Designer Oscar de la Renta turns 77 today. Rufus Wainwright is 36. Actor Willem Dafoe is turning 54. John Leguizamo and David Spade are both turning 45. Publishing industry heavyweight Ann Godoff is 60. Actor Danny Glover is turning 63. John Wren, the president and CEO of the ad agency Omnicom, is turning 57. Former senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole is turning 86. George Clinton is 68. The Eagles' Don Henley is 62. Film director Paul Schrader is 63. Former football player (and now ESPN personality) Keyshawn Johnson is 37. And Disney star Selena Gomez celebrates her 17th birthday today.

♦ ABC has ordered up new episodes of Life on Mars, but it has no plans to shoot new ones of Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, or Eli Stone. [THR]
♦ Penguin's Ann Godoff will be publishing pollster Nate Silver's two books as part of the deal he signed for $700,000. [NYO]
♦ Michael Phelps has signed on as a pitchman for Subway. [AdAge]
♦ Ted Turner's autobiography will make its debut on the New York Times bestseller list this week at No. 8. Also: Artie Lang, Howard Stern's sidekick, has landed a six-figure book deal. [NYP]

Bankers' losses are going to be certain authors' gains: Book proposals about the Wall Street debacle have already landed on publishers' desks, reports Leon Neyfakh in the Observer. Times business columnist Joe Nocera (right) and former Fortune reporter Bethany McLean (left) are asking for offers in excess of $1 million for their "definitive chronicle" of the financial crisis, and Newsweek's Daniel Gross is pitching a "quickie electronic book" with a similar premise. Meanwhile, Publishers Marketplace reports that Melanie Jackson has sold Roger Lowenstein's Six Days That Shook the World, "a look at last week on Wall Street and in Washington, illuminating the origins of the crisis," to Ann Godoff at Penguin.

You can bet the always-elegant Oscar de la Renta will be especially well-dressed today: He turns 76. Other people celebrating: Actor Willem Dafoe is 53. Comedian John Leguizamo is turning 44, as is David Spade. Crooner Rufus Wainwright is 35. Literary queen Ann Godoff is 59. So is union leader Mike Fishman. Advertising honcho John Wren turns 56. And Danny Glover is 62.

Peter Olson-widely reported to be stepping down from Random House after a debilitating bout of pneumonia-doesn't get much sympathy in the publishing industry. Here's how the publishing giant's chief executive will be remembered: as a money-minded philistine who's fallen victim to the same financial accountability he tried to instill at Bertelsmann's US book producing factory. But there is one endearing angle to Olson's comeuppance: his departure may have been dictated less by Bertelsmann's Teutonic board members than Olson's formidable wife, Candice.

A former publisher at Random House, Godoff runs the Penguin Press imprint at Penguin.

Little orphan Ann has found a new home: Penguin Putnam. "We hired her for her taste, her editorial acumen and her brilliant work," says Susan Petersen Kennedy, president of Penguin Group USA. ("Not her personality" is presumably implied.)
Ann Godoff finds new home at Penguin Putnam [FT]

Ann Godoff, president of Bertelsmann's Random House division, was fired Thursday for failing to meet profitability goals and the details are just coming out. Her division generated more best-sellers than any other, but the group's net income of $2 million was $4 million short of CEO Peter Olson's target. It didn't help that Godoff had alienated key executives and had no staunch defenders among the other division heads.
Searching for motives in Random House ouster [NYT]

Godoff firing