List of Famous people born on January 1st

Shelby Steele is an African-American conservative author, columnist, documentary film maker, and a Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He specializes in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action.

Kinue Hitomi was a Japanese track and field athlete. She was the world record holder in several events in the 1920s – 1930s and was the first Japanese woman to win an Olympic medal. She was also the first woman to represent Japan at the Olympics.

Sonja Jeannine is a retired Austrian stage and film actress.

Vikram K. Kumar is an Indian film director, and screenwriter known for his works in Telugu cinema, and Tamil cinema. In 1998, he directed his breakthrough non-feature film, Silent Scream, for which he won the National Film Award For Best Instructional Film. He made his directorial debut in Telugu cinema with Ishtam, and then directed the Tamil movie13B.

Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of seven novels, including his 1999 debut work, The Intuitionist, and The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020 for The Nickel Boys. He has also published two books of non-fiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.

Alessandro Mapelli-Mozzi is a British-Italian alpine skier. He competed in three events at the 1972 Winter Olympics. He holds both British and Italian citizenship. He is the father-in-law of Princess Beatrice. In 2012, he was reported as residing in La Garde-Freinet, France. He is a member of an Italian noble family, whose family seat is the Villa Mapelli Mozzi. His title of count is not officially recognised in either Italy or the UK; he uses the title "as a courtesy".

Angela Kane is a German diplomat and was formerly the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs and Under-Secretary-General for Management in the United Nations.

Jerry Yan, born Liao Yangzhen, is a Taiwanese actor, model and singer. He is well known for his lead role as Dao Ming Si in the Taiwanese dramas Meteor Garden and Meteor Garden II, an adaptation of a Japanese shōjō manga. He is also a former member of the boy band group F4.

Morris Lamont Chestnut is an American actor. He first came to prominence for his role as Ricky in the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood. He has appeared in feature films and on television series, including the starring role of FBI Agent Will Keaton in the NBC TV series The Enemy Within.

Eleuterio Sánchez Rodríguez, known as El Lute, was at one time listed as Spain's "Most Wanted" criminal and later became a published writer. He was a legendary Spanish outlaw who escaped several times from prison after being convicted of murder and sentenced at age 23 to 30 years. While in prison, he learned to read, earned a law degree, and became a writer, continuing to protest his innocence of the charges. He was pardoned and released on June 20, 1981, at the age of 39.