Born March 25: Elton John

250 million albums sold, more than 50 hits in the Top 40, 60 performances at Madison Square Garden (a world record), five Grammys, one Oscar, one CBE, and four decades of work totaling nearly 500 songs: Statistics can't begin to convey the phenomenon that is Elton John. When he was eleven, and still named Reginald Dwight, he heard a four-page piece by Handel at the Royal Academy of Music and promptly sat down at the piano and played it like a "gramophone record." In 1970, when he was twenty-three, he recorded his eponymous second album, which included the worldwide smash Your Song written in twenty minutes. By thirty-three he had released nineteen albums. In the 80s he slowed his output to exactly one album annually. In the 90s he reinvented himself yet again and, with Tim Rice, wrote the songs for The Lion King, propelling it to become the highest grossing 2-D animated film of all time and winning an Oscar and a Grammy for Can You Feel the Love Tonight? 

During this time the openly gay icon was constantly promoting research and education about aids, lobbying for the Ryan White Act, and getting in the face of people who wanted to close their eyes to the disease. He founded the Elton John Aids Foundation when Bush I was still in the White House. In March 1997, he turned fifty and celebrated with five hundred people at a costume party where he appeared as Louis XIV. Four months later his friend Gianni Versace was murdered and Elton sat in the front row of the memorial service with his longtime partner David Furnish and Princess Diana. Six weeks later, she was dead and, in her honor, he released his revised Candle in the Wind 1997, the fastest and bestselling song of all time with 33 million sold copies worldwide. All royalties, estimated to be 55 million pounds, went to the Diana Memorial Fund, and Elton has kept his promise never to play the song again. Further indicating that he must be a loyal and generous friend: He is godfather to ten children including Sean Lennon and Brooklyn Beckham. His and David's household expenses are $2 million a month and, when needed, he can throw a diva tantrum, but he's never lost his sense of humor. In successfully suing the tabloid The Sun for libel he said, "You can call me a fat, balding, talentless old queen who can't sing — but you can't tell lies about me."

No strangers to gay drama, Elton and David are producers of the queer play Next Fall which just opened on Broadway to a stellar NYT review. David was an executive producer of the ten Grammy winning Billy Eliot, for which Elton wrote the music. They began dating in 1993. They consider themselves husbands having been "married" in a civil partnership on December 21, 2005, the first day it was legal in England.

Previously bulimic, addicted to alcohol and drugs, and a pacemaker wearer, the 63 year old John maintains a relentless global touring schedule: Tonight and tomorrow South Africa, the next night Dubai, next month Mexico and the midwest, May and June western Europe, eastern Europe, Israel, Morocco, and one night at Carnegie Hall (May 13) dueting with Lady GaGa in a Rainforest Foundation benefit concert organized by Sting and Trudie. Tickets are $600 to $2,500.