Celebrity birthdays for the week of Aug. 17-23
Aug. 17: Actor Robert De Niro is 82. Guitarist Gary Talley of The Box Tops is 78. 'Downton Abbey' creator Julian Fellowes is 76. Actor Robert Joy ('CSI: NY') is 74. Singer Kevin Rowland of Dexy's Midnight Runners is 72. Bassist Colin Moulding of XTC is 70. Country singer-songwriter Kevin Welch is 70. Singer Belinda Carlisle of The Go-Go's is 67. Actor Sean Penn is 65. Jazz saxophonist Everette Harp is 64. Guitarist Gilby Clarke (Guns N' Roses) is 63. Singer Maria McKee (Lone Justice) is 61. Drummer Steve Gorman (The Black Crowes) is 60. Singer-bassist Jill Cunniff (Luscious Jackson) is 59. Actor David Conrad ('Ghost Whisperer,' 'Relativity') is 58. Rapper Posdnuos of De La Soul is 56. Actor-singer Donnie Wahlberg (New Kids on the Block) is 56. TV personality Giuliana Rancic ('Fashion Police,' ″E! News') is 51. Actor Bryton James ('Family Matters') is 39. Actor Brady Corbet ('24,' 'Thirteen') is 37. Actor Austin Butler ('Dune: Part Two,' 'Elvis') is 34. Actor Taissa Farmiga ('American Horror Story') is 31.
Aug. 18: Actor Robert Redford is 89. Actor Henry G. Sanders ('Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman') is 83. Drummer Dennis Elliott (Foreigner) is 75. Comedian Elayne Boosler is 73. Country singer Steve Wilkinson of The Wilkinsons is 70. Comedian-actor Denis Leary is 68. Actor Madeleine Stowe is 67. TV news anchor Bob Woodruff is 64. Actor Adam Storke ('Mystic Pizza') is 63. Actor Craig Bierko ('Sex and the City,' ″The Long Kiss Goodnight') is 61. Singer Zac Maloy of The Nixons is 57. Musician Everlast (House of Pain) is 56. Rapper Masta Killa of Wu-Tang Clan is 56. Actor Edward Norton is 56. Actor Christian Slater is 56. Actor Kaitlin Olson ('The Mick,' ″It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia') is 50. Comedian Andy Samberg ('Brooklyn Nine-Nine,' ″Saturday Night Live') is 47. Guitarist Brad Tursi of Old Dominion is 46. Actor Maia Mitchell ('The Fosters') is 32. Actor Madelaine Petsch ('Riverdale') is 31. Actor Parker McKenna Posey ('My Wife and Kids') is 30.
Aug. 19: Actor Debra Paget ('The Ten Commandments,' 'Love Me Tender') is 92. Actor Diana Muldaur ('Star Trek: The Next Generation') is 87. Actor Jill St. John is 85. Singer Billy J. Kramer is 82. Country singer-songwriter Eddy Raven is 81. Singer Ian Gillan of Deep Purple is 80. Actor Gerald McRaney is 78. Actor Jim Carter ('Downton Abbey') is 77. Singer-guitarist Elliot Lurie of Looking Glass is 77. Bassist John Deacon of Queen is 74. Actor Jonathan Frakes ('Star Trek: The Next Generation') is 73. Actor Peter Gallagher is 70. Actor Adam Arkin is 69. Singer-songwriter Gary Chapman is 68. Actor Martin Donovan is 68. Singer Ivan Neville is 66. Actor Eric Lutes ('Caroline in the City') is 63. Actor John Stamos is 62. Actor Kyra Sedgwick is 60. Actor Kevin Dillon ('Entourage') is 60. Country singer Lee Ann Womack is 59. Former MTV reporter Tabitha Soren is 58. Country singer Clay Walker is 56. Rapper Fat Joe is 55. Actor Tracie Thoms ('Cold Case') is 50. Actor Erika Christensen ('Parenthood') is 43. Actor Melissa Fumero ('Brooklyn Nine-Nine') is 43. Actor Tammin Sursok ('Pretty Little Liars') is 42. Singer Karli Osborn (SHeDaisy) is 41. Rapper Romeo (formerly Lil' Romeo) is 36. Actor Ethan Cutkosky (TV's 'Shameless') is 26.
