Birthday's to share this week : 7th - 13th May 2017

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Ving Rhames does on 12th May - check out my tribute to this Birthday Lad turning 58, at the end of this feature.

Do you also share your birthday with a well known, highly regarded & famous Actor or Actress; share your special day with a Director, Producer, Writer, Cinematographer, Singer/Songwriter or Composer of repute; or share an interest in whoever might notch up another year in the coming seven days? 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 in the week ahead. If so, Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online!

Sunday 7th May

• John Irvin - Born 1940, turns 77 - Director | Writer  

Monday 8th May

• David Attenborough - Born 1926, turns 91 - Television Personality | Writer | Producer | Director
• Michael Gondry - Born 1963, turns 54 - Director | Writer | Producer |   

Tuesday 9th May

• Albert Finney - Born 1936, turns 81 - Actor | Producer
• James L. Brooks - Born 1940, turns 77 - Writer | Producer | Director
• Glenda Jackson - Born 1936, turns 81 - Actress
• Candice Bergen - Born 1946, turns 71 - Actress | Producer | Singer
• Rosario Dawson - Born 1979, turns 38 - Actress | Producer | Singer  

Wednesday 10th May

• Maureen Lipman - Born 1946, turns 71 - Actress 
• Meg Foster - Born 1948, turns 69 - Actress  

Thursday 11th May

• Frances Fisher - Born 1952, turns 65 - Actress
• Holly Valance - Born 1983, turns 34 - Actress 
• Tim Blake Nelson - Born 1964, turns 53 - Actor | Director | Writer | Producer  

Friday 12th May

• Gabriel Byrne - Born 1950, turns 67 - Actor | Producer | Writer
• Ving Rhames - Born 1959, turns 58 - Actor | Producer
• Emilio Estevez - Born 1962, turns 55 - Actor | Director | Writer | Producer
• Gavin Hood - Born 1963, turns 54 - Director | Actor | Producer
• Stephen Baldwin - Born 1966, turns 51 - Actor | Producer | Director
• Jason Biggs - Born 1978, turns 39 - Actor | Producer
• Domhnall Gleeson - Born 1983, turns 34 - Actor | Writer | Director
• Vanessa Williams - Born 1963, turns 54 - Actress | Producer | Writer | Director
• Emily VanCamp - Born 1986, turns 31 - Actress 

Saturday 13th May

• Samantha Morton - Born 1977, turns 40 - Actress | Producer | Writer | Director
• Harvey Keitel - Born 1939, turns 78 - Actor | Producer
• Joe Johnston - Born 1950, turns 67 - Director | Producer
• Robert Pattinson - Born 1986, turns 31 - Actor | Producer | Singer

Irving Rameses Rhames was born and raised in Harlem, New York City, New York to mother Reather, a housewife and mother and Ernest, an automotive mechanic. He attended the High School of Performing Arts where his calling to the acting profession was cemented. After High School he studied Drama at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase, in New York, where fellow acting student Stanley Tucci, gave him the nickname 'Ving' which stuck. Rhames then transferred to Juilliard School in Manhattan, New York City attending the Drama Division between 1979 and 1983 from which he graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. 

Rhames got his first feature film break in 1984 in 'Go Tell It on the Mountain' and followed this up in 1986 with 'Native Son' also starring Matt Dillon, Elizabeth McGovern, Oprah Winfrey and Geraldine Page. 1988 saw Paul Schrader's bio-pic 'Patty Hearst' with Natasha Richardson, Frances Fisher and William Forsythe and in 1989 came Brian De Palma's Vietnam War drama 'Casualties of War' with Sean Penn, Michael J. Fox, John C. Reilly and John Leguizamo. The '80's also saw television screen time on episodes of 'Crime Story', 'Another World', 'Miami Vice', 'Tour of Duty', 'Men' and 'The Equaliser'.

The '90's gave way to the likes of 'The Long Walk Home', Adrian Lyne's 'Jacob's Ladder', 'Flight of the Intruder' for John Milius, David Mamet's 'Homicide', Wes Craven's horror 'The People Under the Stairs', Taylor Hackford's 'Blood In, Blood Out', Ivan Reitman's US Presidential RomCom 'Dave', leading up to one of his most well known roles as Marsellus Wallace in Quentin Tarantino's hugely successful 'Pulp Fiction' in 1994 alongside John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Uma Thurman amongst others.

