Happy Birthday to:

Pianist Bruce Hornsby (1954)

Sometimes the music doesn't matter. A band that channels the combined genius of John Lennon, Strauss and The Spice Girls can still fall flat with the wrong name. After all,

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Hazel Court, an English actress who co-starred with the likes of Boris Karloff and Vincent Price in popular horror movies of the 1950s and '60s, has died. She was 82. Court died early Tuesday of a heart attack at her home near Lake Tahoe, daughter Sally Walsh said Wednesday.

I'm sitting with my family at the Thanksgiving table. At the focus is the bird carcass, a bulging centerpiece surrounded by newly stuffed bodies. The cranberry jello, still quivering in the shape of the can, is the only untouched side dish. There is a settling quiet as the full-stomached groans subside and give way to satisfied smiles, until finally somebody strikes up a conversation. Like the feeding frenzy that preceded it, it starts out slow and steadily grows more frantic.

Happy Birthday to actor Steve Harvey (1956), pianist Bruce Hornsby (1954), Barney Miller detective Steve Landesberg (1945), bluesman R.L. Burnside (1923), Marx brother Harpo Marx (1888; d. 1964), classic horror film star Boris Karloff (1887; d. 1969),

"Alice Cooper is an American treasure, just like Boris Karloff and Vincent Price are American treasures. And I don't mean that I am an American treasure, but that the character of Alice Cooper is." Rocker Alice Cooper gives himself a little high praise, but forgets horror master Vincent Price was British.

Happy Birthday to actor Steve Harvey (1956), pianist Bruce Hornsby (1954), Barney Miller detective Steve Landesberg (1945), bluesman R.L. Burnside (1923), Marx brother Harpo Marx (1888; d. 1964), classic horror film star Boris Karloff (1887; d. 1969), American outlaw William H. "Billy the Kid" Bonny (1860; d. 1881), and 14th President of the United States Franklin Pierce (1804; d. 1869).