Five People Born on February 13

Today is February 13, 2010 and the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 321 days left in the year 2010. According the Mayan calendar, there are 1042 days till the end of the current cycle. On this date, in 1970, Black Sabbath –arguably the first heavy metal album – is released. Here are five people that share a birthday on this day:

Jerry Springer (Born 1944)
Journalist, talk show host, and politician who was born Gerald Norman Springer in London, England, in a tube station. His parents, Margo and Richard Springer, were Polish Jews who escaped to Germany during the Holocaust. Springer's birth came shortly after the family's emigration and, by the time Springer was five years old, his family had moved again—this time to the Queens area of New York City. For Springer and his family, America represented a place where people could live without persecution. He earned a college degree in Political Science from Tulane University in New Orleans in 1965 and received a law degree from Northwestern University in Chicago in 1968. He briefly worked on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign before Kennedy was assassinated and then moved to Cincinnati where he helped to get Ohio to repeal the voting age from 21 to 18 which led to ratifying the twenty-sixth amendment to the Constitution. Springer then ran for Congress in Ohio in 1970 (can you believe this is the guy on television?) and lost, but would eventually become the mayor of Cincinnati for two terms, starting when he was 33 years old. After a failed attempt for Ohio governor, Springer went into broadcasting. The first season of the Jerry Springer Show (1991) was politically motivated, having serious topics and guests such as Jesse Jackson and Oliver North, but in 1994, they looked to expand ratings and target a younger crowd. The result was the show we know today with she-male prostitutes and family trysts. The new version of Springer's talk show garnered huge ratings, and lots of attention. By 1998, it was reaching more than 6.7 million viewers, and became the inspiration for dozens of imitators, including the award winning British musical, Jerry Springer: The Opera in 2003. In 2007, NBC-Universal announced it would carry The Jerry Springer Show through its 2010 season.

Tennessee Ernie Ford (1919-1991)
Born Ernest Jennings Ford in Bristol, Tennessee, he was a classically trained singer who studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. During World War II, First Lieutenant Ford was a bombardier flying missions over Japan. By the end of the war Ford found himself in San Bernardino and then Pasadena, California, where he worked as a radio announcer. While working an early morning country music show, he created the character of “Tennessee Ernie,” a cartoonish hillbilly. As Tennessee Ernie, he recorded songs such as “The Bonnie Blue Flag.” When a talent scout from Capitol Records heard his shtick, Ford soon found himself with a recording contract. He continued his work in radio and television while his recording career blossomed. Ford’s signature song became “Sixteen Tons,” a song written and first recorded by country star Merle Travis. The Ford Show, hosted by Tennessee Ernie Ford ran from 1956 until 1961 on NBC. He earned the nickname “The Ol’ Pea-Picker” because of his oft-used catch phrase, “Bless your pea-pickin’ heart!” Ford released his first gospel album, Hymns, in 1956. Ford was awarded three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for radio, one for records, and one for television. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1990. Although he experienced success beyond his wildest dreams, Ford battled with an alcohol addiction and his health suffered as he grew older. Ford died on October 17, 1991.

Stockard Channing (Born 1944)
Born Susan Williams Antonia Stockard in New York City, Channing is an actress who’s career has spanned four decades. She attended Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she majored in American history and literature and graduated summa cum laude in 1965. After graduation, she joined Boston's experimental Theater Company. Her first break came in a starring role in a Los Angeles production of Two Gentlemen of Verona, but true recognition didn't arrive until 1985 when she won a Tony for her Broadway performance in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. In 1971, Channing made her feature film debut in The Hospital. Her first major film role came two years later when she starred in The Fortune with Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty. And in 1978, she landed the memorable supporting role of Rizzo, one of the Pink Ladies in the film adaptation of the musical Grease. Throughout the 1970s, she continued to make appearances on television, and even starred in two short-lived sitcoms: Stockard Channing in Just Friends and The Stockard Channing Show. By 1980, with her film career at a standstill, Channing turned her energies once again to theater. But she made her comeback in 1993 when she was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her performance as a formidable Upper East Side matron in Six Degrees of Separation; she also won a Tony nomination when she performed the role on stage. Throughout the 1990s she continued working on stage and film, and joined the cast of NBC's political drama The West Wing in 1999. Her portrayal of First Lady Abby Bartlett earned her an Emmy award in 2002. That same year, she won an Emmy for her supporting role in the television movie The Matthew Shepard Story.

Peter Gabriel (Born 1950)
British former lead singer of the rock band Genesis was born in Surrey, England. Gabriel left Genesis in 1975 and developed a deep interest in world music rhythms and textures, reflected in four eponymous albums (the last, released in 1982, was titled Security for its American release), while songs like “Games Without Frontiers” and “Biko” announced his political convictions. This two-sided involvement in Third World affairs led to his cofounding of the WOMAD (World of Music, Arts, and Dance) Festival in 1982 and Real World Records in 1989. His 1986 album, So, was a more personal statement; strengthened by the contributions of Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, and Senegalese pop star Youssou N'Dour, it brought Gabriel critical acclaim and was a multimillion-seller. His next album, Passion: Music for “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1989), featured a number of African and Middle Eastern artists (several of whom released albums with Real World) and won a Grammy Award. Gabriel's work also has been marked by an imaginative visual component. His performances with Genesis were noted for their supreme theatricality, and his music videos set new standards for the nascent medium; the video for “Sledgehammer” was voted best video of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in 1993, and two of Gabriel's other videos, based on his 1992 album Us, won Grammy Awards in 1992 and 1993. In 1994 he released Xplora 1, one of the first multimedia CD-ROMs created by a mainstream artist.

Kim Novak (Born 1933)
Film actress, born Marilyn Pauline Novak in Chicago, Illinois. She made her screen debut in The French Line (1954), then starred in The Pushover (1954), and soon became a leading box-office attraction of the 1950s - perhaps the last of the ‘sex goddesses’ produced by the Hollywood star system. Her films include The Man With The Golden Arm (1955), Pal Joey (1957), Vertigo (1958), The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), and The Mirror Crack'd (1980). She was largely absent from the screen in the 1980s, following her marriage, but still takes occasional roles, as in Liebestraum (1991).