Aug. 20: News anchor Connie Chung is 79. Trombone player Jimmy Pankow of Chicago is 78. Actor Ray Wise ('Reaper,' ″Twin Peaks') is 78. Actor John Noble ('Lord of the Rings' films) is 77. Singer Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) is 77. Singer Rudy Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers is 73. Singer-songwriter John Hiatt is 73. Actor-director Peter Horton ('thirtysomething') is 72. 'Today' show weatherman Al Roker is 71. Actor Jay Acovone ('Stargate SG-1') is 70. Actor Joan Allen is 69. Director David O. Russell ('Silver Linings Playbook,' 'American Hustle') is 67. Actor James Marsters ('Angel,' ″Buffy the Vampire Slayer') is 63. Rapper KRS-One is 60. Actor Colin Cunningham ('Falling Skies') is 59. Actor Billy Gardell ('Mike and Molly') is 56. Singer Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit is 55. Actor Ke Huy Quan ('Everything Everywhere All at Once,' 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom') is 55. Guitarist Brad Avery of Third Day is 54. Actor Misha Collins ('Supernatural') is 51. Singer Monique Powell of Save Ferris is 50. Actor Ben Barnes ('Westworld,' ″Prince Caspian') is 44. Actor Meghan Ory ('Once Upon a Time') is 43. Actor Andrew Garfield ('The Amazing Spider-Man') is 42. Actor Brant Daugherty ('Pretty Little Liars') is 40. Singer-actor Demi Lovato is 33.
Aug. 21: Guitarist James Burton (with Elvis Presley) is 86. Singer Jackie DeShannon is 84. Actor Patty McCormack ('Frost/Nixon,' 'The Ropers') is 80. Singer Carl Giammarese of The Buckinghams is 78. Actor Loretta Devine ('Boston Public') is 76. Newsman Harry Smith is 74. Singer Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath) is 73. Guitarist Nick Kane (The Mavericks) is 71. Actor Kim Cattrall ('Sex and the City') is 69. Actor Cleo King ('Mike and Molly') is 63. Singer Serj Tankian of System of a Down is 58. Actor Carrie-Anne Moss ('The Matrix,' ″Chocolat') is 55. Musician Liam Howlett of Prodigy is 54. Actor Alicia Witt ('Law & Order: Criminal Intent,' ″Cybill') is 50. Singer-chef Kelis is 46. Actor Diego Klattenhoff ('The Blacklist') is 46. TV personality Brody Jenner ('The Hills') is 42. Singer Melissa Schuman of Dream is 41. Comedian Brooks Wheelan ('Saturday Night Live') is 39. Actor Cody Kasch ('Desperate Housewives') is 38. Musician Kacey Musgraves is 37. Actor Hayden Panettiere ('Nashville,' ″Heroes') is 36. Actor RJ Mitte ('Breaking Bad') is 33. Actor Maxim Knight ('Falling Skies') is 26.
Aug. 22: Newsman Morton Dean is 90. TV writer/producer David Chase ('The Sopranos') is 80. Correspondent Steve Kroft ('60 Minutes') is 80. Guitarist David Marks of The Beach Boys is 77. Guitarist Vernon Reid of Living Colour is 67. Country singer Collin Raye is 65. Actor Regina Taylor ('The Unit,' ″I'll Fly Away') is 65. Singer Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears is 64. Drummer Debbi Peterson of The Bangles is 64. Guitarist Gary Lee Conner of Screaming Trees is 63. Singer Tori Amos is 62. Keyboardist James DeBarge of DeBarge is 62. Country singer Mila Mason is 62. Rapper GZA (Wu-Tang Clan) is 59. Actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje ('Oz,' 'Lost') is 58. Actor Ty Burrell ('Modern Family') is 58. Celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis is 55. Actor Melinda Page Hamilton ('Devious Maids,' ″Mad Men') is 54. Actor Rick Yune ('Die Another Day,' 'The Fast and the Furious') is 54. Guitarist Paul Doucette of Matchbox Twenty is 53. Rapper Beenie Man is 52. Singer Howie Dorough of the Backstreet Boys is 52. Comedian Kristen Wiig ('Bridesmaids,' ″Saturday Night Live') is 52. Actor Jenna Leigh Green ('Sabrina the Teenage Witch') is 51. Keyboardist Bo Koster of My Morning Jacket is 51. Bassist Dean Back of Theory of a Deadman is 50. Actor and TV host James Corden is 47. Guitarist Jeff Stinco of Simple Plan is 47. Actor Brandon Adams ('The Mighty Ducks') is 46. Actor Aya Sumika ('Numb3rs') is 45. Actor Ari Stidham (TV's 'Scorpion') is 33.
Aug. 23: Actor Vera Miles is 95. Actor Barbara Eden is 94. Actor Richard Sanders ('WKRP In Cincinnati') is 85. Country singer Rex Allen Jr. is 78. Actor David Robb ('Downton Abbey') is 78. Singer Linda Thompson is 78. Actor Shelley Long is 76. Fiddler-singer Woody Paul of Riders in the Sky is 76. Singer-actor Rick Springfield is 76. Actor-producer Mark Hudson (The Hudson Brothers) is 74. Actor Skipp Sudduth ('The Good Wife') is 69. Guitarist Dean DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots is 64. Singer-bassist Ira Dean of Trick Pony is 56. Actor Jay Mohr is 55. Actor Ray Park ('X-Men,' ″The Phantom Menace') is 51. Actor Scott Caan ('Hawaii Five-0') is 49. Singer Julian Casablancas of The Strokes is 47. Actor Joanne Froggatt ('Downton Abbey') is 45. Actor Jaime Lee Kirchner ('Bull') is 44. Saxophonist Andy Wild of Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats is 44. Actor Annie Ilonzeh ('Chicago Fire') is 42. Musician Sky Blu of LMFAO is 39. Actor Kimberly Matula ('The Bold and the Beautiful') is 37.
