Famous Birthdays on October 7

Josephine Victoria "Joy" Behar is an American comedian, television host, actress, and playwright. She co-hosts the ABC talk show The View, on which she has appeared since the beginning of the series. For her work on The View, Behar won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2009. She hosted The Joy Behar Show on HLN from 2009 to 2011 and Joy Behar: Say Anything! on Current TV, from 2012 until the channel switched formats in August 2013. Behar's latest weekly late-night talk show, Late Night Joy, aired on TLC in 2015. She also wrote The Great Gasbag: An A–Z Study Guide to Surviving Trump World.

Zhang Yixing, known professionally as Lay Zhang or simply Lay, is a Chinese singer and actor. After participating in the Chinese talent show Star Academy in 2005, he became a member of the South Korean-Chinese boy band Exo and its Chinese sub-unit Exo-M under SM Entertainment in 2012. In 2015, Zhang founded a studio under SM for his solo activities in China. From 2015 to 2018, he was a cast member of the Chinese reality show Go Fighting! In 2016, Zhang released his first extended play (EP), Lose Control. In 2020, Zhang founded the Chromosome Entertainment Group. Zhang's acting credits include films and television shows, notably The Mystic Nine (2016), Kung Fu Yoga (2017), The Island (2018), and No More Bets (2023).

Nélson de Jesus Silva, better known simply as Dida, is a Brazilian former football goalkeeper and goalkeeping coach. He started his senior club career in Brazil in the early 1990s with Vitória before moving to Cruzeiro and Corinthians. He is perhaps best remembered for his ten-year stint with AC Milan from 2000 to 2010, where he established himself as one of the world's best goalkeepers and won multiple trophies and individual awards with the club, including one Serie A title (Scudetto) and twice the UEFA Champions League, with the first of those victories coming after he saved three penalties in the 2003 final against Serie A rivals Juventus, and is one of four Milan keepers with 300 career appearances. After a two-year absence from playing, he returned to Brazil in 2012, appearing for three teams—Portuguesa, Grêmio and Internacional—in as many seasons. He returned to Milan to serve as their goalkeeping coach from 2020 to 2022.

Andrew Vabre Devine was an American character actor known for his distinctive raspy, crackly voice and roles in Western films, including his role as Cookie, the sidekick of Roy Rogers in 10 feature films. He also appeared alongside John Wayne in films such as Stagecoach (1939), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and How the West Was Won. He is also remembered as Jingles on the TV series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok from 1951 to 1958, as Danny McGuire in A Star Is Born (1937), and as the voice of Friar Tuck in the Disney Animation Studio film Robin Hood (1973).

Samuel Austin Querrey is an American former pickleball player and former tennis player. He reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 11 achieved on February 26, 2018, and won ten ATP singles titles. Known for his powerful serve, Querrey holds the record for consecutive service aces in a match with 10. He was also a capable doubles player, with five ATP doubles titles and a career-high doubles ranking of No. 23 achieved on May 17, 2010. His best performance in a Grand Slam singles event was at the 2017 Wimbledon Championships, where he reached the semifinals after defeating world No. 1 Andy Murray in the quarterfinals to become the first American man to reach the last four of a Grand Slam in eight years. At the same tournament the previous year, he defeated world No. 1 Novak Djokovic to reach the quarterfinals, ending his Grand Slam win streak of 4 in a row. Other career highlights for Querrey include defeating former world number one Rafael Nadal in the Acapulco final of 2017, reaching the quarterfinals at the 2017 US Open and the 2019 Wimbledon Championships, and, in the 2015 US Open, reaching the mixed doubles final with Bethanie Mattek-Sands and the men's doubles semifinals with Steve Johnson. He also reached the semifinals of the Davis Cup three times with the United States team, in 2008, 2012, and 2018.

Lowell Gibbs "Cotton" Fitzsimmons was an American college and NBA basketball coach. A native of Bowling Green, Missouri, he attended and played basketball at Hannibal-LaGrange Junior College in Hannibal, Missouri and Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. He coached the Phoenix Suns three times, was named the NBA Coach of the Year twice, and is often credited as the architect of the Suns' success of the late 1980s and early to middle 1990s. Fitzsimmons won 1,089 games in his coaching career: 223 games at the junior college level, 34 at the Division I college level and 832 in the NBA.

Jean-Paul Riopelle, was a Canadian painter and sculptor from Quebec. He had one of the longest and most important international careers of the sixteen signatories of the Refus Global, the 1948 manifesto that announced the Quebecois artistic community's refusal of clericalism and provincialism. He is best known for his abstract painting style, in particular his "mosaic" works of the 1950s when he famously abandoned the paintbrush, using only a palette knife to apply paint to canvas, giving his works a distinctive sculptural quality. He became the first Canadian painter since James Wilson Morrice to attain widespread international recognition and high praise, both during his career and after his death. He was a leading artist of French Lyrical Abstraction.

