Surprising Celebrity Relations

I'm just trying to imagine the conversation around Alison telling her dad she's gonna be in next month's Playboy.

Maybe he was supportive, ya never know.

My guess, although I doubt it thrilled him, he doesn't strike me as the type that would get mad at her choices there, or get too bent out of shape over it. I could picture him being supportive, before mad, is all I mean. Then again, what the hell do I know!?!

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True, true.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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Actress Jennifer Grant (The Evening Star, Welcome to California) is the daughter of Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon ( Heaven Can Wait, Bob & Carol, Ted & Alice).

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If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

Johann von Goethe

Musician/Singer/Songwriter and Oscar-winning film composer Randy Newman is a Hollywood legacy. The Newmans are to American Cinematic Music what the Barrymores are to American Theater. Randy's Dad, Irving Newman, was a doctor and occasional songwriter. But all three of Irving's brothers were hugely successful composers and conductors in Hollywood: Alfred Newman (All About Eve, The Snake Pit, How Green was My Valley), Emil Newman (The Best Years of Our Lives, The Bishop's Wife, The Dark Corner) and Lionel Newman (Kiss of Death, I was a Male War Bride, Thieves' Highway). Until John Williams recently passed him, Alfred Newman held the record as the most Oscar-nominated composer ever with forty-four, including twenty consecutive years of nominations from 1938 to 1957, many of those years with multiple nods, and in 1940 alone he received four nominations...losing to The Wizard of Oz and Stagecoach. But don't feel sorry for Alfred, as he won nine Oscars in his long career. After all those scores, his most lasting and recognizable piece of music may well be the 20th Century Fox fanfare, still in use today by the many Fox entertainment outlets. Emil had one Oscar nomination and Lionel had eleven, with one win.

Randy Newman is by far the most famous and successful of their offspring, having had a unique and successful Pop Music career ("Short People", "I Love L.A.", "You Can Leave Your Hat On", "Mama Told Me Not to Come", "Rednecks", etc.) and a huge career as songwriter and composer for Hollywood (Ragtime, The Natural, Toy Story, etc.). Randy has seventeen Oscar nominations to date, and it wasn't until his sixteenth that he finally won one (for the score to Monsters, Inc.).

But Alfred's sons Thomas (American Beauty, The Shawshank Redemption, Little Children) and David (The Freshman, The War of the Roses, Heathers) are both also successful composers (Thomas has eight Oscar noms so far, and David has one), and his daughter Maria is also a musician and composer. Lionel had three daughters, two of whom went into showbiz: Carroll Newman is a television producer and Jenifer Newman was a dancer.

Jenifer Newman's son is Joey Newman who is, what else, a Hollywood composer and conductor ("Once & Again", "Little People, Big World").

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Actress Natasha Gregson Wagner (High Fidelity, "The 4400") is the daughter of Natalie Wood. Despite her last name, Natasha is not the daughter of Natalie's twice husband Robert Wagner, though he did adopt and raise her (Natasha was eleven when Natalie died). Natasha's biological father is Richard Gregson, a British producer and agent who was married to Natalie for two years between her marriages to Wagner. Natalie's younger sister Lana Wood was also an actress in the '60s and '70s, mostly B-movies and television work (she is Plenty O'Toole in the Connery Bond Diamonds are Forever with Jill St. John, who two decades later would marry Robert Wagner). One of Robert Wagner's other two daughters is also in showbiz, at least peripherally: Katie Wager, his daughter with second wife Marian Marshall, is a sometimes TV hostess/entertainment reporter, but not an actress. The daughter Robert and Natalie had together, Courtney Wager, has never acted.

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Up-and-coming actor, Owen Kline of The Anniversary Party and The Squid and the Whale, is the son of Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda, Sophie's Choice) and Phoebe Cates (Fast Times at Ridgemont High). He has a younger sister, Greta, who appeared in the same movies as Owen, as did his parents.

And since we've left the surprising long ago and are just filling the thread with some more obvious links, here are some Juniors for the DUH file...

• Freddie Prinze Jr. (Scooby-Doo, I KNow What You Did Last Summer) is the son of Freddie Prinze. The elder Prinze was an up-and-coming stand-up comic with a hit TV show, "Chico & the Man". But his addiction to drugs consumed him to the point that he committed suicide by gunshot at the age of twenty-two. Freddie Jr. was only an infant at the time.
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• The great but often personally and legally troubled actor Robert Downey Jr. is the son of cult underground filmmaker Robert Downey (Putney Swope, Pound, Hugo Pool).
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• The lanky, lispy actor and environmental activist Ed Begely Jr. ("St. Elsewhere", A Mighty Wind, Who Killed the Electric Car?) is the son of the stocky, gruff character actor Ed Begley (12 Angry Men, Hang 'Em High).

