Stars align in unique ways on May 2, marking the birth of various celebrities and historical figures both living and deceased who have made significant impacts in their fields. From actors, like Dwayne Johnson and Ellie Kemper, musicians, such as Matt Berry, to sports icons, such as the hockey player Kris Russell, this date seems to be a hotbed for talent across multiple industries. This list celebrates these individuals, exploring how they've used their birthdays as springboards into fame and success. Whether it's through captivating performances on screen or inspiring feats in other arenas, each has contributed uniquely to the cultural tapestry. Here's a look at some well-known personalities who share this special birthday, shedding light on their journeys and achievements.
- Dave Winer (born May 2, 1955 in Queens, New York City) is an American software developer, entrepreneur, and writer who resides in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web services, as well as blogging and podcasting. He is the founder of the software companies Living Videotext, Userland Software and Small Picture Inc., a former contributing editor for the Web magazine HotWired, the author of the Scripting News weblog, a former research fellow at Harvard Law School, and current visiting scholar at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
- Jodi Applegate (born May 2, 1964) is an American broadcast journalist. She served as an anchorwoman at local stations as well as nationally for MSNBC and NBC News.
- David Suchet, ( SOO-shay; born 2 May 1946) is an English actor, known for his work on British stage and television. He played Edward Teller in the TV serial Oppenheimer and received the RTS and BPG awards for his performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British serial The Way We Live Now. He earned international recognition and acclaim for his performance as Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Poirot, for which he received a 1991 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nomination.
- Tina Maze (Slovene: [ˈtiːna ˈmaːzɛ]; born 2 May 1983) is a retired Slovenian World Cup alpine ski racer. Maze is the most successful Slovenian ski racer in history with a career that culminated with two gold medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was awarded the title of the Slovenian Sportswoman of the Year in 2005, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015, and with her four medals she is the most decorated Slovenian athlete at the Winter Olympics.Maze started her career as a giant slalom specialist, but later competed in all five alpine skiing disciplines. She is one of seven female racers who has won in all five World Cup disciplines and one of three to do it in a single season. Maze is the 2014 Olympic champion in downhill and giant slalom and the 2015 world champion in downhill and combined. She was also the world champion in giant slalom in 2011 and super-G in 2013. Maze won a total of 26 World Cup races during her career, and won the World Cup overall title in 2013. In that season, she won 11 races and tallied a record number of World Cup points – 2414, beating the previous record of Hermann Maier of 2000 points from the 2000 season. She also won the super-G and giant slalom titles, and finished first in the combined event (although no globe was awarded) and finished second in slalom and downhill. Maze also improved Maier's previous record of podium finishes in a single season (22) with 24 podiums.
- Lesley Sue Goldstein (May 2, 1946 – February 16, 2015), known professionally as Lesley Gore, was an American singer, songwriter, actress, and activist. At the age of 16 (in 1963) she recorded the pop hit "It's My Party" (a US number one), and followed it up with other hits including "Judy's Turn to Cry", "She's a Fool", "You Don't Own Me", "Maybe I Know" and "California Nights". Gore also worked as an actress and composed songs with her brother, Michael Gore, for the 1980 film Fame, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She hosted an LGBT-oriented public television show, In the Life, on American TV in the 2000s, and was active until 2014.More Lesley Gore
- #162 of 341 onThe Best Female Vocalists Ever
- #192 of 320 onThe 300+ Best Rock Singers Of All Time, Ranked
- #280 of 556 onThe 250+ Best Singers Of All Time, Ranked
- William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623) was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and herald, best known as author of Britannia, the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Annales, the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.
- Denyce Lawton (Korean: 데니스 마리 러튼; born May 2, 1978 as Denise-Marie Lawton) is a Korean-born African-American actress.
