Portrait of Woody Harrelson

Birthday profile

Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson, American actor and activist

Born
July 23, 1961
Age in 2026
65
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1961

About Woody Harrelson

Woodrow Tracy Harrelson (born July 23, 1961) is an American actor. He first became known for his role as charmingly naive bartender Woody Boyd on the NBC sitcom Cheers (1985–1993), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series from five nominations. Harrelson has received three Academy Award nominations: Best Actor for The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), and Best Supporting Actor for The Messenger (2009) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). Other notable films include White Men Can't Jump (1992), Natural Born Killers (1994), The Thin Red Line (1998), No Country for Old Men (2007), Seven Pounds (2008), Zombieland (2009), 2012 (2009), Seven Psychopaths (2012), The Edge of Seventeen (2016), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), Triangle of Sadness (2022), and Suncoast (2024). He also played Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015), Chase McKinney / Merritt McKinney in the Now You See Me film series (2013–), and Tobias Beckett in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). Harrelson received further Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his portrayal of Steve Schmidt in the HBO film Game Change (2012) and detective Marty Hart in the HBO crime anthology series True Detective (2014). He also portrayed E. Howard Hunt in the HBO political limited series White House Plumbers (2023). He first became known for his role as bartender Woody Boyd on the NBC sitcom Cheers (1985–1993), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series from five nominations. Harrelson is widely known for his work on the NBC sitcom Cheers.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Woody Harrelson was born

Woody Harrelson was born in 1961. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1961

  • #1 song"Tossin' and Turnin'" – Bobby Lewis
  • Top movieWest Side Story
  • Top TV showGunsmoke
  • Best-selling bookCatch-22 – Joseph Heller

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentRoger Maris hits 61 home runs, breaking Babe Ruth's record
  • Top headlineYuri Gagarin becomes the first person in space
  • Technology milestoneYuri Gagarin becomes first human in space
  • Defining fadSurfing culture
  • Notable inventionValium
  • World population3.08 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderJohn F. Kennedy
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • Also wonBoston Celtics (NBA)
  • U.S. population183.7M

1961 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Woody Harrelson's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19612026
Gas$0.31$3.45/gal
Average home$12,500$435,000
Average income$7,600$67,500
Minimum wage$1.15$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.69$11.95
Postage stamp$0.04$0.73
Population183.7M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.