10 Sharp Women Born During the Month of January  

Named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions, January gives way to a new start as the year begins. It is a time to set goals, resolutions, and to plan ahead. This month we look at ambitious women that had a strong motivation to succeed and lead their lives with passion.

Diane Keaton (born January 5, 1946)
Holding many career titles (aside from her famous acting, directing, producing, and screenwriting) Keaton is also lesser known for being an author, photographer (following in her mother’s footsteps), and real estate developer (a career path her father took). After a brief stint of studying acting at college in California, Keaton traveled east to fulfill her entertainment dreams in New York City. Her breakout performances on Broadway in Hair and Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam gave way to her film debut. In 1972 she was cast in The Godfather which won an Oscar award for Best Picture. One of her most notable roles was starring in Annie Hall opposite Woody Allen. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was named on Premiere magazine’s list of “100 Greatest Performances of All Time.” Her film success throughout the last four decades has made her an accomplished, well-known dramatic and comedic actress. Most recently she was cast alongside Ellen DeGeneres in the 2016 animation release of Finding Dory.

Words of Wisdom: “Memories are simply moments that refuse to be ordinary”

 
Katie Couric (born January 7, 1957)
Couric is a well known American journalist that was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2004. Following in her father’s footsteps (he had been a news editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the United Press), Couric took interest in reporting at an early age. She interned at a radio station during high school before enrolling at the University of Virginia where she served on the newspaper staff for The Cavalier Daily. Couric spent her career beginnings at the ABC News Bureau and CNN as an assignment editor. Nearly ten years after graduating college she began substituting as a news anchor for Today until being selected to be their national political correspondent and co-anchor. After working for NBC News for fifteen years, Couric left to anchor the CBS Evening News in 2006 – a position that made her the first solo female anchor of the “big three” weekday nightly news broadcasts. After leaving evening news in 2011 she worked on a variety of projects including being a 60 Minutes correspondent, a special correspondent for ABC News, and her own daytime talk show, Katie. For the last year Couric has been working at Yahoo! News as the Global News Anchor. She is author of the book The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives, a documentary film producer, and is a strong cancer advocate.

Words of Wisdom: “All those people you pass as you climb the ladder of success could be the same ones who will catch you if you fall.”

Kate Middleton (born January 9, 1982)
Middleton was born to a non royal, non aristocratic family in England as the eldest of three. Her mother started a mail-order party supply company in 1987, a business that launched the family into multi-millionaire status. Middleton attended prestigious boarding schools leading her to become the first in her family to attend college. She was enrolled at the University of St. Andrews in 2001 where her future fate as Duchess of Cambridge would unwind. She met Prince William of Wales during their first year of college and a friendship blossomed. Their friendship grew into a romance over the years of attending college together and they eventually married in 2011. Through her journey into royalty, Middleton has had a large public image of grace and style. She is continuously named on “best dressed” lists with her major popularity being named the “Kate Middleton effect.”

Words of Wisdom: “I really hope I can make a difference, even in the smallest way.”

Julia Louis-Dreyfus (born January 13, 1961)
In 1851 the Louis Dreyfus Group was founded as a French global conglomerate company by Louis-Dreyfus’s great-great grandfather. The company is still run by her family today. Although she spent her childhood traveling to numerous states and countries with her family, Louis-Dreyfus graduated from high school in Bethesda, Maryland. She briefly studied theater at Northwestern University but dropped out and began working with The Second City, a well known improvisational theater group in Chicago. The Second City has an impressive alumni list with names such as Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler. At age 21, Louis-Dreyfus joined the cast of Saturday Night Live  and became “the youngest female cast member in the history of the program at that time.” During her time on Saturday Night Live she worked with writer Larry David, co-writer of Seinfeld. Louis-Dreyfus was cast as Elaine Benes on Seinfeld in 1990, a character that launched her to fame. She appeared in all but three episodes in the span of nine seasons. She received a Golden Globe Award, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, five American Comedy Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award over the course of the show. After Seinfeld ended in 1998, Louis-Dreyfus appeared in a variety of films, animated movies, and other television shows before her comeback role in the sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine. Most recently she has been starring in the HBO satirical comedy series Veep.

Words of Wisdom: “The best way to make a difference in the world is to start by making a difference in your own life.”

Michelle Obama (born January 17, 1964)
Growing up in Chicago, Illinois, Obama graduated high school as salutatorian. She followed her older brother to Princeton University where she majored in sociology with a minor in African American studies. She then went on to receive a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. Following her First Lady predecessors (Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush), she is the third First Lady with a postgraduate degree. Before marrying the now 44^th President of the United States, Obama was an associate at Sidley Austin law firm specializing in marketing and intellectual property. She also worked in the Chicago city government and a non-profit organization. In 1996, she became the Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago and became the Vice President for Community and External Affairs for the University of Chicago Hospitals in 2002. After becoming the First Lady, Obama has become a fashion trendsetter and listed in popular culture as influential and inspiring.

