Famous Birthdays on November 29

Howard Michael Mandel is a Canadian comedian, television personality, actor, and producer. Mandel is known for voicing Gizmo in the 1984 film Gremlins and the 1990 sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch; playing rowdy emergency room resident Dr. Wayne Fiscus on the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere; and creating and starring in the Fox children's cartoon Bobby's World. He has also been a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent since 2010, and Citytv's Canada's Got Talent since 2022. He hosted the American NBC and later CNBC game show Deal or No Deal, as well as the show's daytime and Canadian-English counterparts. He became the host of The Price Is Right Tonight, a Canadian version of The Price Is Right franchise, in 2026.

Mariano Rivera is a Panamanian-American former professional baseball player who was a pitcher for 19 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees, from 1995 to 2013. Nicknamed "Mo" and "Sandman", he spent most of his career as a relief pitcher and served as the Yankees' closer for 17 seasons. A 13-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion, he is MLB's career leader in saves (652) and games finished (952). Rivera won five American League (AL) Rolaids Relief Man Awards and three Delivery Man of the Year Awards, and he finished in the top three in voting for the AL Cy Young Award four times. In 2019, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, and is to date the only player ever to be elected unanimously by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA).

Saturnino Orestes "Minnie" Armas Arrieta Miñoso, nicknamed "the Cuban Comet," was a Cuban professional baseball player. He began his baseball career in the Negro leagues in 1946 and became an All-Star third baseman with the New York Cubans. He was signed by the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball (MLB) after the 1948 season as baseball's color line fell. Miñoso went on to become an All-Star left fielder with the Indians and Chicago White Sox. The first Afro-Latino in the major leagues and the first black player in White Sox history, as a 1951 rookie, he was one of the first Latin Americans to play in an MLB All-Star Game.

Merle Robert Travis was an American country and western singer, songwriter, actor, and guitarist. Born in Rosewood, Kentucky, his songs' lyrics were often about the lives and the economic exploitation of American coal miners. Among his many well-known songs and recordings are "Sixteen Tons", "Re-Enlistment Blues", "I Am a Pilgrim", and "Dark as a Dungeon". He is best known today, though, for his unique guitar style, still called Travis picking by guitarists, as well as his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Travis picking is a syncopated style of guitar fingerpicking rooted in ragtime music in which alternating chords and bass notes are plucked by the thumb, while melodies are plucked by the index finger. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977.

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer of the early Romantic era, best known for his over 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age, he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy Il Pigmalione, which may never have been performed during his lifetime.

Jon Klassen is a Canadian writer and illustrator of children's books, and an animator. He is known for the 2012 picture book This Is Not My Hat, which won both the Caldecott Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal. This Is Not My Hat is a companion to Klassen's preceding picture book, I Want My Hat Back (2011), which was his first as both writer and illustrator. Both books were on the New York Times Best Seller list for more than 40 weeks; by April 2014 one or the other had been translated into 22 languages and they had jointly surpassed one million worldwide sales. Both books were recommended for children ages 5+ by the Greenaway judges. Klassen's Hat Trilogy was completed with the publication of We Found a Hat (2016).

Andrija Artuković was a Croatian lawyer, politician, and senior member of the fascist Ustaše movement, who served as the Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Justice in the Government of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II in Yugoslavia. He signed into law several racial laws against Serbs, Jews, and Roma, and was responsible for a string of concentration camps where civilians were tortured and murdered. He escaped to the United States after the war, where he lived until he was extradited to Yugoslavia in 1986. He was tried and found guilty of several mass killings in the NDH and was sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried out due to his age and health. He died in custody in 1988.

George Brown was a Scottish Canadian journalist, politician, the founder of the town of Bothwell, and one of the Fathers of Confederation. He attended the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences. A noted Reform politician, he is best known as the founder and editor of the Toronto Globe, Canada's most influential newspaper at the time, and his leadership in the founding of the Liberal Party in 1867. He was an articulate champion of the grievances and anger of Upper Canada (Ontario). He played a major role in securing national unity. His career in active politics faltered after 1865, but he remained a powerful spokesman for the Liberal Party. He promoted westward expansion and opposed the policies of Conservative prime minister John A. Macdonald.

James Albert Rosenquist was an American artist and one of the proponents of the pop art movement. Drawing from his background working in sign painting, Rosenquist's pieces often explored the role of advertising and consumer culture in art and society, utilizing techniques he learned making commercial art to depict popular cultural icons and mundane everyday objects. While his works have often been compared to those from other key figures of the pop art movement, such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Rosenquist's pieces were unique in the way that they often employed elements of surrealism using fragments of advertisements and cultural imagery to emphasize the overwhelming nature of ads. He was a 2001 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

Siobhan-Marie O'Connor is a former English competitive swimmer who has represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games, the FINA World Aquatics Championships and the LEN European Aquatics Championships, and England at the Commonwealth Games. A specialist in the 200 metres individual medley, she is the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games champion in the event, and has won silver medals in the same event at the 2016 Summer Olympics, the 2015 World Aquatics Championships, 2016 European Aquatics Championships, the 2014 World Short-Course Championships and the 2013 and 2015 European Short Course Championships – on each occasion behind World and Olympic champion Katinka Hosszú. With six Commonwealth Games medals in total from 2014, O'Connor was England's most decorated athlete at those Games.

Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu, KB, PC was an English peer during the Tudor period. He was a staunch Roman Catholic, but unswervingly loyal to the Crown. Montagu was employed on diplomatic missions to the Pope in Rome and to Spain, and was 'highly esteemed for his prudence and wisdom' by Queen Elizabeth. In spite of his bold opposition to the Acts of Supremacy and Allegiance, which threatened the religious activities of the Roman Catholics, he never lost Queen Elizabeth's favour. He was one of the commissioners who tried Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587. In 1571 he was implicated in the Ridolfi Plot along with two of his Dacre brothers-in-law.

William Ashley Freehan was an American catcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire 15-year career with the Detroit Tigers. The premier catcher in the American League for several years from the 1960s into the early 1970s, he was named an All-Star in 11 seasons, the most All-Star seasons for a player to not be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was the MVP runner-up for Tigers' 1968 World Series winning team, handling a pitching staff which included World Series MVP Mickey Lolich and regular season MVP Denny McLain, who that year became the first 30-game winner in the majors since 1934.

Laura Marie Marano is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Ally Dawson in the Disney Channel series Austin & Ally. Marano was one of the five original classmates in Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?. She starred in Without a Trace for three seasons and Back to You. Marano starred in the indie film A Sort of Homecoming, the Disney Channel Original Movie Bad Hair Day, the fifth installment of the A Cinderella Story film series A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish, the Netflix original movie The Perfect Date, and the Netflix interactive romcom Choose Love (2023).

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.

Artur Gustav Martin Phleps was an Austro-Hungarian, Romanian and Nazi German army officer who held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS in the Waffen-SS during World War II. An Austro-Hungarian Army officer before and during World War I, Phleps specialised in mountain warfare and logistics, and had been promoted to Oberstleutnant by the end of the war. During the interwar period he joined the Romanian Army, reaching the rank of General de divizie, and also became an adviser to King Carol. After he spoke out against the government, he was sidelined and asked to be dismissed from the army.

John Brumwell Mayall was an English blues and rock musician, songwriter and producer. In the 1960s, he formed John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians of all time. A singer, guitarist, harmonica player, and keyboardist, he had a career that spanned nearly seven decades, remaining an active musician until his death aged 90. Mayall has often been referred to as the "godfather of the British blues", and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category in 2024.

Tanisha Lovely Wright is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is the head coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions. She played college basketball at Penn State. During her junior season, Wright helped led her team to the Elite Eight, where they fell to the eventual national champion, Connecticut. She ranks fourth in school history in points scored with 1,995 points in 134 career games. She was selected 12th overall in the 2005 WNBA draft by the Seattle Storm. Wright played in the WNBA for 14 seasons with the Storm, New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx.

Lalit Kumar Modi is an Indian businessman and former cricket administrator. He was the founder, first chairman and league commissioner of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and ran the tournament for three years until 2010. He also served as the Chairman of the Champions League from 2008 till 2010 and was Vice President of the BCCI from 2005 till 2010. He has also served as the President of the Rajasthan Cricket Association from 2005 till 2009 and then again from 2014 till 2015, and as the vice president of the Punjab Cricket Association from 2004 till 2012.

Ellen Leslye Cleghorne (born November 29, 1965) is an American actress and comedian. Cleghorne is best known for her tenure as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1991 to 1995. She was the sketch comedy show's second African-American female repertory cast member, succeeding Danitra Vance in its eleventh season, and the first African-American female cast member to stay for more than one season. She returned for its 40th anniversary special on February 15, 2015. Cleghorne was ranked the 69th greatest Saturday Night Live cast member by Rolling Stone magazine.