Top 13 People Celebrating Birthdays Today

Hey! Today is a great day to be born! There sure were some great people born on this day! And if by chance you happen to be turning 23 and are in any way doubting the fact that 23 is a great number, here is proof that it is, in fact, the GREATEST number!

13. Craig David
Hey, remember Craig David! (Craig David sure does...)

12. Bernard Pivot
This is the French journalist who inspired James Lipton to start using the Proust Questionnaire on Inside the Actors Studio. His last name is also basically the Russian word for beer.

11. Brian Williams
NBC Nightly News anchor, SNL host, frequent guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, makes $10,000,000 a year... dropped out of college. So, kids, if you're looking for a slam dunk closing argument to your "Mom and Dad, college and I aren't working out" speech, look no further than Brian Douglas Williams.

10. Tammy Wynette
Here is a secret. I have a deep love for country music. Like, real country. Like Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, George Jones. And the First Lady of Country Music, Tammy Wynette. There. I said it. I feel better now. PS, yeah, "Stand By Your Man" is iconic (and depressing), but it's not like Tammy didn't sing about the flip side of the coin in "D-I-V-O-R-C-E". Oh man, that song rules (slash kills me)...

9. Roger Rees
Wow, there's gonna be a bunch of Brits on this list. Brit-list. Neat. Roger Rees is an actor who I like for two reasons. Reason One: he played Robin, that British tycoon dude on Cheers. Reason Two: he played Lord John Marbury, that British ambassador dude on The West Wing. That alone is deserving of some sort of award/castle/castle-shaped-award.

8. Tina Yothers
Played the youngest Keaton daughter on Family Ties. (The one that wasn't Justine Bateman.) I have some thoughts. A) Family Ties had one of those once-in-a-lifetime casts... Baxter-Birney, Gross, Bateman, J. Fox, and Yothers? Yeah... try getting that together today. IN THIS ECONOMY!? B) Family Ties, as I was recently reminded, had a seriously great theme song. C) These sentences, from Tina Yother's wiki-article, are sad: "After a nine year absence from acting, Yothers was given the lead role in Lovelace the Musical, a 2004 stage show based on the life of former pornographic movie star Linda Lovelace. She followed that up with a stint as a stock player in the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Boca Raton, Florida from 2005 to 2007."

7. Michael Palin
Um, way to have the coolest career, Michael Palin. You were part of Monty Python, you wrote the Spanish Inquisition Sketch, you were in Brazil, and Time Bandits, and A Fish Called Wanda, and now you're a travel writer. PLUS YOU'RE IN TALKS TO PLAY DON QUIXOTE IN THE RELAUNCH OF THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE!?!?!

6. Danielle Fishel
You don't remember Danielle Fishel? What is wrong with you. Were you not alive in the mid to late 90's, while our nation had fallen madly in love with Topanga, the sometime-girlfriend/all-time-ridiculous-named-girl of Cory Matthews on Boy Meets World. This was our youth, America. (BTW, Tina Yothers was no Danielle Fishel.)

5. John Rhys-Davies
More Brits! John Rhys-Davies is one of those dudes who is constantly called upon to play things that he is not... like an Arab archaeologist (Sallah, Indiana Jones films), a Russian general (Pushkin, The Living Daylights), and a dwarf (Gmili, The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Well done, John, you ethnic chameleon!

4. Soren Kierkegaard
Sure, he was the father of Existentialism, but did you know that he was ALSO the uncle of Discordianism, the second-cousin of Libertarianism, and the great-great-great-grandmother of Emo? (I originally typed that as "Elmo" and considered leaving it that way for about four seconds.)

3. Karl Marx
Here are three things about Karl Marx. One of them is a lie. First, of the six kids he had, four were named Jenny. Second, Karl Marx invented the beard. Third, back in the day when I was a bigger loser than I am now, I would walk around with quotes in my wallet, things I found particularly true or incisive or whatever. Anyway, I always liked this one: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways—the point, however, is to change it."

2. Nellie Bly
Nellie Bly is legit one of the coolest people of all time. At the age of friggin' 23 (23!?!), she convinced Joseph Pulitzer to let her go undercover in the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island to expose the injustices and atrocities being committed there. She PRETENDED TO BE INSANE for the sake of JOURNALISM! Then, she made a trip around the world--setting the record in the process, of course; she completed the journey in 72 days. THEN, she married a millionaire, became the president of a steel company, and invented a better steel barrel. Oh, also, Abby Bartlett gives a super-impassioned speech about her on The West Wing. (Because it all has to come back to The West Wing somehow.)

1. Lakshmi!
Happy Birthday, Laksh! We here at PaRMLoT hope you have both the best day and the best year!