- Brian Charles Lara, (born 2 May 1969) is a Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time. He topped the Test batting rankings on several occasions and holds several cricketing records, including the record for the highest individual score in first-class cricket, with 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston in 1994, which is the only quintuple hundred in first-class cricket history. Lara also holds the record for the highest individual score in a Test innings after scoring 400 not out against England at Antigua in 2004. Lara also shares the test record of scoring the highest number of runs in a single over in a Test match, when he scored 28 runs off an over by Robin Peterson of South Africa in 2003 (matched in 2013 by Australia's George Bailey).Lara's match-winning performance of 153 not out against Australia in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1999 has been rated by Wisden as the second best batting performance in the history of Test cricket, next only to the 270 runs scored by Sir Donald Bradman in The Ashes Test match of 1937. Muttiah Muralitharan, rated as the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, and the highest wicket-taker in both Test cricket and in One Day Internationals (ODIs), has hailed Lara as his toughest opponent among all batsmen in the world. Lara was awarded the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World awards in 1994 and 1995 and is also one of only three cricketers to receive the prestigious BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year, the other two being Sir Garfield Sobers and Shane Warne.Brian Lara was appointed honorary member of the Order of Australia on 27 November 2009. On 14 September 2012 he was inducted to the ICC's Hall of Fame at the awards ceremony held in Colombo, Sri Lanka as a 2012–13 season inductee along with Australians Glenn McGrath and former England women all-rounder Enid Bakewell. In 2013, Lara received Honorary Life Membership of the MCC becoming the 31st West Indian to receive the honor.Brian Lara is popularly nicknamed as "The Prince of Port of Spain" or simply "The Prince". He has the dubious distinction of playing in the second highest number of test matches (63) in which his team was on the losing side, just behind Shivnarine Chanderpaul (68).
- Boyd Tyrone Herndon (born May 2, 1962) is an American country music singer. After signing to Epic Records in 1995, Herndon made his debut with his number one single, "What Mattered Most", followed by the release of his first album, also entitled What Mattered Most (1995). The album was followed by the release of his second album, Living in a Moment (1996), which produced his second number one country hit, with the album's title track. Herndon released three more albums for Epic: Big Hopes (1998), Steam (1999), and This Is Ty Herndon: Greatest Hits (2002). He recorded a Christmas album in 2002 for the Riviera label, followed by his fifth studio album, Right About Now (2007) and a second Christmas compilation for the Titan Pyramid label; his sixth studio release, Journey On, followed in 2010. Herndon has charted a total of 17 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. This figure includes three number ones: "What Mattered Most", "Living in a Moment" and "It Must Be Love", as well as four additional top ten hits: "I Want My Goodbye Back", "Loved Too Much", "A Man Holding On (To a Woman Letting Go)" and "Hands of a Working Man."More Ty Herndon
- #43 of 50 onThe 50 Best Country Singers of the '90s, Ranked
- #206 of 250 onThe Best LGBTQ+ Musicians
- #203 of 213 on200+ Celebrities Who Went to Rehab
- Douglas S. Wildey (May 2, 1922 – October 5, 1994) was a cartoonist and comic book artist best known for creating a 1964 animated television series, Jonny Quest, for Hanna-Barbera Productions.
- Sir James Dyson (born 2 May 1947) is a British inventor, industrial designer and founder and chief executive of Dyson Ltd. Traditionally, he is best known as the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, which works on the principle of cyclonic separation. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2018, his net worth is $13.9 billion. He served as the Provost of the Royal College of Art from August 2011 to July 2017, and opened a new University on Dyson's Wiltshire Campus in September 2017.
- Jamaal Abdul-Lateef (born Jackson Keith Wilkes; May 2, 1953), better known as Jamaal Wilkes, nicknamed "Silk", is an American retired basketball player who played the small forward position and won four NBA championships with the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers. He was a three-time NBA All-Star and the 1975 NBA Rookie of the Year. In college, Wilkes was a key player on two NCAA championship teams under coach John Wooden for the UCLA Bruins. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and his jersey No. 52 was retired by both the Lakers and the Bruins. Wilkes converted to Islam and legally changed his name to Jamaal Abdul-Lateef in 1975, but he continued to use his birth surname only for purposes of public recognition.More Jamaal Wilkes
- #108 of 289 onThe Top NBA Players Of All Time
- #7 of 42 onThe Greatest UCLA Basketball Players of All Time
- #42 of 109 onThe 100+ Best NBA Small Forwards of All Time
Alicia Mayer
Alicia Mayer (born Catherine Gutierrez on May 2, 1976) is a former model & actress from the Philippines.- William Brian de Lacy Aherne (2 May 1902 – 10 February 1986) was an English actor of stage, screen, radio and television, who enjoyed a long and varied career in England and America. His first Broadway appearance in The Barretts of Wimpole Street in 1931 teamed him with Katherine Cornell, with whom he would appear in many later productions. In films, he played opposite Madeleine Carroll, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth and Carole Lombard, and was Oscar-nominated for his role as Emperor Maxmilian in Juarez (1939). On TV he appeared in Wagon Train and Rawhide. As a pilot, he served as a flight instructor in America in World War II. He was the younger brother of actor Pat Aherne, and was married to Joan Fontaine. Aherne published his autobiography A Proper Job in 1969.
