GenX birthdays for friends …
Feb. 11 — Friendly birthdays all around …
Jennifer Aniston (1969) turns 52 and has come a long way from dashing into Central Perk in a soaked wedding dress as Rachel on Sept. 22, 1994. She scampered straight into the hearts of young fellas everywhere, but things almost went a very different direction. After muddling through some failed roles, a friend helped guide her casting. Aniston turned down an opportunity to join “SNL” as a featured player and decided to give it a go with this “Friends” thing that ultimately ran 1994–2004. But she’s played a variety of roles since, some comedic, some darker. Among dozens of films, she’s best known for “Office Space” (1999), “Bruce Almighty” (2003), and “Horrible Bosses” (2011).
Sheryl Crow (1962) turns 60, having first hit our eardrums with the insufferable “All I Wanna Do” on April 4, 1994. But it hit no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, so what do I know. She also hit no. 1 with “Soak up the Sun” (2002) and “The First Cut is the Deepest” (2003) and has hit the top 10 about half a dozen times. Not bad for someone who started out as a music teacher at Kellison Elementary in Fenton, Mo., and turned her first professional music dollar singing jingles for the Famous-Barr department story, McDonald’s, and Toyota.
If you don’t wish Ken Shamrock (1964) a happy 57th, he may put a hurt on you. It may be “old man strength” now, but Shamrock — born Kenneth Kilpatrick — earned his nickname “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” not by accident. The native of Warner Robins, Ga., was one of the early champions of the UFC, and was the first foreign MMA champion in Japan when he won the title King of Pancrase. It all may be a release for Shamrock, who had a tough upbringing that saw his father leave when Shamrock was 5, and an adolescence that was heavily laced with drug use. He excelled in sports and was eventually offered a tryout by the San Diego Chargers. He declined to pursue a career in pro wrestling. He moved into actual fighting in Japan before becoming one of the charter fighters in the UFC, where he lost to eventual champion Royce Gracie in UFC 1 on Nov. 12, 1993.
