The United States wasn’t the only thing born on Independence Day. From Nathaniel Hawthorne to the Situation, see pictures of famous Americans born on July Fourth.
What birthday could be more fitting for a first daughter? Malia Obama was born on July 4 in Chicago and turns 15 this year.
Happy 32nd birthday, Sitch! From fitness manager to Jersey Shore phenom, Mike “the Situation” Sorrentino has made a name for himself with more than just his abs. The reality-television star earned a reported $5 million in 2010, second only to Kim Kardashian. And despite his claims to the Jersey Shore, the Sitch was actually born on Staten Island.
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The transcendentalist and Scarlet Letter novelist was born on July 4 in Salem, Massachusetts, a mere 28 years after the nation’s birthday. Hawthorne added a “w” his last name later in life, most likely to distance himself from his ancestor who was a judge at the infamous Salem witch trials.
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The nation’s 30th president is the only U.S. president to be born on the Fourth of July and the only one to have his face on a coin while still alive—a half dollar commemorating the 150th birthday of the United States in 1926.
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Born in Russia, the famed film producer didn’t know his birth date, so chose his own when he became an American citizen. Mayer co-founded the film studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer, which he ran in a paternal style that defined a star-studded golden age of Hollywood.
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Actress Gloria Stuart died in 2010 at 100. Known for her role as 101-year-old Rose in Titanic, Stuart starred in dozens of films, including The Invisible Man and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
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Ann Landers was the pseudonym of writer Esther “Eppie” Pauline Friedman Lederer, who wrote the popular no-nonsense advice column “Ask Ann Landers.” Lederer’s identical twin, Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips (17 minutes younger than her sister), wrote the famous column “Dear Abby” using the name Abigail Van Buren. The two had a joint wedding ceremony at 21 years old, though they were fiercely competitive and occasionally combative in later years as dueling advice givers. “Dear Abby” is now written by Phillips’s daughter, Jeanne Phillips, under her mother’s pseudonym.
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Born in New Jersey on Independence Day, Saint, who started her career as an NBC page, later won an Academy Award for her role in On the Waterfront. She starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, for which the director famously made the actress cut her waist-length hair in favor of a more sophisticated look.
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Simon was born in the Bronx and started his career at the Army camp newspaper before writing for more than 20 films and many more plays. At one time Simon had four shows running on Broadway at once, including The Star-Spangled Girl—perhaps a nod to his patriotic birthday?
Robert Pitts / Landov
Steinbrenner owned the New York Yankees since 1973. During the Boss’s reign, the team won six World Series. Steinbrenner had a few not-so-patriotic skeletons in his closet: he once pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and to making illegal donations to Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign. Steinbrenner was pardoned by President Reagan in 1989.
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Born on Independence Day in 1938 in Slab Fork, West Virginia, music legend Bill Withers was the writer and voice behind “Lean on Me,” “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and “Just the Two of Us.” Although he stopped performing in 1985, Withers’s work made an enduring mark on American culture, and in June 2005, about a week before his 67th birthday, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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Though some questioned Rivera’s allegiance after giving away secret details about an U.S. Army operation while reporting from Iraq in 2003, the Fox News host does celebrate his birthday on the most patriotic of days. Rivera was born in Manhattan during World War II to a Jewish waitress and Puerto Rican restaurant-worker and cab-driver father, who encouraged him to pursue a career in journalism. The reporter spoke up for Hispanic immigrants in his 2008 book, His Panic.
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Author of the bestselling 1974 memoir turned Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July, Ron Kovic has been an outspoken anti-war activist since the 1970s. His memoir details his early years growing up in Massapequa, New York; his decision to join the Army (after hearing President Kennedy’s famous “Ask not what your country can do for you” speech); his tours in Vietnam—and ultimately his disillusioned homecoming after being paralyzed from the waist down.
Is it any coincidence that the buxom “kissing bandit” of America’s favorite pastime was born on America’s birthday? Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, Morganna spiced up baseball games with her playful kiss-and-run antics, dashing onto the field to plant big ones on famous sluggers, including Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan, and Cal Ripken Jr. The brunette earned even more fans after posing in Playboy and appearing on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. She officially retired in 1999 and has refused to do interviews since—a loss for baseball, and for America.
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