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

Zhang Yimou (born 14 November 1951) is a Chinese film director, producer, screenwriter and actor, and former cinematographer. He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1...

Kurt Vogel Russell (born March 17, 1951) is an American actor. His first roles were as a child in television series, including a lead role in the Western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963–64). In the late 1960s, he sig...

Stellan John Skarsgård (born 13 June 1951) is a Swedish actor. He is known for his roles as Jan Nyman in Breaking the Waves (1996), Prof. Gerald Lambeau in Good Will Hunting (1997), Bootstrap Bill in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead...

James Newton Howard (born June 9, 1951) is an American composer, conductor, music producer and musician. Throughout his career, he has scored over 100 films of all scales and genres, earning multiple award nominations for his work...

James George Janos (born July 15, 1951) better known by his stage name Jesse Ventura is an American former professional wrestler, actor, political commentator, author, naval veteran, and politician who served as the 38th Governor...

Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. He started as a stand-up comedian in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. After rising to fame as Mork in the sitcom Mork & M...

Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor and film producer. He is the youngest of the few people who have won the "Triple Crown of Acting": the Academy Award, the Primetime Emmy Award, and the Tony Award. He has...

Mark Richard Hamill (born September 25, 1951) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, producer, and director. He is best known for his portrayal of Luke Skywalker, a central character and protagonist of the original Star Wars t...

Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), better known by his stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor, producer, director and comedian. He is currently a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一 Sakamoto Ryūichi, born January 17, 1952) (Japanese pronunciation: [sakamoto ɽju͍ːitɕi]) is a Japanese musician, activist, composer, record producer, writer, singer, pianist, and actor based in Tokyo and New...

Michael Hoenig (born 4 January 1952) is a German composer who has composed music for several films and games

Randy Mario Poffo (November 15, 1952 – May 20, 2011), better known by his ring name "Macho Man" Randy Savage, was an American professional wrestler and color commentator best known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation (W...

Henry Selick (born November 30, 1952) is an American stop motion director, producer and writer who is best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. He studied at the Program in Ex...

Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1952) is an American filmmaker and screenwriter. He has directed some of the biggest blockbuster hits of the past few decades. He first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of Rom...

Liam John Neeson, (born 7 June 1952) is an Irish actor. In 1976, he joined the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast for two years. He then acted in the Arthurian film, Excalibur (1981). Between 1982 and 1987, Neeson starred in five f...

Patrick Wayne Swayze (August 18, 1952 – September 14, 2009) was an American actor, dancer, and singer-songwriter. Having gained fame with appearances in films during the 1980s, Swayze became popular for playing tough guys and roma...

Neil Ellwood Peart (born September 12, 1952) is a Canadian-American musician and author, best known as the drummer and primary lyricist for the rock band Rush. Peart has received numerous awards for his musical performances, inclu...

Malcolm Mitchell Young (born 6 January 1953 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a retired Australian guitarist best known as a founder, rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist and songwriter for the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. Except for a b...

Michael Alden Hedges (December 31, 1953 – December 2, 1997) was an American composer, acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.

John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor and director. He has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award nominations...

Kenneth E. Gaspar (born February 3, 1953), more commonly known as Boom Gaspar, is an American musician who has performed with the American rock band Pearl Jam as a piano/keyboard/organ player since 2002...

Pierce Brendan Brosnan, (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist who after leaving comprehensive school at age 16, began training in commercial illustration. He then went on to train at the Drama Ce...

Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American composer, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is known as the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band Oingo Boingo from 1976 to 1995, and later for scori...

Timothy Allen Dick (born June 13, 1953), known professionally as Tim Allen, is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his role in the ABC television show Home Improvement (1991–99) as well as for his starring roles in sev...

Kathleen Kennedy (born June 5, 1953) is an American film producer. In 1981, she co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall. She was a producer on the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the Juras...

Geddy Lee Weinrib (born Gary Lee Weinrib, July 29, 1953), OC, known professionally as Geddy Lee, is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group...

Terry Gene Bollea (born August 11, 1953) better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American professional wrestler, actor, television personality, entrepreneur and rock bassist.

James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American composer, conductor and orchestrator of film scores. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for his fre...

Aleksandar Živojinović, (born August 27, 1953), better known by his stage name Alex Lifeson, is a Canadian musician, best known as the guitarist of the Canadian rock band Rush. In 1968, Lifeson co-founded the band that would becom...

Ang Lee (Chinese: 李安; pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese-born American film director, screenwriter and producer. Lee has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice: for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and for Life o...

Stephen "Stevie" Ray Vaughan (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer.

John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor, dancer, and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979) and starring in the box of...

Ronald William "Ron" Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American film director, producer, and actor, best known for playing two high-profile roles in television sitcoms in his childhood and early adulthood, and for directing a numb...

Roderick George "Roddy" Toombs (April 17, 1954 – July 31, 2015), better known by his ring name "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, was a Canadian professional wrestler, actor, and podcast host.

Datuk Jackie Chan (born Chan Kong-sang, 陳港生; 7 April 1954) is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film director, producer, stuntman, and singer. Chan has been training in Kung fu and Wing Chun. He has been acting since the 1960s an...

Michael Anthony Sobolewski (born June 20, 1954), known professionally as Michael Anthony, is an American musician who is currently the bass player in the rock supergroup Chickenfoot. Anthony is best known as the former bass player...

James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, inventor, engineer, philanthropist, and deep-sea explorer who has directed the two biggest box office films of all time (Avatar and Titanic). He first found maj...

Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, film director, producer, musician, and singer. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three BAFT...

Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen (born January 26, 1955 in Nijmegen) is a Dutch-American musician, songwriter and producer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, occasional keyboardist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van H...

Roland Emmerich (born November 10, 1955) is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films, most of which are English-language Hollywood productions, have made more than $3 billion worldwide, including just over $1...

Carter Benedict Burwell (born November 18, 1955) is an American composer of film scores. He is best known as a regular collaborator of the Coen brothers, having scored many of their films, among them Raising Arizona (1987), Barton...

Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, musician, and playwright. He founded a nonprofit theater company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan. He has performed in a n...

Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is an American actor, producer and singer. His career began on the Off-Broadway stage and then in television in the 1980s, most notably as David Addison in Moonlighting (1985–89). He is pe...

Angus McKinnon Young (born 31 March 1955) is a Scottish-born Australian guitarist best known as a co-founder, lead guitarist, and songwriter of the Australian hard rock band AC/DC.

Chen Daoming (born 26 April 1955) is a Chinese actor who has starred in various genres of film and television series.

Akira Toriyama (鳥山 明 Toriyama Akira, born April 5, 1955 in Nagoya, Aichi) is a Japanese manga and game artist. He first achieved mainstream recognition for his manga Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball—his best-known...

Donald Chow Yun-fat, (born May 18, 1955), commonly known by his transcribed Chinese name, is a Hong Kong actor. He is best known in Asia for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the heroic bloodshed genre films A Better T...

William Thomas "Tommy" Emmanuel (born 31 May 1955) is an Australian virtuoso guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer, best known for his complex fingerstyle technique, energetic performances and the use of percussive effects o...

Gordon Liu (劉家輝; Lau Ka-Fai; pinyin: Liu Jiahui, formerly spelled Liu Chia-Hui, birth name Xian Jinxi; born August 22, 1955) is a Chinese martial arts film actor and martial artist. He became famous for playing the lead role of Sa...

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker.