Syracuse University. From 1976 until 2023, he was the head coach of the Syracuse Orange men's team of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Boeheim guided the Orange to ten Big East Conference regular season championships, five Big East tournament championships, and 34 NCAA tournament appearances, including five Final Four appearances and three appearances in the national title game. In those games, the Orangemen lost to Indiana in 1987, and to Kentucky in 1996, before defeating Kansas in 2003 with All-American Carmelo Anthony.
1983
Nick Markakis
American baseball player
Nicholas William Markakis is an American former professional baseball right fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for 15 seasons for the Baltimore Orioles and Atlanta Braves. Markakis was the Orioles' first-round draft pick in the 2003 Major League Baseball draft, and made his MLB debut in 2006. Markakis is a three-time Gold Glove Award winner, and he won a Silver Slugger Award and was named an MLB All-Star in 2018. Markakis previously held the MLB record for consecutive games by an outfielder without making an error (398). Markakis retired prior to the start of the 2021 season.
1897
Frank Fay
American actor, singer, and screenwriter (died 1961)
Frank Fay was an American vaudeville comedian, film actor, and stage actor. Considered an important pioneer in comedy, he has been referred to as "the first stand-up". For a time he was a well known and influential star, vaudeville's highest-paid headliner, earning $17,500 a week in the 1920s, but he later fell into obscurity, in part because of his abrasive personality and rightwing political views. He played the role of Elwood P. Dowd in the 1944 Broadway play Harvey by the American playwright Mary Coyle Chase. He is best known as the first husband of actress Barbara Stanwyck.