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The Herald Scotland
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Couple marries at Gretna Green on centenary of family's elopement
On August 12, 2025, Amber and Benny stepped into that history, choosing an intimate, unconventional ceremony to honour the moment when her family's story first intertwined with Gretna Green's. Their own romance feels like fate playing a long game. Though they knew of each other as teenagers and shared mutual friends, their paths never quite aligned until years later, when a match on Tinder finally brought them face-to-face. By then, the coincidences were uncanny: they had lived in the same cities, worked in the same shop at different times, and even walked the same streets years apart. Amber Chapell and Benny de Garis chose an intimate, unconventional ceremony (Image: Gretna Green) Marking the day with yet more history, Amber wore a handmade wedding dress first created by her grandmother and worn by both her grandmother and mother before her. The dress has now seen three generations married. Sophie Lytollis, Head of Sales at Gretna Green, said: 'It is incredibly special to welcome Amber and Benny on such a historic day. To marry exactly 100 years after Amber's great-grandparents stood here is not just romantic, it is a living reminder of why Gretna Green has been such an enduring place for love stories through the generations.' The Famous Blacksmiths Shop in Gretna Green has welcomed couples from around the world since 1754, making it one of the most iconic wedding destinations in history. Today, it remains at the heart of a family-owned business that spans five generations, offering a 5-star visitor attraction, two 4-star hotels and the historic Old Toll Bar, the First and Last House in Scotland. READ MORE: Gretna Green 'Gateway to Scotland' attraction launched Last year, Gretna Green was named in the top three destinations globally for couples seeking to elope, beating off competition from Spain, France and Italy. To crown the world's top elopement destinations, experts looked at Google search results, Instagram posts, the cost of marriage certificates, hotel prices and weather data, along with the data surrounding the most publicised celebrity elopements. Las Vegas took the top spot, followed by the Californian city of San Diego. Gretna Green is the marriage capital of the UK, facilitating nearly 4,000 ceremonies a year - 3% of which are weddings from overseas, the US, Canada and Australasia. It has appeared in films, TV shows like Coronation Street and Downton Abbey, and was a central part in Jane Austen's book Pride and Prejudice.
The Independent
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The Guardian
3 days ago
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‘I knew my job was to fulfil a man's fantasy': Elizabeth McGovern on Downton, early fame and co-starring with Brad Pitt
For the maudlin among us, the final Downton Abbey film should perhaps come with a warning. Everything in it is tinged with wistfulness – a goodbye to cherished characters and a farewell to a stately home that was a sturdy presence in a transient world. When the ITV series started in 2010, wasn't life … better? Did Elizabeth McGovern feel this too, the sense of time passing? After all, her character, Cora, is now ageing out of custodianship of Downton along with her husband, Lord Grantham, in favour of a younger generation and a changing era as the 1930s dawn. 'No!' says McGovern, snapping me out of my melancholy. 'I feel very excited that I'm going into a gratifying new phase in my career.' As well as reviving Cora, there is the play she has written, Ava: The Secret Conversations. Starring McGovern as Hollywood actor Ava Gardner, it will run in New York, Chicago and Toronto, having made its debut in London in 2022. There is also a new album of her folk-inspired music. 'I feel like I'm just beginning,' she declares as we meet at her publicist's London office. At first glance, McGovern, fine-boned and composed, seems delicate – but if you only go on first impressions, you'll miss her rebellious spirit. Not that making Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale wasn't emotional. 'You don't have to work very hard, as a film-maker, to touch on that depth, because we've been working on it for so many years,' she says. McGovern worried that the absence of Maggie Smith – who died last year after giving the show the brilliantly scathing Dowager Countess – would feel like too big a loss to the Downton world. But she says Smith's presence 'permeates' it. 'She's still very much in the atmosphere. I don't feel there's a big hole. In fact, in some ways, it sort of freed up the rest of the narrative to have a flow, because it's not stopping for her moments. But everything she represents is there. She's in every room, in every interaction, so it's not like she's not there. It's a weird thing.' The women of Downton, whether the steely Lady Mary or spirited young cook Daisy, are gratifyingly tough, but Cora, usually quietly supportive in the background, never seemed that robust, even though it was her money – as an American heiress – that was running everything. Was that difficult to play? 'At times, yes,' says McGovern. 'I think as a contemporary woman, it is hard to feel the straitjacket of that period.' Did she ever fight for Cora to have more agency? 