The post Cher, Henry Winkler and 8 More Stars Who Turn 80 in 2026 first appeared on Crafting Your Home.
The oldest Baby Boomers are reaching 80 in 2026, and the names attached to that milestone include some of the most recognizable figures in American music, television, film and sports.
The Associated Press reported that roughly 76 million Americans were born during the 1946-to-1964 Baby Boom, a demographic surge that helped reshape American consumer culture and entertainment. The generation is now entering its eighth decade as the U.S. grows older.
Here are 10 major entertainment and sports figures born in 1946, including two who died after reaching 80 this year.
Cher
Cher turned 80 on May 20, 2026, and the milestone carries unusual weight because her career has crossed several eras that usually produce entirely different kinds of stars.
Cher is the only woman to have achieved No. 1 hits across seven consecutive decades. Her career moved from folk-pop with Sonny Bono to solo pop, rock, disco and electropop, with her 1998 hit Believe becoming a landmark in the mainstream use of Auto-Tune.
Her longevity also has a visual dimension. The Hall of Fame specifically highlights the revealing and often outrageous Bob Mackie designs associated with her television appearances, making her one of those performers whose image became inseparable from the performance itself.
At 80, Cher belongs to a remarkably small group of artists who have remained culturally legible across multiple generations of American audiences.
Related: 8 Music Legends Who Have Aged With Serious Star Power
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton was born January 19, 1946, in a one-room cabin in Tennessee and grew up as the fourth of 12 children in a poor musical family. Her official biography traces the foundations of her career from local radio performances to her move to Nashville and eventual rise as a songwriter and recording star.
Parton reached 80 on January 19, 2026. She later died in August at age 80, turning what could have been a straightforward milestone birthday into part of the closing chapter of a seven-decade career. Her death prompted tributes across the United States, including a nationally recognized Dolly Parton Day observed on September 25.
Her career was unusually broad even by celebrity standards. Music remained the foundation, but acting, business ventures, philanthropy and literacy work made her presence familiar far beyond country radio.
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Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli turned 80 on March 12, 2026, decades after stepping into show business under the unavoidable shadow of her parents, Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli.
PBS American Masters traces her birth in Los Angeles in 1946 and shows how she performed publicly as a child before establishing herself professionally. She made her Off-Broadway debut in Best Foot Forward in 1963 and soon won major recognition on Broadway.
The Academy Awards record adds another defining accomplishment of her career: Minnelli won the 1972 Best Actress Oscar for Cabaret. The same film collected eight Oscars from 10 nominations, giving Minnelli one of the most enduring screen roles of her generation.
Her 80th birthday therefore sits at the intersection of Hollywood inheritance and individual achievement. Being Judy Garland’s daughter may have opened the door, but Cabaret made her impossible to reduce to somebody else’s legacy.
Candice Bergen
Candice Bergen turned 80 on May 9, 2026, after a career that stretched from fashion modeling into major film roles and landmark television.
Bergen began modeling as a teenager before making her film debut in The Group in 1966. She later became synonymous with Murphy Brown, a series that ran for 10 seasons and earned her five Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
The show itself became a substantial television institution. Television Academy records list 62 Emmy nominations and 18 wins for Murphy Brown, and Bergen earned five of those wins.
For American viewers who watched network television during the late 1980s and 1990s, Bergen’s birthday is tied to an era when one fictional television reporter could become part of a much larger national conversation.
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone reached 80 on July 6, 2026, roughly half a century after Rocky turned an obscure Hollywood struggle into one of the most durable movie franchises in American popular culture.
The Academy’s official awards database shows Stallone received both a Best Actor nomination and a Best Original Screenplay nomination for Rocky at the 49th Academy Awards. The film itself received nine nominations and won three Oscars, including Best Picture.
Rocky’s significance is easy to underestimate because the character became such a familiar cultural reference. Stallone did something relatively unusual for a major movie star: he was recognized both for the lead performance and for writing the screenplay that created the character.
