There are a lot of famous people who were born on March 5, but I can’t resist choosing Jake Lloyd as today’s Celebrity Birthday of the Day, simply because I feel like the poor guy has gotten a largely undeserved bad rap – but we’ll get to why in a second. Lloyd was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, and did most of his acting before he was even a teenager, appearing in such films as Jingle All the Way, Unhook the Stars, the made-for-TV movie Apollo 11, and, of course, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. His casting in The Phantom Menace earned Lloyd worldwide fame, but also resulted in a lot of bullying towards him because many pointed to him as one of the things that “ruined Star Wars”. But I don’t think he’s a bad guy at all. Sure, his acting in The Phantom Menace wasn’t great, but there were much, much bigger problems with that film. Still, I suspect Lloyd did pretty well for himself as a result of The Phantom Menace, and voiced five whole video games as young Anakin Skywalker. He has also appeared on the TV series ER and The Pretender, and graduated from Columbia College Chicago as a film and video major. Jake Lloyd turns 23 today.
