Look who's turning 65 this month
Find out which celebrities are turning 65 this month!
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| Image Source: Wikipedia |
August 16 - Madonna Louise Ciccone, singer, songwriter and actress
The “Queen of Pop” moved to the Big Apple in 1978 for a career in dance and became a cult figure for feminism while eliciting accolades and admonitions for her social, political, sexual, and religious themes. Every time it looked like she was going down, she reinvented herself and popped right back up at the top of her game.
Remember Madonna in "Desperately Seeking Susan", "A League of Their Own", or "Evita"? Which songs of hers are your favs? “Like a Virgin”, “Vogue”, “Hung Up”, or “4 Minutes”? Her work spans more than four decades, and there are exemplary performances from beginning to end. She is the top female recording artist ever, having sold more than 300 million records across the globe. She retained control of her music, started fashion brands, paved the way for the resurgence of strong female lead singers, and inspired university studies. But what drove her success?
Some say it was the death of her mother in 1963 from breast cancer. Others think it was an incident in NYC when she was assaulted at knifepoint by a pair of men. Madonna was left with a fierce desire to manage her own career, to not be beholden to anybody, and to reinvent herself whenever and however she wanted.
In her youth, Madonna says she was that "lonely girl who was searching for something. I wasn't rebellious in a certain way. I cared about being good at something. I didn't shave my underarms and I didn't wear make-up like normal girls do. But I studied and I got good grades... I wanted to be somebody."
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| Image Source: Wikipedia |
August 25 - Tim Burton, director
We may never know what inspired the dark streak in Tim Burton’s films, however, his mother owned a cat-themed gift shop. We can say young Burton was a quiet, mediocre student who liked artwork and watching films. Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl influenced the boy, who found his direction early and studied character animation after high school.
Burton’s first short, “Stalk of the Celery Monster”, turned heads at Walt Disney Productions, and soon he was working for them while also developing some of his own projects. It was after one of these, “Frankenweenie”, was released that Disney fired Burton for using company money to make a film too frightening for children to see. The short centers on a boy trying to revive his dog after it has been run over.
However, that was Burton’s big break as others not so squeamish as Disney noticed the film. Burton went on to put his darkly personal, yet extremely sensitive, mark on epics such as “Beetlejuice”, “Batman” and “Edward Scissorhands“. The filmmaker returned to children’s works with a musical fantasy of Roald Dahl’s “James and the Giant Peach”. While it failed at the box office, it was hailed by critics and won an Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score.
Burton returned to the small screen in 2021 with a series for Netflix based on an Addams Family character, “Wednesday”. He directed four episodes during the first season and won critical accolades.
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| Image Source: Wikipedia |
August 28 - Scott Hamilton, skater and commentator
Figure skater Scott Hamilton embodies the classic American dream: the child who has a rough start but perseveres, and through his own determination and hard work succeeds brilliantly while being an all-around good guy.
Adopted as a six-week-old baby, Hamilton quit growing at age two. Medical professionals were mystified, and some misdiagnosed him or put him on strange diets. Finally, he was told everything was fine and to go home and live a normal life. (Hamilton did, but he was 5’2 ½” tall and tipped the scales at 108 pounds during his amateur career, topping out at 5’4” when he reached his full height.) Much later, doctors found a congenital tumor was the culprit.
You may remember Hamilton for his gold medal at the 1984 Olympics, or for his signature move, a crowd-pleasing backflip on ice that went counter to U.S. Figure Skating and Olympic rules. The man dominated skating from 1981 to 1984, winning four consecutive U.S. and World championships. He also is the creator of Stars on Ice, in which he performed for 15 years.
Hamilton also distinguished himself as a skating commentator on CBS for many years. Throughout his working years, Hamilton worked with Special Olympics. He founded the Scott Hamilton Cares Foundation for cancer patient support and was the inaugural Celebrity Wish Granter of the Year for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He has also assisted St. Jude Children’s Hospital and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
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Blog posting provided by Society of Certified Senior Advisors
