By Cassie Lee
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Roma Downey OBE (born 6 May 1960) is an actress, producer, and author from Northern Ireland. She gained recognition for her role as Monica the angel, in the CBS television series Touched by an Angel, which ran for nine seasons. Downey portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Emmy Award-winning miniseries A Woman Named Jackie. Downey stars in and produces the television series The Baxters. She has a stage career, performing with the Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of Ireland, and appearing on and off Broadway.
Downey has starred in and served as an executive producer for CBS television movies, including Borrowed Hearts and Second Honeymoon. As President of Lightworkers Media, the faith and family division of MGM, she and her husband, Mark Burnett, produced the miniseries The Bible, in which she played Mary, mother of Jesus. In collaboration with Burnett, Downey has produced feature films, including Ben-Hur (2016), Son of God, Little Boy, Woodlawn, Resurrection, Messiah, and Country Ever After. They produced The Dovekeepers for CBS and A.D. The Bible Continues for NBC. Downey was the executive producer of the documentary Faithkeepers, which focuses on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, as well as Bump Along the Way and the short film Rough, which won the IFTA for Best Short Film in 2021. Downey produced the Amazon Prime feature film On a Wing and a Prayer. This film closed the Sarasota Film Festival, where Downey received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Most recently, she executive produced and starred as Elizabeth Baxter in the family drama series The Baxters, released in Spring 2024 on Amazon Prime Video, based on the best-selling book series by Karen Kingsbury.
Variety recognized Downey and Burnett as “trailblazers,” and listed Downey as one of its “100 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood”. The Hollywood Reporter included the couple in its “Most Influential People of 2013,” and named Downey one of the “100 Women in Entertainment Power” in 2014. She was honored on Variety’s “Women of Impact” list in 2014. On 11 August 2016, Downey received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2021, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Christian Film & Music Festival, and was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to the arts, drama, and the community in Northern Ireland.
Downey is a published author, with several books, including the New York Times best-seller Box of Butterflies (2018). Her most recent work, Be an Angel: Devotions to Inspire and Encourage Love and Light Along the Way, was released in 2023. She serves as an ambassador for Operation Smile, participating in missions to Honduras, Vietnam, and Jordan.
Downey was born and raised in Derry, Northern Ireland, in the Bogside district. Roma is named after her two grandmothers, Ro from Rose and Ma from Mary, joined to make Roma. She attended Thornhill College, a Catholic girls school. Her mother, Maureen O’Reilly Downey, a housewife with an interest in the performing arts, died from a heart attack at age 48 when Downey was ten years old. Her father, Patrick Downey, was a mortgage broker. Her father died when Downey was 20.
Question of the Day
The cigarette company’s logo — or mascot — was a bellboy. In fact, an actor played the role for years, both in TV and radio commercials (his famous line was “Call for Philip Morris!”) and promotional appearances. The signs appeared in America in the 1930s and 40s in factories, stores, and other workplaces as both a reminder to put safety first and an encouragement to buy Philip Morris cigarettes.
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In 1863, Confederate forces commanded by Gen. Robert E. Lee routed Union troops under Gen. Joseph Hooker at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia.
In 1915, Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox hit his first MLB homer in a game against the New York Yankees.
In 1935, in the depths of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing the Works Progress Administration to give help to the unemployed. Later known as the Work Projects Administration, the agency was dissolved in 1943 after building thousands of new schools, armories, stadiums, parks, and other recreational facilities, and improving existing sites such as the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and the Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, S.C.
In 1940, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. A rare, first-edition of the novel fetched $48,000 in 2007 at an auction.
In 1941, Josef Stalin became official leader of the Soviet government.
In 1954, 25-year-old British medical student Roger Bannister cracked track and field’s most famous barrier, the 4-minute mile, during a meet at Oxford, England. His time: 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.
In 1994, the Channel Tunnel, a railway under the English Channel connecting Britain and France, officially opened.
In 2001, John Paul II became the first pope entering a mosue — the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria.
In 2009, Dave Bing, Hall of Fame star for the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, was elected Detroit, Michigan Mayor, succeeding the ousted Kwame Kilpatrick.
In 2024, Columbia University awarded the Pulitzer Prizes, with journalism awards going to ProPublica, The New York Times, the Lookout Santa Cruz in California and The Washington Post.
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS TODAY
musician Bob Seger in 1945 (age 80)
TV personality Tom Bergeron in 1955 (age 70)
musician John Flansburgh (They Might Be Giants) in 1960 (age 65)
actor Roma Downey in 1960 (age 65)
actor George Clooney in 1961 (age 64)
musician Tony Scalzo (Fastball) in 1964 (age 61)
musician Mark Bryan (Hootie & the Blowfish) in 1967 (age 57)
musician Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters) in 1971 (age 54)
Hockey Hall of Fame member Martin Brodeur in 1972 (age 53)
actor Gabourey Sidibe in 1983 (age 42)
actor Adrianne Palicki in 1983 (age 42)
comedian/actor Sasheer Zamata in 1986 (age 39)
musician Meek Mill in 1987 (age 38)
actor Naomi Scott in 1993 (age 32)
actor Noah Galvin in 1994 (age 31)
actor Emily Alyn Lind in 2002 (age 23)
actor Sadie Sandler in 2006 (age 19) Britain’s Prince Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor in 2019 (age 6).
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