David Spinx …

David Spinx …

English actor David Spinx was born on 25 April 1951. He is probably best known for playing Keith Miller in the BBC television soap opera EastEnders. He has made guest appearances in many other television series such as A Touch of Frost, The Bill and Hustle. 

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Tress MacNeille …

Tress MacNeille …

Tress MacNeille was born on June 20, 1951. She is a very popoular American voice actress best known for providing the voices of Dot, Daisy Duck, Chip, Gadget Hackwrench, Wilma Flintstone, Mom, Agnes Skinner, Dolph Starbeam, Babs Bunny, and various other characters on animated television series such as The Simpsons, Futurama, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Disney’s House of Mouse, Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, SWAT Kats, Rugrats, and Dave the Barbarian.

Aleksandr Aleksandrov … in orbit

Aleksandr Aleksandrov … in orbit

Aleksandr Aleksandrov pictured in 2013

Aleksandr Aleksandrov was born on December 1, 1951.

He is a retired Bulgarian cosmonaut and the second Bulgarian to have flown into space. He graduated from the Bulgarian Air Force Academy in 1974 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Bulgarian Air Force.

Aleksandrov was selected as a Research Cosmonaut in 1978. He was eventually assigned to the prime crew of the Soyuz TM-5 mission to the Mir space station in 1988 and spent 10 days in space before returning to Earth in Soyuz TM-4.

Soyuz TM-5 docked with the Mir space station (1988)

Aleksandrov later became Deputy Director of the Institute of Space Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and currently works as a research scientist.

His spacesuit

Andy Anderson …

Andy Anderson …

A warm 1951 Club welcome to Andy Anderson. Rock musician Andy was born in West Ham, East London, on 30 January 1951. He has been in demand as a drummer since 1978 and has worked with an impressive array of people in the industry.

He worked on Hawkwind’s Nik Turner’s Sphynx album in 1978. He played with Steve Hillage on two albums, Live Herald and Open, and had a brief stint in Hawkwind in 1983, but did not record with them. His tenure in that group was cut short when he played with The Glove on their first and only album Blue Sunshine.

He later joined The Cure as their drummer in 1983, after drummer Lol Tolhurst switched to keyboard duties. Anderson recorded on the albums Japanese Whispers, The Top, and Concert in addition to the singles Love Cats and The Caterpillar. Anderson was, and still is, the only member of The Cure of African descent.

Andy as a member of The Cure in 1983

Throughout the years, Andy Anderson has collabrated with a number of artists, including Iggy Pop, Jimmy Somerville, M, Jimmy Pursey’s Sham 69, Harry Williamson and Friends, The Glove, Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock, Brilliant, Martin Glover, The Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the Steve Hillage Band, Circus Hazzard, Steve New, Edwyn Collins, The Burning Sensations, Jason Donovan, David Michael Phillips, Hooky Dallion Nik Turner’s Sphynx & Inner City Unit, Mick Hawksworth and Friends, Zeke Manyika’s Dr. Love, The Edgar Broughton Band, Lol Tolhurst’s Levinhurst, Peter Gabriel, Midge Ure, Isaac Hayes, The Last Poets and Mike Oldfield.

Anderson works as a session musician/producer of TV commercials and record companies as well as various artists and charities.

Margaret Mountford … after the Sugar rush

Margaret Mountford … after the Sugar rush

Margaret Mountford was born on 24th November 1951. She is a British lawyer, businesswoman and television personality best known for her role in The Apprentice as one of Lord Sugar’s advisers. 

She left in 2009 to continue her PhD in papyrology at University College, London, studying documents found in Egypt and written in ancient Greek. She sits on many boards and is chair of governors at a London school.

Jill Biden … America’s Second Lady

Jill Biden … America’s Second Lady

 Jill Tracy Biden was born in New Jersey on June 5, 1951. She is an American educator who is married to the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, making her the Second Lady of the United States since 2009.

Robert Big Track (1951-2016)

I chanced upon this recent obituary in a Canadian online newspaper called SOOTODAY.COM and thought I’d like to share it with you.

ROBERT BIG TRACK
April 23, 1951 ~ August 19, 2016 (age 65)

The exotic world of Professor Haldane …

The exotic world of Professor Haldane …

British-born scientist Duncan Haldane of Princeton University poses for a portrait after winning the 2016 Nobel Prize for Physics, at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. October 4, 2016. REUTERS/Dominic Reuter TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

The 1951 Club can now boast a Nobel Prize winner.

Duncan Haldane is a British-born physicist who was born on 14 September 1951. He is a Professor of Physics at Princeton University in the United States. He won the 2016 Nobel prize for physics with David J. Thouless and John Michael Kosterlitz. The trio won the Nobel Physics Prize for revealing the secrets of exotic matter.

“This year’s laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states. They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films. Thanks to their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter,” the Nobel jury said.

Image: From left,  David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz.

Kurt Russell …

Kurt Russell

A warm 1951 Club welcome to American actor Kurt Russell. He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 17, 1951.

He began acting on television for the western series, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963–64). In the late 1960s, he signed a ten-year contract with The Walt Disney Company where he became the studio’s top star of the 1970s.

A young Kurt Russell with Robert Vaughn in The Man From Uncle (1964)

Russell was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his performance in Silkwood (1983) alongside Cher and Meryl Streep.

In Silkwood with Meryl Streep & Cher

In the 1980s, he starred in several films by director John Carpenter, including anti-hero roles such as army hero-turned-robber Snake Plissken in the futuristic action film Escape from New York (1981), and its 1996 sequel Escape from L.A., Antarctic helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady in the horror film The Thing (1982), and truck driver Jack Burton in the dark kung-fu comedy action film Big Trouble in Little China (1986), all of which have since become cult films.  He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the television film Elvis (1979), also directed by Carpenter. 

Kurt Russell plays the rock legend and Season Hubley his young wife, Priscilla, in Elvis (1979)

He has also starred in other films, including Tombstone (1993), Stargate (1994), Miracle (2004), Poseidon (2006), Death Proof (2007),Bone Tomahawk (2015) and The Hateful Eight (2015).

Interestingly, Kurt Russell was married to his co-star in Elvis, the American actress Season Hubley, from 1979-1983. And she was also born in … 1951. He is now married to actress Goldie Hawn.

Kurt Russell & Season Hubley were both born in 1951

Also … The Thing (1982), in which Russell had a starring role, was a remake of The Thing from Another World (1951).

Kurt Russell in The Thing (1982)

1951 … THERE’S JUST NO GETTING AWAY FROM IT!!

Chang Fei … Big Brother is watching you!

Chang Fei … Big Brother is watching you!

A very warm 1951 Club welcome to Chang Fei.

Chang Fei (張菲; Zhāng Fēi) or Fei Ge (菲哥; “Brother Fei”) was born on 4th December 1951 and is a singer and television personality from Taiwan.

Chang Fei is the host of the variety show “Variety Big Brother” (綜藝大哥大), and is also a singer. He is the brother of ballad singer Fei Yu Ching. He also has a sister, who is a buddhist nun, known by the dharma name Heng Shu (恆述法師), who was also a singer.