Tuesday 1 Oct four of us met, plus six on Zoom due to the prevalence of Covid amongst us. It felt rather surreal being back to the days of Zoom.
Apart from that, a good time was had.
The organiser introduced the topic by citing several pairs of famous people born in the same year as one another, notably:-
1769 – Napoleon and Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington
1791 – Faraday, Babbage and Morse
1847 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell – both instrumental in the development of the telephone
1869 – Neville Chamberlain, Mahatma Gandhi, Rasputin, Typhoid Mary
1889 – Hitler and Otto Frank, Nehru1926 – Elizabeth II and Castro
Then we alternated between Zoom and IRL (“In Real Life”) and moved forward through the years.
1947 – Hilary Clinton – the only first lady of the US to stand for president herself. She champions the fight to expand health care access for every American. (N.B. Queen Camilla was also born that year.)
1949 – Benjamin Netanyahu – exploring what is driving him not to want peace? Was it from his Dad who appeared to despise Palestinians in Israel? Was it his experiences in the IDF special forces, fighting in the Yom Kippur war? Was it his brother being killed in the Entebbe raid? Was it mixing with the likes of Trump’s Dad and appearing to condone Hitler? Is it to delay the court case accusing him of fraud and breaches of trust, where he is due to give evidence this December (after Covid and other delays)? Interestingly he is the first Israeli PM to be born in Israel and he studied architecture. He has described Hamas as ‘genocidal terrorists’.
1950 – Agnetha Fältskog – the youngest and only member of Abba to be born in the 1950s. They are of course famous for winning Eurovision in 1974 with “Waterloo”. She has had a solo career as well. She wrote her first song age 6, first band age 10, 1968 saw a self-titled solo album. She married Bjorn (in the band) in 1971, divorced 1980; they had 2 children – Linda and Peter. In the 1990s she was reclusive. Abba Voyage has put her in the spotlight once more.
1950 – Annette Badland and Julie Walters – both well-known British actresses, with very differing profiles, both having faced up to difficult times in recent years.
Annette Badland is much lower profile, much less decorated, but has been in a multitude of well-known TV shows – Bergerac, Dr. Who, Midsomer Murders as Fleur the “naughty” pathologist (her words) and is the voice of Hazel Woolley in The Archers. She does not have the usual looks of a movie star, let her hair go white, and is still getting really good roles! She started at Ian McKellen’s Cambridge Arts and spent 3 years at the RSC. Her husband, actor David Hatton, died this summer. They had no children, which led her to quote “my work is more important to me than it should be”. She also says “Women are allowed to tell their stories now”.
Julie Walters received a lifetime Bafta award in 2014, has been Oscar nominated twice and has many awards. She is famous for the films of Educating Rita 91983), Billy Elliott, Harry Potter, Calendar Girls, Mamma Mia, Paddington and for many series with Victoria Wood. She was in ’National Treasure’ with Robbie Coltrane. She married Pete Postlethwaite (’74-’79), then in 1985 met an AA patrol man, in a pub, “love at first sight”, and has been with him ever since. They have one daughter (who was treated for leukaemia age 2 to 6). They live on an organic farm in W. Sussex. In 2020 she announced that in 2018 she was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer. She had surgery and chemo and has recovered. She wonders whether, did the stress of her way of acting (totally in it) cause it? She doesn’t sleep when acting. She has mostly retired from acting. Could a Mamma Mia 3 tempt her back?
1950 – Googoosh – Iranian singer and actress. What a great name and one normally male! She became famous in Persia in 1970s for traditional ‘60s songs and emotional ballads, in 25 movies and ten albums. She went to LA, returned homesick at the revolution, was imprisoned for a month. She could only leave Iran in 2000. She then took part in a UN protest and wrote protest songs – a brave step. She has been doing World Tours, singing, ever since. She still looks young and says when asked how to stay young – “love, music and lots of fruit”! She has had four marriages and one daughter.
1952 – Dame Wendy Hall – a professor of Computer Science and still on many influential committees including ACM. She was co-chair of the government AI review.
1952 – Putin – as for Netanyahu, why? He is fluent in German, studied law in Germany, had to join the Communist party there, did a degree in economics and learned how to manipulate dependence on energy resources to gain influence. He was in the KGB, ‘spying’ in Germany. Yeltsin promoted him and Putin has manipulated his position to stay in power. He regards the collapse of USSR as a disaster which should be reversed. Crimea was invaded because “they speak Russian, so should be part of Russia”. “Ukraine and Belarus should not be independent states”. His “special operations” were to “protect the Donbas Russian-speaking peoples there”. He was involved in rumours about Hilary Clinton. He stokes unrest in Africa. There is an arrest warrant for him re. kidnapping Ukranian children. He is funded (unofficially) by Russian oligarchs; his real wealth is far greater than the officially quoted figure. He has 20 residences, is divorced, with at least 2 daughters.
1955 – Iman – model who married David Bowie. She was born in Somalia.
Her father was a diplomat in Saudi Arabia. She was sent to boarding school at a young age. Her name means “faith” in Arabic and is a male name. She was spotted, photographed and started modelling to fund a degree course in Nairobi. She first modelled for Vogue in 1976. She is still a stunning looker. She has pioneered cosmetics for women of colour.
(Others born this year were Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, Whoopi Goldberg, Olga Korbut.)
1956 – Dame Imelda Staunton – “short and a little bit round” British actress! She played Elizabeth II in The Crown covering the time when the Queen lost both her sister and her husband. She is Irish-born and came into her own in later life. She must have a social conscience, as she worked with Mike Leigh (British Social Realism). (Note film “Get Carter” starring Michael Caine and Britt Ekland about the north/south divide. Also Chicken Run is a film of British Social Realism in chicken form! ) Imelda Staunton married Jim Carter in 1983 and had one daughter.She has spoken up about mental health awareness in the Arts.(Others born this year – Mel Gibson, Danny Boyle, Kim Cattrall.)
You can see I found this very interesting! I’ve recorded as much as I could to give you all the chance to follow up on all these interesting people. And why did we end up talking about women’s looks?!