'I wish at times she could have had more interesting stories,' says McGovern, but adds that it wouldn't have been appropriate for her to have had 'any more political or social power, because it just wouldn't be accurate to the time'. Cora, though, is a vision of an exciting America; the daughter of a Jewish immigrant installed at Downton with her bags of new money and her progressive outlook. Were Downton set now, instead of Cora coming here to shake up Britain's class-ridden ways, she would be a wealthy liberal refugee, a bit like Ellen DeGeneres, fleeing Trump's America. McGovern, who grew up in California, has lived in the UK for the past 32 years. She is shocked and disappointed at modern US politics. 'I mean,' she says, 'it's a reality that must have been bubbling away under what I thought was America. It can't have come from nowhere.' But, describing herself as a positive person, she adds: 'I think it will be painful, but we have too much successful history as a free country for us to let it go. It's all of our responsibility to peacefully make sure we hold on to everything that I was confident – and complacent about – that America represented.' McGovern had huge success early on. Her debut was in Robert Redford's 1980 film Ordinary People, and she won an Oscar nomination for her role in her second film, Ragtime. This was followed by a part in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America, opposite Robert de Niro. 'I think I did feel like, 'Gosh, this isn't as hard as people say.'' She smiles. 'Until I later experienced how difficult it is. My experience early on was just trying to keep my head on straight, do job after job, and do what most people are doing at that age – try to grow up. I only realised later how difficult it is to sustain a career.' Hers wasn't a showbiz family: her parents were teachers. And although she has loved acting since she was a child, it was never about becoming a star. As a young woman in an often dangerous industry, this probably protected her. 'I was never desperate, so I could always just walk away. A lot of young women didn't feel they could. I think I was very lucky.' It also made her see the downsides of fame. 'I think I did manage to avoid it myself, but the price you pay for fame is that it becomes really hard to have any relationships of intimacy, because you are collateral. Your whole being has sort of been sold, and that creates a tension about what people want from you.' A lot of McGovern's early roles were as the girlfriend to the male lead. Then, she says: 'I went from being the girlfriend to the perfect wife, and that I found frustrating. Most movies, television – it's always the man's point of view. It's such a deep, subliminal thing that audiences are not even aware of it. I wasn't even particularly aware of it. I knew my job early on was to fulfil a man's fantasy of the woman they wanted. It never occurred to me to even question it.' Brad Pitt played McGovern's boyfriend in the 1994 comedy The Favor. We joke – bitterly – that were she to be in a film with him now, she would probably be cast as his mother. This says a lot about what's still considered desirable in a woman even though, at 64, McGovern is only three years Pitt's senior. 'I really don't think that, just because society is viewing something that way, we have to. I try to have this discussion with my daughters. We can have a feeling independent of the consensus in society. I've just done my own thing and just kept doing it.' She bristles, not unreasonably, when I point out that her embracing her silver hair seems rare in her business. Was that a political decision? 'Not really. But once again, I feel like a woman my age – that's what we're asked to talk about. I regret that about society.' There is something bracing about the way McGovern carves her own path. She left Hollywood and moved to London to start a family; she has two grownup daughters with her husband, the film-maker and producer Simon Curtis (who directed The Grand Finale). Approaching her 40s, she started a band, Sadie and the Hotheads, and started releasing music. 'I have to remind myself,' she says, 'that people will either like it or they won't – and whatever they feel is fine with me. It's about doing it.' In her 50s, she wrote her play about Gardner, drawn to the actor's independent spirit. Now in her 60s, she is writing a screenplay, although she won't say what it's about. 'It's my next obsession. I really want to write stuff. I'm really excited about that.' Doing so is partly a way to create interesting work for herself as an older actor. There has certainly been plenty of talk about this – does she think the situation has improved? 'Not that I've noticed.' She loved the recent show Dying for Sex, in which Michelle Williams plays a terminally ill woman in her 40s who embarks on a last attempt at sexual exploration. 'It's such a female story. I found that to be really encouraging, but it's not going to be about someone my age.' Why? Is it because society considers the thought of older women having a sex life shocking? 'I think possibly, yes. I mean, what can we do as women, except just keep going and not buy into it? We have no other choice.' If it takes a bit of effort, the pay-off is surely worth it – if McGovern and her outlook are anything to go by. 'It's a daily exercise in getting your head tuned into the right thing. It's not that I blame anyone for accepting the status quo, but it doesn't mean I have to. No way.' She laughs. 'No way.' Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is out on 11 September in Australia, and 12 September in the UK and US. Ava: The Secret Conversations is at New York City Center until 14 September.