His 80th year also comes as the franchise receives renewed attention. Stallone is reflecting on Rocky 50 years after the film’s release while continuing to work in television and film.
Reggie Jackson
Reggie Jackson turned 80 in 2026 after a 21-season Major League Baseball career that produced 563 home runs, 1,702 RBIs and 14 All-Star selections.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame records Jackson’s five World Series championships and his 1993 induction. His postseason reputation became so closely tied to his October performance that the nickname Mr. October followed him throughout his career.
One statistic still shows how unusual his World Series record was: Jackson hit 10 home runs with 24 RBIs in 27 World Series games, according to the Hall of Fame. His three-homer performance in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series remains one of baseball’s most replayed championship moments.
For an American sports audience, Jackson’s 80th birthday belongs to a different kind of cultural archive than Hollywood’s. His legacy is preserved in scorebooks, championship banners and the statistical record.
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones turns 80 on September 15, 2026, adding another major acting career to the list.
Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, and grew up with deep connections to the state’s ranching and working-class traditions. He later graduated cum laude from Harvard, where he played football and roomed with Al Gore.
His screen career eventually moved between serious drama, historical films and blockbuster entertainment. He earned the Academy Award for Supporting Actor for The Fugitive, a role that arrived after decades of work rather than overnight celebrity.
That long route matters because Jones became famous without fitting the clean profile of a conventional movie idol. His appeal often depended on authority, restraint and the ability to make a few seconds of screen time feel heavier than a page of dialogue.
Sally Field
Sally Field was born in Pasadena in 1946 and will turn 80 on November 6, 2026.
She began her television career with Gidget in 1964 before starring in The Flying Nun. Her career eventually moved into more demanding dramatic work, including Sybil and ER, both of which earned her Emmy recognition. She also received an Emmy for Brothers & Sisters.
Her relationship with television history is unusually broad because she succeeded in both lightweight sitcom territory and serious dramatic roles. The Television Academy records three Primetime Emmy wins for performances in Sybil, ER and Brothers & Sisters, showing how far her career moved from its early television image.
Field therefore reaches 80 with a career that spans more than six decades of changing American television habits.
Susan Sarandon’s
Susan Sarandon turns 80 on October 4, 2026, after building a film career that moved comfortably between mainstream releases, independent projects and prestige dramas.
The New Jersey Hall of Fame records that Sarandon was born in New York City in 1946 and grew up in Raritan Township, New Jersey. She began performing in school before studying drama at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
Her breakthrough into major recognition took time. She made her film debut in Joe in 1970, appeared in The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975 and eventually won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Dead Man Walking in 1996.
That career arc is part of why the 80th birthday feels significant. Sarandon didn’t emerge from a single blockbuster era and disappear with it; she built recognition over decades of work.
Tim Curry
Tim Curry was born April 19, 1946, in England and built a career across stage, film, television, and music.
His official biography records his early work in the London production of Hair before he was invited to audition for Richard O’Brien’s experimental musical The Rocky Horror Show in 1973. That role eventually became Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a performance that secured Curry’s place in cult film history.
Curry turned 80 in April 2026. He died in August at age 80, closing a career that also included roles in Clue, The Hunt for Red October, Home Alone 2 and Spamalot.
His place in this group is a useful reminder that reaching 80 in 2026 does not produce one uniform celebrity story. For some, it marks continued work. For others, it marks a career being reassessed after death.
Henry Winkler
Emerson College Archives records Winkler’s birth on October 30, 1945, in Manhattan. He therefore turned 80 on October 30, 2025, and will turn 81 on October 30, 2026.
The mistake is easy to make because Winkler is 80 for most of 2026, and current coverage still describes him as an 80-year-old actor.
For a birthday feature, however, the distinction matters. Reserve a headline promising people who turn 80 in 2026 for those born in 1946.
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