Words of Wisdom: “There is no magic to achievement. It’s really about hard work, choices, and persistence.”

Dolly Parton (born January 19, 1946)
Now recognized as the most honored female country performer of all time, Parton started her life as the fourth of twelve children in a very poor family. She was raised is the mountains of Tennessee performing in church as child. She began appearing on local radio and television programs and recorded her first single at thirteen. Moving to Nashville after high school with her songwriting skills, Parton began to record more material and gain status performing on Porter Wagoner’s weekly TV program. In the 1970’s Parton branched out to film and television. Her first feature film was opposite Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5 which she received Golden Globe nominations (and recorded the 1980 hit song for the film of the same name). Along with her success in entertainment and abundant awards she’s received, Parton also has business ventures, most notably with the Dollywood theme park. Despite her lifelong career in the spotlight she has only been married once to Carl Thomas Dean since the age of twenty. They will celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary this year on May 30^th. Though the two don’t have children of their own they helped raise several of Parton’s younger siblings. She is also the god-mother of pop star, Miley Cyrus.

Words of Wisdom: “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.”

Alicia Keys (born January 25, 1981)
As a child Keys was encouraged into the performing arts by her mother, a part-time actress in New York City. She had a short appearance in The Cosby Show when she was four, played classical piano at seven, and was a song writer at fourteen. She graduated high school at sixteen as valedictorian and attended Columbia University for a month before dropping out to focus on music. Her first album Songs in A Minor won five Grammy Awards in 2002. Following Lauryn Hill, Keys is only the second female solo artist to win five Grammy Awards in one night. She became one of the top R&B artists of the 2000s selling over 35 million albums internationally. Along with her successful music career she has shown her acting skills in film and television, and has authored a series of children’s books. Most recently Keys can be seen in the second season of Empire and her sixth studio album will be released later this year.

Words of Wisdom: “I’ve erased the word ‘fear’ from my vocabulary, and I think when you erase fear, you can’t fail.”

Ellen DeGeneres (born January 26, 1958)
DeGeneres was born and raised throughout Louisiana and Texas, eventually attending the University of New Orleans. Her comedic career began in the 1980’s when she was in her early twenties. An appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was a great endorsement for the young, female comic and began her journey into the spotlight. Along with her stand-up comedy career in full swing, DeGeneres starred in films and television shows including Ellen. Her hit television talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, has been on air since 2003 with steady ratings and award winnings. In 1997, DeGeneres made a public announcement on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she was a lesbian stunting her career at the time. She has since become a strong public figure for equal rights and humanitarianism. She is an author, producer, and owns her own record label, Eleveneleven.   

Words of Wisdom: “The key to happiness is being happy by yourself and for yourself.”

Oprah Winfrey (born January 29, 1954)
Winfrey was born into rural Mississippi poverty to an unwed teen mother and raised with her maternal grandmother until age 6. Despite her rough childhood of neglect and abuse, Winfrey kept education a main priority. She was sent to live with her father in Tennessee to attend high school where his strict discipline helped shape her. She studied communications on a full scholarship at Tennessee State University and worked at radio and news stations. After success in Nashville, Winfrey moved to Chicago to host a morning talk show that had terrible ratings. The show became the highest ranked in the city, was expanded to an hour long, and renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986 (the series ran until 2011). During her time in the spotlight, Winfrey co-founded the television networks Oxygen and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network as well as Harpo Productions. Winfrey has acted in films, leant her voice to animated movies, co-authored books, and has a memoir coming out in 2017. She reached millionaire status at thirty-two and is the richest African American of the 20^th century. She is the sole influence of the term “Oprahfication” meaning public confession as a form of therapy and “The Oprah Effect” in reference to her extreme significance in public opinion. She is the richest self-made woman in America, has been called “arguably the world’s most powerful woman” by CNN, Time, and The American Spectator, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2013.

Words of Wisdom: “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always.”

Portia de Rossi (born January 31, 1973)
Born and raised in Australia as Amanda Lee Rogers, de Rossi reinvented herself at age fifteen naming herself after a William Shakespeare character. Her current name is Portia Lee James DeGeneres, though she is known professionally as Portia de Rossi. Though she modeled in her childhood, de Rossi went to the University of Melbourne to study law which she deferred to enter show business. After playing a role in an Australian film, Sirens, her acting career began to flourish. She moved to Los Angeles in the mid 1990’s and was cast in the hit law show Ally McBeal.  She can most recently be seen in Arrested Development and Scandal. She married Ellen DeGeneres at a small ceremony in 2008 after California overturned the ban on same-sex marriage. 

Words of Wisdom: “True nobility isn’t about being better than anyone else; it’s about being better than you used to be.”


Take the inspiration of these accomplished women to write down your goals, live your passions, and make this year the best one yet!