Portly chef Emeril Lagasse turns 50 today. Indie filmmaker Todd Solondz is turning 50 today, too. Fellow director Mira Nair is 52. Artist Brice Marden is turning 71. The least appreciated Jackson brother, Tito, turns 56 today. Director Penny Marshall is turning 67. Former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca is 85. Paige Davis, the host of Trading Spaces, is turning 40. R&B singer Ginuwine is 34. Singer Keyshia Cole is turning 28. Billionaire media mogul Haim Saban is 65. Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, is 50. And singer Eric Benet, who may be best known as the idiot who cheated on Halle Berry, is 43 today.

The New York iteration of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame celebrated its opening last night with a party in the new SoHo space. Attendees like Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner and Theodora Richards (left) mingled with Taylor Momsen, Molly Sims, Matthew Modine, Ciara, David Foote, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Liz Lange, and Ryan Locke, listened to performances by Debbie Harry and Dave Mason, and inked their names on a plywood wall. [Paper, Wireimage, PMc, GoaG]

Filmmaker Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Storytelling, etc.) turns 49 today. He shares his birthday with fellow director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) who is 51. Artist Brice Marden is 70. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, is 49. TV chef Emeril Lagasse is 49, too. Former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca is 84. Singer Eric Benet, the man better known as the guy who cheated on Halle Berry, is 42. R&B singer Ginuwine is 33. Director Penny Marshall is 66. Last but not least, Michael Jackson's brother, Tito, is 55 today.

New York City's tourism marketing agency, NYC & Company, announced today that it plans to open a tourism office in Mumbai. An ad campaign directed at Indian tourists will soon feature hotel developer Sant Singh Chatwal, director Mira Nair, and cookbook author/TV hostess Padma Lakshmi. Because clearly there's no better way to endear the city to a billion Indians than to feature a man accused in his native country of bank fraud and a woman who dumped her Indian husband for an elderly, white billionaire. [City Room]

Last November, the currently off-the-radar Hilary Swank appeared on Oprah and proved just how much holier she is than drug-addled Swank’d victim Chad Lowe by cutting off nine inches of her hair for cancer research. Claiming she’d “been growing her locks long so she could donate them to a cancer sufferer, ‘knowing that it would go to a woman in need,’” Swank’s return to the short hair style that won her an Oscar was clearly a charitable and warm-hearted gesture. But after seeing these photos of Swank taken over the weekend, in which the Oprah-styled chin-grazing look has been replaced by a very Brandon Teena-like cropped cut, we realized the sacrificial gesture will also benefit another worthy cause: the Hilary Swank Oscar-Baiting Campaign! How Swank is saving both cancer victims and her career, plus a closer look at her return to he-she hair, after the jump.

Mira Nair is the Oscar-nominated director of movies like Salaam Bombay!, Vanity Fair, and Monsoon Wedding.