Famous birthdays by year
Famous People Born in 1922
Born in 1922? Meet the well-known people who share your birth year, from the biggest names to the ones you might not expect, month by month.
Turning 104 in 2026 · Chinese zodiac: Year of the Dog
The 1920s
The most famous people born in 192251
1922–1969Judy Garland
American singer and actress who played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and sang Over the Rainbow, later starring in A Star Is Born
Photo: Eric Carpenter (1909-1976) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . · Public domain
1922–2010José Saramago
Portuguese novelist of Blindness and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ who won the Nobel Prize in Literature
Photo: Unknown author · CC BY 2.0
1922–2007Kurt Vonnegut
American novelist of Slaughterhouse-Five, inspired by surviving the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war
Photo: Bernard Gotfryd / Adam Cuerden · Public domain
1922–2015Christopher Lee
English actor of towering presence who played Dracula for Hammer, Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in Star Wars
Photo: Manfred Werner - Tsui · CC BY-SA 3.0
1922–1995Yitzhak Rabin
Israeli general and two-time prime minister who signed the Oslo Accords, won the Nobel Peace Prize and was assassinated in 1995
Photo: Yaakov Saar · CC BY-SA 3.0
1922–2019Doris Day
Prolific American singer and star of Hollywood Golden Age musicals
Photo: Los Angeles Times · CC BY 4.0
1922–1969Jack Kerouac
Influential novelist and leading figure of the Beat Generation
Photo: Tom Palumbo from New York, NY, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0
1922–2018Stan Lee
Marvel Comics writer who co-created many popular superheroes
Photo: US Embassy Tokyo · Public domain
Born in 1922, month by month
- January
- Har Gobind Khorana (January 9) · Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who helped crack the genetic code
- Ahmed Sékou Touré (January 9) · Founding president of Guinea and leader of African independence
- Betty White (January 17) · Pioneering television actress and comedian known for The Golden Girls
- Paul Scofield (January 21) · Shakespearean actor who won an Oscar for A Man for All Seasons
- Telly Savalas (January 21) · American actor famous for playing the TV detective Kojak
- Robert W. Holley (January 28) · Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who sequenced transfer RNA
- March
- Yitzhak Rabin (March 1) · Israeli general and two-time prime minister who signed the Oslo Accords, won the Nobel Peace Prize and was assassinated in 1995
- Pier Paolo Pasolini (March 5) · Influential Italian film director, poet and public intellectual
- Jack Kerouac (March 12) · Influential novelist and leading figure of the Beat Generation
- Hiroo Onoda (March 19) · Japanese soldier who remained at his post long after World War II
- Carl Reiner (March 20) · American comedian, director and creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show
- April
- Doris Day (April 3) · Prolific American singer and star of Hollywood Golden Age musicals
- Julius Nyerere (April 13) · First President of Tanzania and anti-colonial activist
- Kingsley Amis (April 16) · Booker Prize-winning English novelist known for writing Lucky Jim
- Erich Hartmann (April 19) · German fighter pilot and the highest-scoring ace in aviation history
- May
- Franjo Tuđman (May 14) · First president of Croatia who led the country to independence
- Christopher Lee (May 27) · English actor of towering presence who played Dracula for Hammer, Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in Star Wars
- Iannis Xenakis (May 29) · Composer and architect who pioneered the use of mathematical stochastic music
- June
- Alain Resnais (June 3) · French filmmaker associated with the influential New Wave movement
- Judy Garland (June 10) · American singer and actress who played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and sang Over the Rainbow, later starring in A Star Is Born
- Erving Goffman (June 11) · Sociologist who studied social interaction and the presentation of self
- Aage Bohr (June 19) · Danish nuclear physicist who won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics
- Blake Edwards (June 26) · Influential director of Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Pink Panther films
- Eleanor Parker (June 26) · Three-time Oscar-nominated actress and star of The Sound of Music
- July
- Pierre Cardin (July 2) · French fashion designer famous for his avant-garde Space Age style
- Leon M. Lederman (July 15) · Nobel Prize-winning physicist who discovered the muon neutrino
- Thomas Kuhn (July 18) · Philosopher of science who introduced the concept of paradigm shifts
- John B. Goodenough (July 25) · Scientist who played a central role in inventing lithium-ion batteries
- August
- Alain Robbe-Grillet (August 18) · French author and filmmaker who pioneered the New Novel movement
- Howard Zinn (August 24) · American historian who wrote A People’s History of the United States
- September
- Vittorio Gassman (September 1) · Highly acclaimed Italian actor and director nicknamed Il Mattatore
- Arthur Ashkin (September 2) · Nobel Prize-winning physicist who developed optical tweezers
- Hans Georg Dehmelt (September 9) · Nobel Prize-winning physicist who co-developed the ion trap
- Agostinho Neto (September 17) · First President of independent Angola and revolutionary poet
- Emil Zátopek (September 19) · Czech distance runner who won three golds at the 1952 Olympics
- Chen-ning Yang (September 22) · Nobel Prize-winning physicist known for work on parity laws
- October
- Yaşar Kemal (October 6) · Leading Turkish author of the novel Memed, My Hawk
- Norodom Sihanouk (October 31) · King of Cambodia who led his country through various regimes
- November
- Christiaan Barnard (November 8) · South African surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant
- Imre Lakatos (November 9) · Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science
- Dorothy Dandridge (November 9) · First African American woman nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award
- Kurt Vonnegut (November 11) · American novelist of Slaughterhouse-Five, inspired by surviving the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war
- Boutros Boutros-Ghali (November 14) · Egyptian diplomat who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations
- José Saramago (November 16) · Portuguese novelist of Blindness and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ who won the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Stanley Cohen (November 17) · American biochemist and Nobel Prize winner
- Joan Fuster (November 23) · Valencian writer and vocal proponent of Catalan identity
- Charles M. Schulz (November 26) · Cartoonist and creator of the influential comic strip Peanuts
- December
- Gérard Philipe (December 4) · Iconic French actor of the stage and screen
- Nikolay Basov (December 14) · Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate who co-invented the laser
- Ava Gardner (December 24) · Hollywood actress known for The Killers and Mogambo
- Stan Lee (December 28) · Marvel Comics writer who co-created many popular superheroes