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Oscar-winning actress Lee Grant (Shampoo, In the Heat of the Night, Defending Your Life) is the mother of Tony-winning actress Dinah Manoff ("Empty Nest", Grease, I Ought to Be in Pictures). Lee Grant had an impressive screen debut in William Wyler's Detective Story (1951), garnering an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. But her career was essentially put on hold for over a decade when she refused to testify against her husband (and Dinah's father), playwrite and screenwriter Arnold Manoff, who was under investigation by the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. Both Lee and Arnold were blacklisted. He managed to do some work for television under a pseudonym (see Martin Ritt's excellent movie The Front for how that worked during McCarthyism), but Grant barely worked at all until the mid 1960s.

Actor Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Producers) is the son of actor James Broderick ("Family", Dog Day Afternoon, Alice's Restaurant). James died from cancer in 1982 at the age of fifty-five, just as Matthew was enjoying his success in Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs on Broadway and preparing for his big screen debut in Neil Simon's Max Dugan Returns. There is another James Broderick now, as Matthew and wife Sarah Jessica Parker named their only son after him. This second James Broderick is not an actor yet, being only five-years-old, but given that both of his parents hit the stage very young (Sarah Jessica was Annie on Broadway fer cripe's sake), we might not have to wait too much longer.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise to many here that comic genius and legend Mel Brooks and the great Oscar-winning actress Anne Bancroft were married for nearly forty-one years before Anne's passing in 2005, but you might not yet have caught on to the fact that their only son, Max Brooks, has become a successful author in the past few years with his side-splittingly hysterical The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead and the novel World War Z, the latter of which has recently been optioned for a movie.

And another family with a fairly unusual name that should be a tip-off, but legendary independent director and actor John Cassavetes (Shadows, Rosemary's Baby) and his wife the great actress Gena Rowlands (A Woman Under the Influence, Tempest, Night on Earth) have three children who are all involved in showbiz. Nick Cassavetes dabbled in acting but is now a director, though unlike Dad he works squarely in the middle of mainstream Studio Hollywood with such credits as The Notebook, John Q and Alpha Dog. Middle child Alexandra or Xan Cassavetes directed the excellent documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession. Their youngest, Zoe Cassavetes, has done a little bit of acting but just scored earlier this year as a director with her indie pic Broken English starring Parker Posey.

My teenage heart-throb, Matt Dillon, of The Outsiders, There's Something About Mary, and Crash, is the older brother of
Kevin Dillon of Platoon and Entourage.

Actor Sam Robards, Life as a House, American Beauty, is the son of Lauren Bacall, (Key Largo, How to Marry a Millionaire) and Jason Robards, (All the Presidents Men, Magnolia). He is half brothers with Steven Bogart, the son of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.

Cool Threads xx

Another screamingly-obvious-but-I'll-mention-it-anyway family...



Actors Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges are the sons of Lloyd Bridges. Lloyd started his professional acting career in the late 1930s, and although he wasn't a star in the old Studio System he did work often as a contract player, including a supporting role in the classic High Noon (1952). But on television he was a star, especially as the intrepid SCUBA diver Mike Nelson on "Sea Hunt" (1958-1961). Beau is the older of the two boys, and he started his career as a child actor, mostly TV stuff, and did manage to get into some B-movies like the Drive-In classic cheese-fest Land of the Giants (1965). It was Jeff who was the instant star after Peter Bogdanovich cast him in The Last Picture Show (1971), which netted him a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination (the first of four, to date) and a bonafide big-time career. Beau has amassed a steady and impressive career working more in television than features, with eleven Emmy nominations so far and three wins, including one for the lead in "Without Warning: The James Brady Story". Lloyd got an entire second career mostly as a comedian after the success of Airplane! (1980). Other than uncredited background work when they were kids, the only big screen pairing of Jeff and Beau is of course The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989). Jeff and Lloyd worked together in both Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) and Blown Away (1994), while Beau and Lloyd worked together in The Fifth Musketeer (1979) and Meeting Daddy (2000) as well as a bunch of TV projects. The three Bridges never got to work in a film together before Lloyd's death in 1998.

And I'm sure I meant to note this family when I was talking about Schuyler Fisk and Colin Hanks, but director/writer Jake Kasdan (Orange County, Zero Effect, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) is the son of Oscar-nominated writer/director Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat, Silverado, The Big Chill). The elder Kasdan started as a screenwriter, working on both The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, before he began directing his own material. Larry hasn't had any success of late, his only film this century as a director being the dreadful Stephen King piece Dreamcatcher, but he is working on adapting Richard Russo's novel The Risk Pool for the screen, so perhaps there is hope yet. But Jake Kasdan's star has been on the rise for a while now. In addition to his own material he's in with the Judd Apatow crowd, having directed episodes of "Freaks & Geeks" and "Undeclared", and he and Judd co-wrote Walk Hard. If this month's Dewey Cox becomes a box office hit, he'll get some real power in the industry. Jake also has a younger brother, Jon Kasdan, who just made his big screen debut as a writer/director with the dramedy In the Land of Women.

