Here are some people born in December 1953. this is the final installment of people born in 1953. I won’t do this for 1954 because I was born in 1953. One person I’ll skip because I will mention them separately.
Tom Hulce (5th): he played Pinto Kroger in Animal House (1978). He was also the wayward son, Larry, of Gil (Steve Martin) and Karen (Mary Steenburgen) Buckman in Parenthood (1989). But he is best known as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Amadeus (1984), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar as Best Actor, losing out to his co-star F. Murray Abraham, who played Mozart’s rival Antonio Salieri. These are the only three films I’ve seen featuring Hulce, all at the cinema.
I never really related to the humor of Sam Kinison (8th). But I understood it better after I read about his growing up. His father was a Pentecostal preacher. “At the age of three years, Kinison was hit by a truck, which left him with brain damage… His parents divorced when Kinison was 11, after which his brother Bill went to live with his father while Kinison stayed with the rest of the family, against his protestations.” For a brief time, Sam was also a fire and brimstone preacher. He was killed in an automobile accident with an intoxicated driver on April 10, 1992.
Being…himself?
I’ve seen John Malkovich (9th) in a few movies (Places in the Heart (1984), Dangerous Liaisons (1988)), his Emmy-winning performance in Death of a Salesman (1985), and a couple of hosting gigs on Saturday Night Live. My favorite has to be the bizarre movie Being John Malkovich (1999).
Bess Armstrong (11th) was in the movies The Four Seasons (1981) and Nothing in Common (1986); the TV shows On Our Own (1977) and My So-Called Life (1995). I’ve seen her in all these plus three episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and other television appearances.
Bill Pullman (17th) is an upstate New York kid born in Hornell and attending SUNY Oneonta. While I’ve seen him in several movies, including A League of Their Own (1992) and Sleepless in Seattle (1997), I’ve never watched either Liebestraum (1991, filmed in Binghamton, NY) or Independence Day (1996).
Barry Livingston (17th): I am so seeped in the history of the TV show My Three Sons, I remember this. “In 1963, he joined the cast of the ABC [then CBS] sitcom My Three Sons as next-door neighbor Ernie Thompson. His older brother, Stanley Livingston, was already a series regular as Chip Douglas. After Tim Considine left the series two years later, Livingston joined the cast permanently (his character was adopted into the family, keeping the show’s title intact) and remained with the series until its end in 1972.” He’s still a working actor, and I’ve even seen him in films such as The Social Network (2010) and Argo (2012).
Echoes of Joy
Betty Wright (21st): I mostly know her for one song, Clean Up Woman, but she had more hits and a complicated personal life. She grew up singing with the Echoes of Joy, a gospel group, from age two(!) to 11. Betty “died from cancer, on May 10, 2020, at her home in Miami, aged 66.”
Meredith Vieira (30th): I first noticed her on CBS News. “Vieira joined 60 Minutes in 1989, following the birth of her first child. Don Hewitt, executive producer of 60 Minutes, allowed her to work part-time for two seasons so she could care for her child. After that, it was arranged that she would work full-time. But after two years, she became pregnant again and asked to continue the part-time arrangement. Hewitt declined her request, firing her, and deciding instead to hire someone who would work full-time.” I didn’t often watch The View (1997-2006), the syndicated Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (2002-2013), or Today (2006-2011), but I’d see her occasionally, covering the Olympics, appearing on 30 Rock, et al.