The second half of the '90's saw the likes of 'Kiss of Death', the critically panned 'Striptease', then 'Dangerous Ground', followed by true story historical acton drama 'Rosewood', 'Con Air' featuring an ensemble cast, and then television film 'Don King : Only in America' in which Rhames starred as the famous fight promoter and boxing manager winning a Golden Globe in the process for his performance. Steven Soderbergh's 'Out of Sight' followed, as did 'Entrapment' with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Martin Scorsese's 'Bringing Out the Dead'. The '90's also saw the launch of a mega action film franchise that is still going strong today based on  he popular television series from the '60's and '70's - 'Mission : Impossible'. Here Rhames starred as Luther Stickell opposite Tom Cruise in the first film released in 1996. Since then there has been 'Mission : Impossible II' released in 2000, 'Mission : Impossible III' released in 2006, 'Mission : Impossible - Ghost Protocol' released in 2011 and 'Mission : Impossible - Rogue Nation' released in 2015. 'M:I 6 - Mission Impossible' is currently filming and due for release in 2018. Rhames has reprised his role in each instalment so far. The first five films have grossed US$2.77B at the global Box Office against budget outlays of a combined US$650M. The '90's also saw Rhames star in eight episodes of 'ER'.

The early 2000's saw a slew of made for television movies and appearances on television series. These included nine episodes on 'The System', five episodes on historical documentary 'Freedom : A History of Us' with a huge ensemble cast, five episodes on 'The District', and a single season of nine episodes in 2005 as Detective Theo Kojak in the remake of the classic '70's TV show of the same name 'Kojak'. In between time there were more feature film offerings including 'Sin' with Gary Oldman, Zack Snyder's zombie horror remake 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'Day of the Dead', 'Back in the Day','Idlewild', 'A Broken Life', boxing Sonny Liston biopic 'Phantom Punch' in which Rhames stars as Liston, 'Echelon Conspiracy', 'The Tournament' with the decade closing out with Jonathan Mostow's 'Surrogates' with Bruce Willis. 

Rhames released seven films in each of the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, four in 2013 and three in each of 2014 and 2015 that included comedy horror 'Piranha 3D' and 'Piranha 3DD', 'Death Race 2' and 'Death Race : Inferno', 'The River Murders' with Ray Liotta, 'Zombie Apocalypse', '7 Below' with Val Kilmer, 'Soldiers of Fortune' with Christian Slater, 'Won't Back Down' with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis and Holly Hunter, 'Force of Execution' with Steven Seagal, 'Jamesy Boy' with James Woods, and 'A Day Late and a Dollar Short' with Whoppi Goldberg. After the fifth 'Mission : Impossible' instalment in 2015, there was 'Operator', 'A Sunday Horse' and most recently 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'. So far this decade there have also been appearances on ten episodes of dark comedy series 'Gravity' which has run for just one season and for ten episodes on one season only of hospital surgeon drama series 'Monday Mornings'.

Next up and currently filming is the sixth 'Mission : Impossible' film due in July 2018, 'Bastards' which has wrapped filming and also stars Owen Wilson, J.K.Simmons, Ed Helms and Glenn Close, and in post-production for a release later this year is 'Minkow' (aka 'Con Man') with Mark Hamill and James Caan, and the animated 'The Star' to which Rhames is lending his voice talents as Thaddeus the Dog.

All up Rhames has 129 acting credits to his name, eight as Producer and one as Writer. He has also lent his voice talents to 'Lilo & Stitch', 'Stitch : The Movie', 'Lilo & Stitch : The Series', 'Leroy & Stitch', the video games 'Driv3r' and 'Mission : Impossible - Operation Surma', and he narrates on the documentary television series 'American Gangster'. He is the recipient of one Golden Globe Award win for 'Don King : Only in America' for which he was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award together with another five award wins and twenty other nominations. He was married to Valerie Scott from 1994 until 1999 and has been married to Deborah Reed since 2000 with whom he has two children - daughter Reignbeau (born in 2000), son Freedom (born in 2002) and a step daughter Tiffany.

Ving Rhames - looks imposing and keeps himself fit by lifting weights and exercising regularly and is a big fan of boxing, has a deep bass voice, and is well known for his deep rooted and strong spiritual beliefs which he attributes his success as an Actor to, and his benevolent approach to others. He grew up in a poverty stricken area but never struggled to find work as an Actor, and whilst he has made some questionable B-Grade films in his time across most genres, he is often type cast as the no-nonsense, kick-ass, brooding type, and equally has starred in some highly praised commercially successful fare too. As long as you keep churning them out Ving, we'll keep watching. Happy Birthday to you, from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-