Famous & 65

Look who's turning 65 this month

Find out which celebrities are turning 65 this month!

Image Source: Wikipedia

January 2 - Lynne Cox, open water swimmer, speaker, author

American Lynne Cox has a slew of swimming records to her credit, but she was never in the Olympics. That’s due to her adventuring spirit and specialty: open water swimming. This sport exposes swimmers to lengthy times in the water, frigid temperatures, and, in Cox’s case, international fame. 

Her most famous swim was between the United States and the Soviet Union, as the first person to swim across the Bering Strait in 1987. For this feat, she was lauded by both President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, as the two worked to warm relations during the Cold War. But Cox has many more accomplishments to her credit.

She began her aquatic exploits with a record crossing of the Catalina Island Channel in California. She held the speed record for crossing the English Channel twice, with her personal best keeping her in the water for 9 hours and 36 minutes. She was also the first person to swim across the Chilean Straits of Magellan and swim around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. 

If that were not amazing enough, she swam the world’s highest navigable lake, Lake Titicaca in Peru, which also featured “biting animals” in the water. Oh, and she swam more than a mile in the unimaginably cold, icy water off Antarctica. But Cox enthuses about the joys of such far-flung swims in wild places, where dolphins, penguins, and other creatures surround her. To learn more, read this article from Wisconsin Public Radio.

Image Source: Wikipedia

January 6 - Nancy Lopez, golfer

The only woman to win LPGA Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year and the Vare Trophy all in the same season (1978), Nancy Lopez is an icon of professional golf. She began her long winning streak early, garnering the New Mexico Women’s Amateur at the tender age of 12 in 1969 and following it up by dominating the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship in 1972 and 1974. 

As a college freshman, Lopez was named All-American and Female Athlete of the Year, as well as winning the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women golf championship. Her success led her to leave college after her sophomore year to turn pro in 1977, when she was the runner-up at the U.S. Women’s Open event for the second time.

With a total of 48 LPGA tour wins, including three major championships, to her credit, Lopez dominated the sport of women’s golf from the late 70s to the late 80s. She was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in July of 1978 during her first full season on the LPGA tour. During her career, she took time off to have three daughters. 

Image Source: Wikipedia

January 7 - Katie Couric, journalist and author

It might be easier to list shows Katie Couric hasn’t hosted than those she has, with so many appearances to her credits, including programs on all of the Big Three U.S. networks. She has also starred in a syndicated daytime talk show and is the founder of Katie Couric Media. 

Some of her weightiest presenting jobs have been as co-host of Today, anchor of the CBS Evening News, and correspondent for 60 Minutes. In 2011 she authored a book, The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons From Extraordinary Lives, which became a New York Times bestseller, as did her most recent book Going There. 

She has filled in for and worked with such luminaries as Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams and Bob Costas, winning multiple television awards throughout her storied career. Couric has interviewed a vast array of famous people in diverse arenas, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, author J.K. Rowling, presidential spouse Laura Bush and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

Couric is also known for her work fighting cancer after the death of her first husband in 1998 at the age of 42 to colorectal cancer. She remarried in 2014, and she and her husband starred in the Sur La Table online cooking show Full Plate with Katie and John.

Image Source: Wikipedia

January 17 - Steve Harvey, actor and radio/TV personality

A fixture on Family Feud, Steve Harvey also hosts the Miss Universe competition and The Steve Harvey Morning Show. He also founded Steve Harvey Global in 2017 as an umbrella company over production and various other ventures. Harvey has won six Daytime Emmy Awards, a pair of Marconi Awards, and 14 NAACP Image Awards. 

Success didn’t come his way easily. He had to overcome a stutter and work his way up through jobs as a boxer, autoworker, insurance salesman, carpet cleaner, and mailman before finding fame. In fact, Harvey spent three years sleeping in his car, often showering at gas stations or swimming pools. 

His break came in 1990 as a comedian. Harvey reached the finals in the Second Annual Johnnie Walker National Comedy Search, which led to hosting It’s Showtime at the Apollo. In 2009, Harvey released his book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, which spent 23 weeks at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. 

Sources:

https://www.wikipedia.org

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