1939 births

Steven Douglas Paxton (January 21, 1939 – February 20, 2024) was an American experimental dancer and choreographer. His early background was in gymnastics while his later training included three years with Merce Cunningham and a year with José Limón. As a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, he performed works by Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown. He was a founding member of the experimental group Grand Union and in 1972 named and began to develop the dance form known as Contact Improvisation, a form of dance that utilizes the physical laws of friction, momentum, gravity, and inertia to explore the relationship between dancers.
Paxton believed that even an untrained dancer could contribute to the dance form, and so began his great interest in pedestrian movement. After working with Cunningham, he attempted to remain reclusive, except when performing, teaching, and choreographing internationally.

Curtis Edwin Lee (October 28, 1939 – January 8, 2015) was an American singer and songwriter. He is known for his early 1960s hits "Pretty Little Angel Eyes" (US #7) and "Under the Moon of Love" (US #46), both of which were produced by Phil Spector.

Gerald R. Eaves (born May 17, 1939, in Miami, Arizona) is a former California State Assemblyman who served from 1984 until 1992. He served on the Rialto City Council from 1977 until 1980 and as Mayor of Rialto from 1980 until 1984. After leaving the Assembly, he served on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors from 1992 until 2000.

Alain Jacquet (22 February 1939 – 4 September 2008) was a French artist representative of the Nouvelle Figuration movement that was linked to the American Pop Art movement.
Jacquet lived in New York and Paris and taught at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. He was married (1992) to Sophie Matisse, great-granddaughter of the French Fauvist artist Henri Matisse. They had one daughter, Gaïa Jacquet-Matisse. Jacquet's art is displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Centre Pompidou, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, in Paris. Jacquet died of esophageal cancer in Manhattan.

Patrice Laffont (born 21 August 1939 in Marseille) is a French television presenter, actor and entertainer.

Alain Senderens (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ sɑ̃dʁɛ̃s], 2 December 1939 – 25 June 2017) was a leading French chef and practitioner of Nouvelle Cuisine. Le Figaro credited him as the inventor of food and wine pairings.

Felipe Enrique "Henry" Lapuz Gozon (born December 8, 1939), is a Filipino lawyer, business executive, and the current chairman and adviser of the board of GMA Network Inc., one of the largest media conglomerate in the Philippines.
A lawyer by profession, the Yale-educated Gozon is seen as the network executive who has successfully turned-around GMA from its state as one of the leading television networks in the Philippines to its current stature, at some point toppling the long-dominant ABS-CBN in 1997 and 2004 from their nationwide stronghold until today in the Mega Manila ratings. Under his watch, the network has also experienced stability in terms of revenues, mostly from advertising and other revenue sources.On December 9, 2023 during his 84th Birthday Celebration, Gozon announced his retirement as the CEO of GMA Network effective on December 31, 2023 and was approved by the Board of Directors, and announced that GMA President & COO Gilberto R. Duavit, Jr. will take over as the new CEO of the network starting on January 1, 2024. However, Gozon retained his Chairmanship of the Board of Directors and as the Adviser of the company.

Michel Colombier (23 May 1939 – 14 November 2004) was a French composer, arranger, and conductor.

Jean-Claude Chermann is a French virologist who managed the research team which, by 1983, under the administrative supervision of Luc Montagnier, had discovered the virus associated with AIDS. Whereas second author of this initial publication and obviously involved as team manager in this discovery, he had been omitted from the Nobel Prize attributed to its colleagues. In 2008, as chairman of the support committee for the attribution of the Nobel Prize in medicine to Jean-Claude Chermann, Bernard Le Grelle, a political consultant, campaigned for the official recognition of this oversight with the Nobel committee by bringing together more than 700 doctors, professors and scientists (including professor Robert Gallo).
The virus was named lymphadenopathy-associated virus, or LAV. A year later, a team led by Robert Gallo of the United States confirmed the discovery of the virus, but renamed it human T-lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV-III).

Pierre Dauzier (31 January 1939 in Périgueux – 28 September 2007 in Paris) was a French businessman.Dauzier was the president of Havas for 12 years, and left the company in 1998. He joined the company in 1963, when he was 24 years old.