Portrait of Jean Shepherd

Birthday profile

Jean Shepherd

Jean Shepherd, American radio host, actor, and screenwriter (died 1999)

Born
July 26, 1921
Died
October 16, 1999
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1921

About Jean Shepherd

Jean Parker Shepherd Jr. was an American storyteller, humorist, radio and TV personality, writer, and actor. With a career that spanned decades, Shepherd is known for the film A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated and co-scripted on the basis of his own semi-autobiographical stories. Shepherd wrote a series of humorous short stories about growing up in northwest Indiana and its steel towns, many of which were first told by him on his programs and then published in Playboy. Shepherd was reportedly brought to New York City by NBC executives to prepare for the position, but they were contractually bound to first offer it to Jack Paar. The most famous stunt was a hoax he created about a nonexistent book, I, Libertine, by a fake author "Frederick R.

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

The world when Jean Shepherd was born

Jean Shepherd was born in 1921. 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 1921

  • #1 song"My Man" – Fanny Brice
  • Top movieThe Kid (Charlie Chaplin)
  • Best-selling bookMain Street – Sinclair Lewis

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJack Dempsey vs Georges Carpentier — first million-dollar gate
  • Top headlineWarren G. Harding inaugurated as 29th President
  • Technology milestoneAlbert Einstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physics
  • Defining fadOuija boards
  • Notable inventionLie detector (polygraph)
  • World population1.88 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWarren G. Harding
  • Sports championNew York Giants (World Series)
  • U.S. population108.5M

1921 versus 2026

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

Measure19212026
Gas$0.26$3.45/gal
Average home$5,500$435,000
Average income$3,010$67,500
Movie ticket$0.15$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population108.5M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, Wikidata. 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.