born 20 January 1970

Branka Katic, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, actress

Bryan Ray Trout, Lynchburg, Virginia, Skeet Ulrich

Cristina Khuly, Miami, Florida, documentarian

Edwin McCain, Greenville, South Carolina, singer-songwriter

Fábio Villa Verde, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, actor

Kerri Kenney-Silver, Westport, Connecticut, actress

Reno Wilson, birthplace unspecified, American actor

Rosa Mariscal, Madrid, Spain, actress

Stefan Gödicke, birthplace unspecified, Swedish actor

Terry Kirby, Hampton, Virgina, NFL football player

Tim Swine, Venice, California, porn star

Tuuli Matinsalo, Tornio, Finland, gymnast

Val Riazanov, Crimea, Soviet Union, fitness instructor

Skeet Ulrich may yet have his second act. An off-brand Johnny Depp in his mid-1990s heyday, he never actually blossomed into the star he was tapped to be. But he will always hold a heartthrob’s place in the bosoms of little girls born between about 1978 and 1982. That’s an accomplishment. And he’s kept himself out of D-list reality show hell, even though I’m sure wads of that type of cash have been brandished in his direction. He’s an excellent illustration of the principle that not succeeding to a high degree is very different from failing. He deserves consideration for the prize of today’s winner.

Branka Katic is an actress I pull for. Like a Balkan Kathleen Turner, she appeared on the American entertainment scene as a fully-formed Young Older Woman, though not surprisingly she had a number of Serbian-language features back home in her twenties. I’d be curious to know what the big break that got her over here was. Her storyline on “Big Love” was a little forced at times, I thought, but that’s hardly the actress’s fault. She, too, has a long career playing accented fading sexpots to look forward to, and I look forward to it with her. On any other day, she too would be a natural choice for today’s winner.

But I cannot overlook the extraordinary contribution to the cultural landscape furnished by Kerri Kenney-Silver. Borderline beautiful, but with an giraffelike peculiarity, she’s a natural at playing just plain weird. Of all the great work everybody on “Reno 911” has ever done, no one has delved deeper into depths of shame, loneliness, sexual deprivation and depravity, and hideously incompetent policing than Deputy Trudy Wiegal. She engendered the bony awkwardness of every woman in law enforcement’s ill-at-easeness in tough-guy drag. Even if she never inhabits another character in a meaningful way, Kerri Kenney-Silver is a shoo-in for Today’s Winner.

Also, every four years at least, Inauguration Day seems like a pretty cool birthday to have.