Birthdays to share this week : 13th - 19th July.

Do you share your birthday with a well known, highly regarded & famous Actor or Actress; share your special day with a Director, Producer, Writer, Cinematographer or Singer/Songwriter or Composer of repute; or share an interest in whoever might notch up another year in the coming week? Then, look no further! Whilst there will be too many to mention in this small but not insignificant and beautifully written and presented Blog, here are the more notable and noteworthy icons of the big screen, and the small screen, that you will recognise, and that you might just share your birthday with over the coming week. If so, Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online!

Check out too the spotlight on this weeks Birthday Boy on 17th July, Donald Sutherland, at the end of this feature.

Sunday 13th July

• Harrison Ford - Born 1942, turns 72 - Actor | Producer
• Patrick Stewart - Born 1940, turns 74 - Actor | Producer
• Robert Forster - Born 1941, turns 73 - Actor
• Cameron Crowe - Born 1957, turns 57 - Director | Producer | Writer
• Cheech Marin - Born 1946, turns 68 - Actor | Writer | Singer | Songwriter

Monday 14th July

• Jackie Earle Haley - Born 1961, turns 53 - Actor | Director
• Matthew Fox - Born 1966, turns 48 - Actor
• Harry Dean Stanton - Born 1926, turns 88 - Actor
• Joel Silver - Born 1952, turns 62 - Producer
• Scott Rudin - Born 1958, turns 56 - Producer

Tuesday 15th July

• Travis Fimmel - Born 1979, turns 35 - Actor
• Forest Whitaker - Born 1961, turns 53 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Brigitte Nielsen - Born 1963, turns 51 - Actress
• Jean-Michael Vincent - Born 1944, turns 70 - Actor
• Jesse Ventura - Born 1951, turns 63 - Actor | WWF Wrestler
• Adam Savage - Born 1967, turns 47 - TV Personality | Visual Effects Creator | Producer | Actor
• Ken Kercheval - Born 1935, turns 79 - Actor

Wednesday 16th July

• Will Ferrell - Born 1967, turns 47 - Actor | Writer | Producer
• Corey Feldman - Born 1971, turns 43 - Actor | Producer | Singer | Songwriter
• Phoebe Cates - Born 1963, turns 51 - Actress
• Stewart Copeland - Born 1952, turns 62 - Songwriter | Composer

Thursday 17th July

• Jason Clarke - Born 1969, turns 45 - Actor
• Donald Sutherland - Born 1935, turns 79 - Actor
• David Hasselhoff - Born 1952, turns 62 - Actor | Producer | Singer
• F. Gary Gray - Born 1969, turns 45 - Director | Producer

Friday 18th July

• Vin Diesel - Born 1967, turns 47 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Kelly Reilly - born 1977, turns 37 - Actress
• Elizabeth McGovern - Born 1961, turns 53 - Actress
• James Brolin - Born 1940, turns 74 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Paul Verhoeven - Born 1938, turns 76 - Director | Producer | Writer
• Burt Kwouk - Born 1930, turns 84 - Actor

Saturday 19th July

• Benedict Cumberbatch - Born 1976, turns 38 - Actor
• Abel Ferrara - Born 1951, turns 63 - Director | Writer | Actor
• Brian May - Born 1947, turns 67 - Songwriter | Composer

Donald Edward McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. He spent his early life living in Nova Scotia and battling rheumatic fever, hepatitis and poliomyelitis. At age 14 he got a job in a local radio station and became a young DJ before moving onto the University of Toronto where he graduated with a degree in engineering, and a degree in drama. He decided to forego the former for a career in the latter. In 1957 he left Canada for England where he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He drooped out of this and moved up to Perth in Scotland where he spent 18 months Perth Repertory Theatre before landing small roles in TV series such as 'The Avengers', 'The Saint', 'Court Martial' 'Man in a Suitcase', and 'The Champions'.

His film career in the 60's started off in minor roles in such films as 1965's 'Dr. Terror's House of Horrors' alongside Christopher Lee. However, it was a last minute casting in a smaller role in the 1967 classic 'The Dirty Dozen' with Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas and Lee Marvin that really started Sutherland on his upward trajectory. The huge success of this film enabled him to leverage that film and his role in it for another upcoming film that would also garner cult status in time - 1970's 'M*A*S*H' with Elliot Gould and Tom Skerritt. Hot on the back of this he starred in another war torn actioner with Clint Eastwood and once again Telly Savalas in 1970's 'Kelly's Heroes', and in 1971 his star turn in 'Klute' gave his female co-star, Jane Fonda, the Oscar. 

In the 80's he starred in the Robert Redford Directed film 'Ordinary People' which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar, and that decade saw him star with Al Pacino in the commercially and critically panned 'Revolution' and later with Marlon Brando in 'A Dry White Season'. The 90's bought Oliver Stone's 'JFK' that gave co-star Tommy Lee Jones an Oscar nomination, and as the decade closed out the likes of 'Disclosure', 'Shadow of the Wolf' and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. With the dawn of a new century he teamed up with Eastwood and Jones once more for 2000's 'Space Cowboys', and subsequently played the father figure to Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron in 'Cold Mountain' and 'The Italian Job' respectively.

Donald Sutherland is still very much in demand and to date has 176 acting credits to his name both on the small screen and the silver screen. Among those films not already mentioned there are 'Don't Look Now', 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', 'The Great Train Robbery', 'SPYS', 'Murder by Decree', 'Steelyard Blues', 'National Lampoons Animal House', 'Lock Up', 'Backdraft', 'Six Degrees of Separation', 'Outbreak', 'A Time to Kill', 'Shadow Conspiracy', 'Virus', 'Fools Gold', 'Pride and Prejudice', 'The Mechanic' (remake), 'The Eagle', two 'Hunger Games' films already released, and the two final instalments currently in post production for a later 2014 and 2015 release. Also upcoming are 'The Calling', 'Forsaken', 'Basmati Blues' and 'Pirates Passage' all set for a future release.

Sutherland is the recipient of two Golden Globes for 'Path to War' and 'Citizen X' and nominated a further six times. He has won an Emmy for 'Citizen X' and been nominated one other time, and he has two BAFTA nominations to his credit. All up he has 14 award wins and 16 other nominations to his name. The Oscar has however, thus far eluded him!

Sutherland has been married three times - to Lois Hardwick from 1959 - 1966; to Shirley Douglass from 1966 - 1970 with whom he has two children - Keifer and Rachel; and to Francine Racette from 1990 to the present day although they have been together since 1974 and with whom they have three children - Rossif, Angus and Roeg.

Donald Sutherland - a giant of a man in stature and performance, always adding gravitas, often portraying the eccentric, at ease playing the villain or the good guy, happy to ham it up, rich elegant voice, often bearded, and Dad to a talented son - Keifer, Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-