born 4 April 1970

Anthony Green, Blackburn, England, actor

Barry Pepper, Campbell River, British Columbia, actor

Çagan Irmak, İzmir, Turkey, writer/director

David J. Ryan, Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, low-budget horror producer

Greg García, birthplace unspecified, American TV producer

James Buller, Burnley, England, TV actor

Peter Langham (died on his birthday in 2008), Lafayette, Indiana, writer/director

Rodrigo, São Paolo, Brazilian “Big Brother” winner

Sammy DeSilva, Newark, New Jersey, air traffic controller

Steve Helling, Syracuse, New York, People magazine reporter

Tony Roy, Nashua, New Hampshire, professional wrestler

Wouter Smit, Geleen, The Netherlands, marketing executive

Interesting group in general. A jury of twelve potentially angry men (assuming everybody is at least a little angry to find themselves forty). I was pleased to note that even the Brazilian reality show contestants go by one name only.

Two of the guys on this list make me think about the urban/rural divide in American entertainment. This is most commonly on view at the music award shows (which I realize hardly anybody watches anymore, but still). Those extravaganzas have to be one of the only evenings of a given year where the folks in the ghetto have cause to contemplate the farmers’ favorite songs, and vice versa.

So I’m all in favor of any occasion when that gap gets bridged, if only on TV for a couple of hours. I think Greg García’s “My Name Is Earl” did that, at its best. Now that it’s come and gone, I think it’ll grow in people’s estimation: not because it’s very good – it’s merely okay – but it’s a better timekiller than most of the sitcoms of the past decade. Its premise permitted an uncommon range of plot flexibility. And its throw-stuff-at-the-fourth-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach is something silly TV comedy could use more of.

Even though he did once help pin down a pretty good Spike Lee film, I think of Today’s Winner as a “country” actor. He plays mostly cowpokes and grunts. Also, like so many Nashvillionaires, he is in fact Canadian. I think Barry Pepper is a guy who has a chance to become a heavy hitter in Hollywood in his forties and fifties. Something about that face reminds me of Peckinpah; but he still needs a couple more dusty miles on it for full effect (like Holden or Ryan in The Wild Bunch). The main reason he’s the winner, though, is his crazy hippie wayfaring childhood, which the great Carroll Ballard could make a hell of a movie out of.