Top 10 People Born on New Year’s Day – Thursday’s Top Ten List

Created by Matthew J. Goldberg, tipofthegoldberg.com

New Year’s Day is only three days away, so I thought it would be interesting to feature some celebrities (for lack of a better word) who were born on January 1. Hope you find this to be an interesting compilation as well.

Please note that not all of them are (or were) Jewish, but the Number One on this list was a legendary Jewish baseball player.

Happy New Year to all, and feel free to celebrate with some of the following people.

10. ELIN NORDEGREN (1980)

This Swedish-born beauty and model is best known as “Mrs. Tiger Woods.” Well, she was that. If you were living on this planet, you probably read and heard all about her husband’s serial infidelity, their divorce and her smashing Woods’ windshield with one of his golf clubs. It was allegedly not done for humanitarian reasons and even Tiger’s biggest fans could not blame her for doing so.

  9. DANA ANDREWS (1909­–1992)

This Mississippi-born actor is probably best known for his roles in Laura (1944) and the Oscar®-winning The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Andrews was also President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1863-65.

8. TIE: Don Novello (1943) and Country Joe McDonald (1942)

The actor-comedian Novello is synonymous with one of his comic characters, Father Guido Sarducci.

Joseph Allen McDonald (son of Russian-Jewish immigrant Florence Plotnick) was best known as frontman of the rock band, Country Joe McDonald and the Fish. This group, in turn, was renowned for its anti-Vietnam War protest song, The Fish Cheer/I-Fell-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag. Yes, that was the title, and the song—full of black humor—was one of the iconic hits of Woodstock.

7. TIE: Jon Corzine (1947) and Robert Menendez (1954)

Ironically, Menendez succeeded Corzine as the junior United States senator from New Jersey in 2006. The former is up for reelection in 2012. Corzine, a fellow Democrat, was also state governor from 2006-2010. And then there’s Frank Lautenberg who, I think, has succeeded and preceded both of them in the U.S. Senate. Alas, Lautenberg (still a senator at age 87) was born on January 23.

Confused? Let’s move on.

6. MARCIA CROSS (1962)

Marcia Cross is best known to most for her role as Bree Van de Kamp in the TV series Desperate Houesewifes. You may be asking how she can be ranked ahead of two U.S. Senators from my home state of New Jersey. To which I ask, have you seen either Corzine or Menendez in a negligee? I also ask that you consider this question to be rhetorical.

 5. FRANK LANGELLA

The Bayonne (NJ)-born Langella is mostly known for his stage acting but did garner an Oscar® nomination for his role in the 2008 film, Frost/Nixon. Langella artfully played the ethically-challenged President; perhaps, he would have won the Oscar if he played Frost as well. Just a passing thought.

4. XAVIER CUGAT (1900-1990)

Cugat was a famous musician and bandleader who was born in Spain, emigrated to Cuba (at age five) and moved to New York City as a teen. His given name was…get ready…Francisco d’Asís Xavier Cugat Mingall de Bru i Deulofeu.

He was not Jewish, but his fourth of five wives (the beautiful singer/actress, Abbe Lane) was. And yes, Ms. Lane was succeeded as Mrs. Cugat by a Spanish American singer/actress/comedienne who was known to most as Charo. Yes, Charo’s given name (per wikipedia.org) is María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Gutiérrez de los Perales Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Hinojosa Rasten.

Hence, Charo.

3. SHOLEM ASCH (1880-1957)

Shalom Asch was a brilliant and prolific, if controversial, Polish-Jewish writer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1920. His essays, novels and plays were published in Hebrew, Yiddish and English.

His final residence in Bat Yam, Israel is now a museum, and many of his writings, including some rare Yiddish tomes, are held at Yale University.

2. ROCKY GRAZIANO (1919–1990)

Thomas Rocco Barbella (his manager, Irving Cohen, convinced him to take his grandfather’s last name, Graziano) grew up in one of the toughest sections of New York City, and overcame extreme poverty and his own run-ins with the law to become one of the greatest middleweight boxers of the 1950s.

The Rock was once a world champion, and he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Part famous, part infamous, Paul Newman portrayed him in the 1956 film Somebody Up There Likes Me.

Rocky also co-starred with the inimitable comedian Henny Youngman in a short-lived 1955 TV series called The Henny and Rocky Show.

1. HANK GREENBERG (1911–1986)

The original Hebrew Hammer is one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. Born Hyman Greenberg in Greenwich Village, New York City to Romanian-born parents, the legendary first baseman grew up in the Bronx and attended NYU for one year before signing with the Detroit Tigers. He may have signed with his hometown Yankees, but they had a pretty fair first sacker named Lou Gehrig.

Three quick Greenberg factoids:

• Hank was the American league MVP in both 1935 and 1940.
• His 58 home runs in 1938 narrowly missed tying Babe Ruth’s 60 (1927) and were the most hit by a Major Leaguer between Ruth’s 60 and Roger Maris’ 61 in 1961. Greenberg’s 183 runs-batted-in (1937) are still the most ever by a right-handed batter in the American League.
•  Greenberg, although not observant, announced late in the 1934 season that he would not play on either Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. He later relented and played (hitting two homers in a 2-1 win over Boston) on Rosh Hashanah, but kept his promise to sit out on the Day of Atonement. Predictably, the Tigers lost without their best player, but Greenberg still led them to the World Series that year.

That concludes this Thursday’s Top 10 list; if you have any observations or suggestions for future lists, please comment below or email me via Matt@tipofthegoldberg.com.

Matthew J. (call him Matt) Goldberg will be presenting a Jewish-style Top Ten list every Thursday on www.jewocity.com. Please send feedback or suggestions to Matt@tipofthegoldberg.com.

For information about Matt’s books, sports columns, speaking events and requests for appearances and custom writing, please visit www.tipofthegoldberg.com, or contact him via email. His new Facebook Fan Page (please “like”) can be found here.