This thread needs to be revived! So many more second generation celebs out there...

• Actor George Wendt, iconic forever as Norm on "Cheers", is the uncle of Jason Sudeikis, who has gone from "SNL" to a movie star in Horrible Bosses and We're the Millers.
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• Melissa McCarthy, who went from supporting player in the likes of "The Gilmore Girls" to starring on her own sitcom "Mike & Molly" and then became an instant movie star after Bridesmaids, is the cousin of MTV personality turned minor actress turned vaccine denier and talk show host Jenny McCarthy.
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• Rashida Jones ("Parks & Recreation", The Social Network, I Love You, Man) is the daughter of legendary musician/composer/producer Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton ("The Mod Squad", "Twin Peaks").
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• Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård who moved from arthouse fare such as Oxen, Breaking the Waves, Insomnia ,and Good Will Hunting to blockbusters like The Pirates of the Caribbean, Thor and Avengers franchises is the father of Alexander Skarsgård ("True Blood", "Generation Kill", and the Straw Dogs remake). His other sons Gustaf, Bill, Valter, and Sam all act as well, though none have broken through like Alexander, yet.
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• Mamie Gummer has been building her resume for years, including a recurring role on "The Good Wife" and starring in the short-lived series "Emily Owens M.D.", but if it wasn't obvious before there should be no doubt after seeing even the commercials or trailer for Ricki and the Flash that she is the daughter of the living legend nineteen-time Oscar nominee and three-time winner Meryl Streep.
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• Character actor William Mapother, who is recognizable from dozens of TV appearances including a recurring role on "Lost" and movies like In the Bedroom, Another Earrth and The Grudge, is the cousin of megastar Tom Cruise (who's birth name is Thomas Mapother)
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• Actor and director Campbell Scott (Big Night, Dying Young, The Spanish Prisoner, "Royal Pains") is the son of two acting heavyweights: the Queen of Broadway, multiple Tony and Emmy winner Colleen Dewhurst (Annie Hall, "Anne of Green Gables"), and Oscar winner - even if he didn't want to pick it up - George C. Scott (The Hustler, Dr. Strangelove, Patton, The Hospital).
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• Looking back over the thread, somehow when I noted that young actress Schuyler Fisk is the daughter of Oscar winner Sissy Spacek, I forgot to mention that Rip Torn (Cross Creek, "The Larry Sanders Show", Men in Black) is Sissy's cousin!
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• Minimalist composer Philip Glass, whose film work includes the scores for Koyaanisqatsi, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, The Thin Blue Line, and Kundun, is the uncle of NPR stalwart Ira Glass ("This American Life").
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• Liev Schreiber (Scream, The Manchurian Candidate remake, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, "Ray Donovan") is the half brother (same father, different mothers) of Pablo Schreiber ("The Wire", "Weeds", "Orange is the New Black", "The Brink").
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• Actress Bonnie Bedelia (Die Hard, Heart Like a Wheel, Presumed Innocent, "Parenthood") is the sister of Kit Culkin, making her the aunt of Macaulay, Kieran, and Rory Culkin.

• Actress Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer", Something to Talk About, Phenomenon, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine") is the cousin of one of Andy Warhol's muses Edie Sedgewick, a socialite turned model turned counterculture regular who appeared in many of The Factory's projects and died at the age of only twenty-eight, due to drug addiction.
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• I already noted that Kate Hudson is the daughter of Goldie Hawn and musician Bill Hudson, but since then her older brother Oliver Hudson has become a recognizeable actor, mostly on television in the sitcom "Rules of Engagement" and on the drama "Nashville".
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• It's probably fairly obvious, but in case you hadn't realized it, James Franco ("Freaks & Geeks", Spider-Man, 127 Hours, This is the End) is the older brother of Dave Franco (21 Jump Street, Now You See Me, Neighbors).
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• Actress Lily Collins (The Blind Side, Mirror Mirror, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones) is the daughter of pop music superstar Phil Collins.
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• Another young actress, Zoey Deutch ("The Suite Life: On Deck", Beautiful Creatures, Vampire Academy) is the daughter of director Howard Deutch (Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, "American Horror Story") and '80s icon Lea Thompson (Back to the Future, Howard the Duck, "Caroline in the City").
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• And another that I assume is well known but just in case, Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Godzilla, Avengers: Age of Ultron) is the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley, aka The Olsen Twins.
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Good stuff Holden. Man I had no idea Mamie Gummer was Streeps daughter she is one of my fave recurring characters on The Good Wife. I actually found out Rashida Jones family connections the other day, I've been watching Parks and Rec recently and looked her up to remind myself of what else she has been in.

Off topic a bit but Philip Glass is also responsible for the eerie & spooky soundtrack to Candyman.