Today is December 24, 2009 and the 358th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.  There are 7 days left in the year 2009. According the Mayan calendar, there are 1092 days till the end of the current cycle.  It is Christmas Eve.  Here are five people that share a birthday on this day:

Howard Hughes (1905-1976)
Businessman, film producer, film director, and aviator. Born Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. in Houston, Texas. While he is largely known for being one of the wealthiest men and one of the most famous recluses, Hughes had many professional accomplishments before withdrawing from public life. Son of a successful oil drill tool manufacturer, he inherited the family business in 1923 at the age of 18. He used some of his fortune to finance films, beginning in 1926. He produced several movies, including the World War I epic Hell’s Angels (1930), which featured expensive aerial fight sequences and a then-unknown actress named Jean Harlow. Some of his other significant films were Scarface (1932) and The Outlaw (1941). During his days in Hollywood, Hughes developed a reputation for being a playboy, dating such actresses as Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and Ginger Rogers.  Hughes developed a passion for flying and founded his own aircraft company in the early 1930s. Besides designing and building planes, he risked his own life several times testing planes and setting new world air speed records in the mid- to late 1930s. While he is credited with many aviation innovations, such as the first retractable landing gear, he is also remembered for one of his biggest flops—the Spruce Goose. Hughes labored on this oversized wooden sea-plane for years, finishing it in 1947. It was only flown once.  After a terrible plane crash in 1946, Hughes began to retreat from the world. 

Ava Gardiner (1922-1990)
Born in Grabtown, North Carolina, Gardiner was an American film actress of the 1940s and ’50s who, despite her renowned beauty and sensuality, successfully resisted being typecast as a sex symbol.  Gardner was something of a tomboy and gave no thought to an acting career until age 18, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scouts spotted portraits of her in the window of her brother-in-law’s New York City photography studio. She was given a screen test, in which her lack of refinement and barely intelligible thick drawl prompted MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer to proclaim, “She can’t act. She can’t talk. She’s terrific. Sign her.” Heavily coached in acting, poise, and elocution by the studio, Gardner appeared mostly in decorative bit parts during the first four years of her screen career. Her big break came when the studio loaned her to Universal Pictures for the film noir classic The Killers (1946).  She was subsequently cast in better roles at MGM—where she was promoted as “The World’s Most Beautiful Animal”—and at other studios in such films as The Hucksters (1947), One Touch of Venus (1948), Show Boat (1951), and The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952).  Although she remained active until the late 1980s, she had difficulty landing roles as she aged and, by her own admission, many of her later films were done “for the loot.”

Stephenie Meyer (Born 1973)
American Author born in Hartford, CT.  Growing up she showed a passion for reading, becoming a fan of classic authors including Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Margaret Mitchell.  In June, 2003, this stay-at-home mom began writing her Twilight series.  Within three months, she had created a 500-page manuscript and begun searching for publishing contact. Using advice taken from author Janet Evanovich’s website, Meyer was eventually contacted by Jodi Reamer, a literary agent at Writer’s House. Reamer and Meyer worked together polish the manuscriptamong other things, Reamer insisted Meyer change her first title, Forks, to the current titleand Reamer soon began to present the book to publishing houses. Shortly after, Reamer secured a three-book deal with a $750,000 advance from Little, Brown and Company. This marked the highest sum the publishing house had ever paid a new writer.   Twilight was released in 2005 to rave reviews.  Like J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise, Meyer’s book bridged the gap between teen and adult fiction. She also increased her popularity through her online accessibility, and frequently made herself available to her fan base. A best seller, the book was honored as a New York Times Editor’s Choice and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. The following year, Meyer published her sophomore effortthe sequel New Moonand sold the film rights to Twilight. With Eclipse (2007) and Breaking Dawn (2008), the four vampire books have sold over 250 million copies, and have been translated into 37 languages.

Mary Higgins Clark (Born 1927)
American Author, born Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins on December 24, 1927 in the Bronx, New York.  Mary began writing short stories and published her first in 1956. Her husband died in 1964 leaving the young widow to care for five children. She wrote four-minute radio scripts to help pay the bills until her agent encouraged her to try her hand at books. Her first suspense novel, Where Are the Children?, was published in 1975 and was an instant bestseller. In addition to writing, she returned to school to earn her philosophy degree from Fordham University in 1979.  Over the next few decades, the prolific Clark wrote more than two dozen suspense novels that sold over 80 million copies in the United States alone. She is the bestselling fiction author in France and has held numerous posts among mystery genre circles, including president of Mystery Writers of America and Chairman of the International Crime Congress. She is also the inspiration for the Mystery Writers of America’s Mary Higgins Clark Award. 

Ricky Martin (Born 1971)
Puerto Rican Singer Born Enrique Jose Martin Morales IV.  Martin began appearing in commercials on local television at the age of six. He auditioned three times for the teen singing group Menudo before finally earning a spot in 1984. In his five years with Menudo, Martin toured around the world, singing in several languages. He reached the group’s age limit of 18 in 1989, and returned to Puerto Rico just long enough to finish high school before moving to New York to pursue a solo acting and singing career. His debut solo album, Ricky Martin was released in 1988 by the Sony Latin division, followed by a second effort Me Amaras in 1989.  Martin has continued making music-both in Spanish and English. His greatest Spanish-language hits were compiled on La Historia (2001). This was followed two years later by Almas del Silencio, which contained new material sung in Spanish. The album Life (2005) was his first English-language album since 2000. The album did reasonably well, reaching the top 10 of Billboard’s album charts. Martin, however, has yet to be able to recapture the same level of pop success he achieved with previous albums.

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