List of artists, sorted by birth date - oldest first (all time)

Marvin Gaye ( born Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984 ) was an American soul singer, songwriter, and musician. Gaye helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as...

Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter.

Harvey Keitel (born May 13, 1939) is an American actor and producer. An Oscar and Golden Globe Award nominee, he has appeared in films such as Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma...

Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. He is the recipient of six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk A...

Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin (born September 1, 1939) is an American actress, comedian, writer, singer and producer. Tomlin began her career as a stand-up comedian, and performing Off-Broadway during the 1960s. Her breakout role was pe...

Frederick Charles Willard (born September 18, 1939) is an American actor, comedian, voice actor and writer, best known for his improvisational comedy. He is known for his roles in the Rob Reiner mockumentary film This Is Spinal Ta...

Sir Michael John Gambon (born 19 October 1940) is an Irish-born English actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. Gambon has played Philip Marlow in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, Jules Maigret in the...

John Ono Lennon, born John Winston Lennon; (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980), was an English musician, singer and songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as a founder member of the rock band the Beatles, the most commercially succe...

Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam (born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor, comedian and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has directed 12 feature films, includi...

Bruce Lee (Chinese: 李小龍; born Lee Jun-fan, Chinese: 李振藩; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong American martial artist, Hong Kong action film actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, filmmaker, and the founder of...

Peter Henry Fonda (born February 23, 1940) is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda (by first wife Susan Brewer, stepdaughter of Noah Dietrich). Fonda is an...

George Andrew Romero (born February 4, 1940) is an American-Canadian film director, film producer, screenwriter and editor, best known for his series of gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse, b...

Hans Rudolf "Ruedi" Giger (5 February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer. He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for thei...

Godfrey Reggio (born March 29, 1940) is an American director of experimental documentary films.

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is well known for playing mobsters, especially Michael Corleone in The Godfather films and Tony Montana in Scarface, and often appeared on the...

Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English film, television, and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career on stage and screen. He is most widely known for his roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Ne...

Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for the Beatles. He occasionally sang lead vocals, usually for...

Brian Russell De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and screenwriter.

Paul Frederic Simon is an American musician, actor and singer-songwriter. Simon's fame, influence, and commercial success began as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, formed in 1964 with musical partner Art Garfunkel...

Lloyd Vernet "Beau" Bridges III (born December 9, 1941) is an American actor and director. He is a three-time Emmy, two-time Golden Globe and one-time Grammy Award winner. He is also a two-time Screen Actors Guild Award nominee. H...

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, artist and writer.

Martin Charles Scorsese (born November 17, 1942) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian, whose career spans more than 45 years.

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter.

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed (March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was the guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Velvet Underground, and his solo career spanned several de...

Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American singer and musician. Franklin began her career singing gospel at her father, minister C. L. Franklin's church as a child. In 1960, at the age of 18, Franklin embarked on...

Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, one of the...

Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, also known as Rodríguez or Jesús Rodríguez (born July 10, 1942), is an American folk musician from Detroit, Michigan. His career initially proved short lived, with two little-sold albums in the early 1970s an...

Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor and film producer. He gained worldwide fame for his starring roles as Han Solo in the original Star Wars epic space opera trilogy and the title character of the Indiana Jones...

Werner Herzog Stipetić (born 5 September 1942), known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, author, actor and opera director.

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who first rose to fame in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic/acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later a...

Jean-Jacques Annaud (born 1 October 1943) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for directing Quest for Fire (1981), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Lover (1991), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997). Annaud...

Terrence Frederick Malick (born November 30, 1943) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. In a career spanning over four decades he has directed eight feature films. Malick made his directorial debut with the dra...

Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English musician, singer and songwriter, actor, and one of the original members of the rock band The Rolling Stones.

James Douglas "Jim" Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American singer songwriter, and poet best remembered as the lead singer of The Doors.

George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter and music and film producer who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Although...

David Paul Cronenberg, (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor.

Ronald Walken, known professionally as Christopher Walken (born March 31, 1943), is an American actor. He has appeared in more than 100 films and television shows, including The Deer Hunter, Annie Hall, The Prophecy trilogy, The D...

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer, songwriter and actor, best known as lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones.

Richard William "Rick" Wright (28 July 1943 – 15 September 2008) was an English musician, composer, singer and songwriter. He was a founder member, keyboardist and vocalist of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, performing on th...

Robert De Niro (born August 17, 1943) is an American actor and producer who has starred in over 90 films. His first major film roles were in the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and Martin Scorsese's crime film Mean Street...

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. In 1965, he co-founded the progressive rock band Pink Floyd with drummer Nick Mason, keyboardist Richard Wright and...

Nicholas Berkeley "Nick" Mason (born 27 January 1944) is an English musician and composer, best known as the drummer of Pink Floyd. He is the only constant member of the band since its formation in 1965. Despite solely writing onl...

James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, Jr., OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English musician, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer mostly known as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Page began his care...

George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. He is best known as the creator of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as the founder of Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Ma...

John Robert "Joe" Cocker (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014) was an English singer and musician. Cocker's cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" reached number one in the UK in 1968. He performed the song live at...

Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and musician. He began performing in a group covering Shadows instrumentals in Canada in 1960, before moving to California in 1966, where he co-founded t...

Goldie Jeanne Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is an American actress, director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in television's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and films such as The Sugarland Express, Private...

Dr. George Miller (born 3 March 1945) is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise. Aside from the Mad Max films, Miller has been involved in a wide...

Eric Patrick Clapton (born 30 March 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the...

Gabriel W. "Gabe" Kaplan (born March 31, 1945) is an American comedian, actor, poker commentator, and professional poker player.