1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year that started on a Wednesday. In the Gregorian calendar, it was the 1997th year of Anno Domini; the 997th year of the 2nd millennium; the 97th year of the 20th century; and the 8th of the 1990s.

September 2

Dominic Hunn (born August 22, 1984), better known by his stage name Dom Kennedy, is an American rapper from Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. Since 2008, Kennedy has released 5 Independent record label mixtapes, most notably his 2010 "critically acclaimed mixtape"From the Westside with Love. His first commercial studio album From the Westside with Love II was released on iTunes June 28, 2011.. Despite it being his iTunes debut, FTWSWL2 received "a top 10 spot on Hip Hop/Rap albums chart during its release week" and was Kennedy's first album associated with The OpM Company, Kennedy's self established record label.

Dom Kennedy was born on August 22, 1984 in Los Angeles, California. In an interview with music media outlet IMFlashy, Kennedy describes his childhood growing up as "normal". After his parents' divorce, Kennedy moved with his mother to Leimert Park. Upon graduating high school, Kennedy enrolled in junior college, majoring in business management. He studied a few classes briefly before eventually leaving to focus solely on his music.

Demi Guynes Kutcher ( /dəˈmiː/ də-MEE; born November 11, 1962), known professionally as Demi Moore, is an American actress, film producer, film director, former songwriter and model. Born in Roswell, New Mexico to teenage parents who divorced before she was born, Moore dropped out of high school at age 16 to begin modeling in Europe, and posed for a nude pictorial in Oui magazine in 1980. After making her movie debut in 1981, she appeared on the soap opera General Hospital and established her career with such films as St. Elmo's Fire (1985) and About Last Night... (1986). Following the successes of Ghost (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Disclosure (1994), Moore became Hollywood's highest-paid actress, receiving an unprecedented sum of $12.5 million for Striptease (1996).

Moore took her professional name from her first husband, musician Freddy Moore, and is the mother of three daughters from her second marriage to actor Bruce Willis. She married her third husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, in 2005, and separated from him in November 2011.

Steve Austin (born Steven James Anderson, later Steven James Williams; December 18, 1964), better known by his ring name "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, is an American film and television actor, producer, and retired professional wrestler. Austin wrestled for several well-known wrestling promotions such as World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and most famously, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Described by WWE (formerly the WWF) chairman Vince McMahon as the most profitable wrestler in the company's history, he gained significant mainstream popularity in the WWF during the mid-to-late 1990s as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, a disrespectful, beer-drinking antihero who routinely defied McMahon, his boss. This defiance was often shown by Austin flipping off McMahon and incapacitating him with the Stone Cold Stunner, his finishing move. McMahon inducted Austin into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009.

Austin held twenty championships throughout his professional wrestling career, and is a six-time WWF Champion as well as the fifth Triple Crown Champion. He was also the winner of the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, as well as the 1997, 1998 and 2001 Royal Rumbles. He was forced to retire from in ring competition in early 2003 due to a series of knee and neck injuries sustained throughout his career. Throughout the rest of 2003 and 2004, he was featured as the Co-General Manager and "Sheriff" of Raw. Since 2005, he has continued to make occasional appearances. In 2011, Steve Austin returned to WWE to host the reality series Tough Enough.

William Edward "Billy" Crystal (born March 14, 1948) is an American actor, writer, producer, comedian, and film director. He gained prominence in the 1970s for playing Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the critical and box office successes When Harry Met Sally... and City Slickers. He has hosted the Academy Awards nine times, including the 84th Academy Awards in 2012.

Crystal was born in the Doctor's Hospital in Manhattan and raised on Long Island in Long Beach, the son of Helen (née Gabler), a housewife, and Jack Crystal, a record company executive and jazz producer who also owned and operated the Commodore Record store. His babysitter was occasionally Billie Holiday. His uncle was musician and songwriter Milt Gabler, and his brother, Richard "Rip" Crystal, is a television producer. Crystal grew up in a Jewish family that he has described as "large" and "loving".

After graduation from Long Beach High School, Crystal attended Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia on a baseball scholarship, having learned the game from his father, who pitched for St. John's University. Crystal never played a game at Marshall because the program was suspended during his freshman year, and because he was too busy being the Editor in Chief of The BG News from 1969–70. He did not return to Marshall as a sophomore, staying back in New York with his future wife. He instead attended Nassau Community College and later New York University, where he graduated in 1970 with a BFA from its Tisch School of the Arts.