- Russell Scott "Russ" Grimm (born May 2, 1959) is a former American football guard for the Washington Redskins of the National Football League (NFL). He has also served as an assistant coach for the Redskins, Pittsburgh Steelers, Arizona Cardinals, and Tennessee Titans. In college, he was an All-American center at the University of Pittsburgh. As a professional, Grimm had multiple selections to both the All-Pro and Pro Bowl teams, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010. Grimm played 11 seasons for the Redskins and was a first-team selection to the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team.
- Geoffrey Walter Edelsten (born 2 May 1943) is an Australian medical entrepreneur who founded Allied Medical Group. Edelsten was a general practitioner whose unconventional clinics and lifestyle attracted media attention in the 1980s. He owned mansions, helicopters, and a fleet of Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis with license plates such as Macho, Spunky and Sexy. His multidisciplinary clinics – the forerunners of modern corporate medical practices – were open 24 hours, and were fitted with chandeliers, grand pianos, and mink-covered examination tables.He was deregistered in New South Wales in 1988 and later in Victoria. In 1990, he was jailed for perverting the course of justice and soliciting Christopher Dale Flannery to assault a former patient.In 2005, Edelsten and a business partner founded Allied Medical Group, which by 2010 administered 17 medical centres and employed around 250 general practitioners. Edelsten is not, however, a shareholder or owner of the company.Edelsten was the first private owner of a major Australian football team – the Sydney Swans, which he bought in 1985.
- Brian Tochi or Brian Keith Tochi (born Brian Keith Tochihara, born May 2, 1959) is an American actor and voice actor. During the late 1960s through much of the 1970s, he was one of the most widely seen East Asian child actors working in U.S. television, appearing in various TV series and nearly a hundred advertisements. He is best known for his characters Toshiro Takashi from the Revenge of the Nerds film franchise, Cadet (later Lieutenant) Tomoko Nogata from the third and fourth films in the Police Academy film series, and as the voice of Leonardo in the first three live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies.
- Christopher Doyle, also known as Dù Kěfēng (Mandarin) or Dou Ho-Fung (Cantonese) (traditional Chinese: 杜可風; simplified Chinese: 杜可风) (born 2 May 1952) is an Australian-Hong Kong cinematographer. He has worked on over fifty Chinese-language films, being best known for his collaborations with Wong Kar-Wai in Chungking Express, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love and 2046. Doyle is also known for other films such as Temptress Moon, Hero, Dumplings, and Psycho. He has won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, as well as AFI Award for cinematography, the Golden Horse awards (four times), and Hong Kong Film Award (six times).
- Lee Sun-mi (born May 2, 1992), known mononymously as Sunmi, is a South Korean singer. She debuted in 2007 as a member of South Korean girl group Wonder Girls and left the group in January 2010 to pursue an academic career. After a three-year long hiatus from the music scene, Sunmi resumed her career as a soloist in August 2013 with her debut extended play Full Moon. The EP spawned the single "24 Hours", which charted at number two on South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart. In 2015, Sunmi was announced to be resuming promotion with the Wonder Girls until their disbandment in 2017. She subsequently left JYP Entertainment and joined Makeus Entertainment. Her second extended play Warning was released in 2018 and produced the hit singles "Gashina", "Heroine" and "Siren".More Sunmi
- #7 of 51 onThe Best JYP Entertainment Artists Ever, Ranked
- #28 of 168 onThe Best KPop Singers of All Time
- #6 of 122 onThe Best K-Pop Solo Artists
Sungjae
Yook Sung-jae (born May 2, 1995), better known mononymously as Sungjae, is a South Korean singer, songwriter, actor, host and entertainer. He is a member of the boy group BtoB and its sub-group, BtoB Blue. Aside from his group's activities, Yook has acted in television dramas Plus Nine Boys (2014), Who Are You: School 2015 (2015), The Village: Achiara's Secret (2015), Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016) and Mystic Pop-up Bar (2020) and has appeared on hit shows, including: Hitmaker, We Got Married and Master in the House. Yook released his debut solo album, Yook O'Clock, on March 2, 2020.More Sungjae- #29 of 85 onThe Best K-Drama Actors Of All Time
- #39 of 53 onThe Best Maknae Members In K-pop, Ranked
- #38 of 113 onThe Best Korean Actors Of All Time
