Guides
Celebrities born on July 4: a US Independence Day birthday list
Celebrities born on July 4 share a birthday with US Independence Day. This list focuses on verified American names, birth years, and the vital records behind them.
What to take away
- A July 4 birthday list is only as good as the records behind each name.
- US Independence Day gives the date a fixed federal anchor, but celebrity birth dates still need state-level verification.
- Most errors in July 4 lists involve birth year or birthplace, not the month and day.
- This list focuses on US-born public figures, not every famous person born on that date worldwide.
Verified US names for July 4
The table below lists American public figures often included on July 4 birthday calendars. Each birth year and state comes from widely used biographical sources and the July 4 date page on Wikipedia.
Birth years can differ between sources, so each year here is the value those sources report. We last checked the table on the page's last-updated date. This is a starting list, not a certified index.
July 4 US celebrities
Neil Simon
- Field
- Playwright
- Birth year
- 1927
- State
- New York
Eva Marie Saint
- Field
- Actor
- Birth year
- 1924
- State
- New Jersey
Geraldo Rivera
- Field
- TV journalist
- Birth year
- 1943
- State
- New York
| Celebrity | Field | Birth year | US state or territory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neil Simon | Playwright | 1927 | New York |
| Eva Marie Saint | Actor | 1924 | New Jersey |
| Geraldo Rivera | Television journalist | 1943 | New York |
| George Steinbrenner | Baseball executive | 1930 | Ohio |
| Ron Kovic | Author and activist | 1946 | Wisconsin |
| Malia Obama | Public figure | 1998 | Illinois |
| Post Malone | Musician | 1995 | New York |
| Nathaniel Hawthorne | Novelist | 1804 | Massachusetts |
| Stephen Foster | Songwriter | 1826 | Pennsylvania |
| Calvin Coolidge | US president | 1872 | Vermont |
| Rube Goldberg | Cartoonist | 1883 | California |
| George Murphy | Actor and US senator | 1902 | Connecticut |
| Ann Landers | Advice columnist | 1918 | Iowa |
| Bill Withers | Singer and songwriter | 1938 | West Virginia |
A calendar built from one online source can carry a wrong birth year for months. For the full month view, see July birthdays by day, which breaks down all of July without isolating Independence Day. That page is useful when you need to check nearby dates too.
Independence Day and the federal record
July 4 is a fixed federal holiday, not a floating observance. Title 5 U.S.C. Section 6103 lists Independence Day as a legal public holiday, and the federal holiday statute gives the exact date. The National Archives publishes the Declaration of Independence transcript, which anchors July 4 in the American record.
That federal anchor does not mean every celebrity birth date is equally fixed. A hospital record, a census entry, or a family announcement can conflict with a fan page. For broader historical context, historical figures with July birthdays separates well-documented names from those needing extra checking.
How to check a July 4 birth date
Work through these steps before a name goes into the file.
- Copy the claim exactly as your source states itfull name, month, day, year, and place of birth.
- Find a second source that did not copy the first. Two sites with the same wording count as one source.
- Compare the year and the place of birth. The month and day rarely conflict.
- If the two sources agree, mark the entry as checked and record the date you looked.
- If the two sources disagree, request the birth record from the state office for the person's birth state.
Verifying a July 4 birth date
- First pass, 1-2 dayscollect candidate names
- Source check, 2-3 weeksrequest vital record
- Conflict resolution, 1 weeklist discrepancies
- Final entry, 1 dayconfirm two sources
The CDC page on where to write for vital records explains how to request a birth certificate from the correct state office. A request can take weeks, so start early if the calendar has a print deadline.
Example: checking a conflicting birth year
A fan page lists a July 4 birth year as 1985, but a state birth index shows 1984. The wrong year stays hidden on a printed calendar for a full season because nobody checks until the next July.
When two records disagree, the state record usually wins for legal purposes. If you need a step-by-step decision process, How to verify a celebrity's birth date walks through the conflict without guessing. That guide covers what to request and how to weigh a publicist statement against a vital record.
A harder case is a missing record, where no certificate can be found and the birth year rests on interviews. Leave those entries off the calendar rather than guessing.
A short check for calendar printers
Before you send a July 4 birthday calendar to print, run each name through two checks. First, confirm the person is US-born if your calendar claims that focus. Second, match the birth year against at least one state vital record or a reliable biographical directory.
Apps that repeat fan pages can introduce the same error again. If two sources still disagree on the year, print both years or drop the entry. Celebrity birthday apps compared shows which apps cite primary sources and which simply copy another database.
Pre-print calendar checks
- Confirm person is US-born
- Match birth year to state record
- Check reliable biographical directory
- Avoid apps that repeat fan pages
- Compare apps citing primary sources