François Xavier Boucher was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and executive. Boucher played the forward position for the Ottawa Senators and New York Rangers in the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Vancouver Maroons in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) between 1921 and 1938, and again from 1943 to 1944. Boucher later became coach and the general manager of the New York Rangers between 1939 and 1955. He won the Stanley Cup three times, all with the Rangers: in 1928 and 1933 as a player, and in 1940 as the coach. Boucher was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1958. Three of his brothers also played in the NHL, including Georges, who was also inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Margrave Ernest I of Baden-Durlach was the founder of the so-called "Ernestine" line of the House of Baden, the line from which the later Grand Dukes descended. He was the ruling Margrave of Baden-Pforzheim from 1533 and resided in Pforzheim from 1537. In 1565, his son Charles II moved the capital to Durlach and thereby changed the name of his country to Baden-Durlach. He had to deal with the upcoming Reformation and the frequent Ottoman wars in Europe. In this turbulent time, he tried to maintain a neutral position between the Protestants and Catholics. He did not participate in the Schmalkaldic War.

Joseph Alfred Gilles Jacques Richard was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Atlanta Flames, Buffalo Sabres, and Quebec Nordiques. After an impressive junior career, Richard was considered a potential NHL superstar, but, except for a single season late in his career, he failed to live up to the promise. He led a troubled life both in hockey and after. Six years after retiring, in 1989, he was arrested for attempting to smuggle cocaine and then in 2002, Richard died in a car accident driving back from a party celebrating his 50th birthday.

Elsie Yvonne Brewster was a Jamaican actress, theatre director, producer and writer working across film, theatre, radio and television. She has been described as a "cultural visionary who helped shape modern Caribbean theatre". In 1956, she went to England to study drama at Rose Bruford College, as the UK's first Black woman drama student. On returning to Jamaica in 1965, she co-founded with Trevor Rhone Jamaica's first professional theatre company, the Barn, before returning in the early 1970s to the UK, where she co-founded Talawa Theatre Company, the first production of which was The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James.

Richard Manual Jauron was an American professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). He played eight seasons in the NFL as a safety, five with the Detroit Lions and three with the Cincinnati Bengals. Jauron served as the head coach of the Chicago Bears from 1999 to 2003 and the Buffalo Bills from 2006 until November 2009. He was also the interim head coach for the Lions for the final five games of the 2005 season. He was named the AP Coach of the Year in 2001 after leading the Bears to a 13–3 record.

Steven Ellison, better known as Flying Lotus or sometimes FlyLo, is an American record producer, DJ, filmmaker, and rapper. He has released seven critically acclaimed albums: 1983 (2006), Los Angeles (2008), Cosmogramma (2010), Until the Quiet Comes (2012), You're Dead! (2014), Flamagra (2019), and Yasuke (2021). Flying Lotus' other work includes creating the record label Brainfeeder, producing much of Adult Swim's bumper music, releasing rap mixtapes such as Duality (2012) under his Captain Murphy alter ego, curating and hosting the in-game radio station FlyLo FM in Grand Theft Auto V (2013), and directing the sci-fi horror film Ash (2025).

Ann Eliza Smith was an American author. She was president of the board of managers for the Vermont woman's exhibit at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, at Philadelphia, and was frequently chosen in similar capacities as a representative of Vermont women. During the Civil War, she coordinated a response to the Confederate raid on St. Albans on October 19, 1864. In 1870, Governor Peter T. Washburn, who had served as adjutant general of the Vermont Militia during the war, recognized her efforts and presented her with an honorary commission as a lieutenant colonel on his military staff.

Elijah Muhammad was an American religious leader who led the Nation of Islam from 1933 until his death in 1975. Under his leadership, the Nation of Islam grew from a small Detroit-based movement into a nationwide organization with tens of thousands of members in the United States during the civil rights movement. He promoted black nationalism and a distinctive theology which taught that white people were a race of "devils" created by an evil black meccan scientist named Yakub, and that there were multiple gods, each a black man named Allah whom he was the messenger of.

William Chase Daniel is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons. He played college football for the Missouri Tigers, earning second-team All-American honors in 2007. He was signed by the Washington Redskins as an undrafted free agent in 2009. During his career, Daniel was also a member of the New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, and Los Angeles Chargers. Daniel is a Super Bowl champion, having been the backup quarterback on the Saints team that won Super Bowl XLIV.

Anthony Joseph Sparano III was an American football coach. He served as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins and Oakland Raiders of the National Football League (NFL) and is the only NFL head coach to have led a team to the playoffs the year following a one-win season, and only the second to conduct a 10-game turnaround, both of which Sparano accomplished in his first season with the Dolphins. Sparano was fired by the Dolphins in December 2011 after a 4–9 start to the season, his worst start in his four-year tenure with the team.

Maria Maddalena of Austria was Grand Duchess of Tuscany by her marriage to Cosimo II in 1609 until his death in 1621. With him, she had eight children, including a duchess of Parma, a grand duke of Tuscany, and an archduchess of Further Austria. Born in Graz, Maria Magdalena was the youngest daughter of Charles II, Archduke of Inner Austria, and his wife Maria Anna of Bavaria. During the minority of her son, Grand Duke Ferdinando, she and her mother-in-law acted as regents from 1621 to 1628. She died on 1 November 1631 in Passau.

Mariano Gagnon was an American Franciscan friar and Catholic priest, who served as a missionary in Peru. Gagnon founded the Cutivereni mission in Peru's Ene River valley to assist the indigenous Asháninka people who were being forced out of their homes in the jungle by settlers. He would later become known for his work helping arm the Asháninka and eventually helping some Asháninka flee Cutivereni when it was facing attack from Shining Path guerrillas during the internal conflict in Peru. He later wrote about his experiences during the conflict in the book Warriors in Eden.