Richard Harris’s son Jared plays partner Lane Pryce (of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce) in Mad Men. His mother was married to Rex Harrison after she divorced Richard Harris, though like most of the women who married Rex Harrison she didn’t remain so for long. (In fairness to Harrison, one of his wives died of natural causes and the sixth, Mercia, seems to have taken.)
Carrie Fisher has a chapter in her book and a part of her stage show called Hollywood Inbreeding. It came from when her daughter dated the grandson of Elizabeth Taylor and she had to assure her “No, you’re not really cousins” and ended up with a complicated chart of various marriages.
This makes so much sense! Jared sounds exactly like his father, and looks quite a bit like him, as well.
On the local celebrity front, WGN Chicago weather guru Tom Skilling is the brother of incarcerated Enron executive Jeffery Skilling.
From October 1990-April 1992, Gary Oldman and Uma Thurman were married. Prior to Uma’s birth, her mother, Nena Thurman, was married to Timothy Leary. Uma’s uncle John is a professional concert cellist who performs with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Yes, he’s Chip Taylor.
I first heard about this about thirty years ago, and it’s still one of my favorite trivia nuggets. Nowdays I goose it a bit by saying “Angelina Jolie’s Uncle” wrote Wild Thing.
Recently I was reading about the tremendous advances that were made in volcanology before, during, and after the Mount Saint Helens eruption. At the time, most of the predictive data concerned Hawaiian type volcanic eruptions, and although St. Helens was obviously going to erupt, no one really knew what to expect, even after the famous bulge appeared on the north slopes. There were several theories as to what might happen, but (according to the book I read) only one scientist correctly predicted the type, direction, and power of the explosion that eventually occurred. His predictions were essentuially ignored by his colleagues, partly because of his extremely abrasive personality. That volcanologist was Barry Voigt, Jon’s other brother. (Angelina’s other uncle.)
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Jon’s brother Barry uses his real name. And sorry I misspelled the name.
Barbara Billingsley (Mrs. Cleaver) was Aunt (technically, by later marriage) to Peter Billingsley (Ralphie in “A Christmas Story”).
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Rosemary Clooney’s hit song “Come On A My House” was co-written by:
- Ross Bagdasarian (who later created/became David Seville And The Chipmunks)
and his cousin
- William Saroyan
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Mary Kay Letourneau, the Washington teacher who had sex with a 12-year-old student who she later married, is the sister of John Patrick Schmitz, who was a White House deputy counsel in the Bush Sr Administration, and Joseph Schmitz, who was the Defense Department Inspector General in the Bush Jr Administration. Their father, John George Schmitz, was a United States congressman who ran for President in 1972 as the American Independent Party (aka extreme right wing) candidate. The senior Schmitz, a former professor, had an extramarital affair with a student which produced two children. When the woman died, Schmitz did not seek custody of his children and they ended up being raised by psychic Jeane Dixon, who was a friend of the Schmitz family.
Martha Plimpton (Goonies, Raising Hope) is the daughter of Keith Carradine (A lot of stuff)
Uma’s father Frank is famous in academic circles as the author of several books on Buddhism. I’ve seen him interviewed on several programs discussing the religion, none of which make reference to his famous daughter. (I’ve also seen Hal Holbrook’s daughter Victoria interviewed as an authority on Islamic literature.)
Speaking of Timothy Leary, he was the godfather of Winona Ryder.
Stretching it but I’ll mention anyway: Carol Burnett was the niece by marriage of William Saroyan. Her first husband, Don, was his nephew and she briefly went by the name Carol Saroyan. They divorced before her self named TV show (which was produced by her second husband) premiered.
Elizabeth Montgomery, daughter of Robert Montgomery, was married to Gig Young when she was 23 and he was 48. She was his third wife, he was her second husband (though her first marriage only lasted a few weeks). She fared much better than his fifth/last wife, who he killed in a murder-suicide three weeks after they married. She then married William Asher who produced Bewitched, which worked out nicely for them both: she was kind of a last minute substitute for Samantha when the original actress cast, Tammy Grimes, reneged to do a play just before the pilot was shot. Asher and Montgomery had a long marriage and friendly divorce. On her deathbed Elizabeth Montgomery married her fourth husband, Robert Foxworth (a busy actor best known perhaps for Falcon Crest) who had been her live-in companion for many years.
Speaking of Tammy Grimes, she’s the mother of Amanda Plummer, the ubiquitous eccentric character actress possibly best known as Yolanda (aka Honey Bunny) in Pulp Fiction. Amanda was raised mostly by her grandparents. IMO she bears a strong resemblance to her father Christopher, though while he’s a handsome man she’s not a very attractive woman. Amanda was in a romantic relationship with Peter O’Toole in the '70s and '80s.
Peter O’Toole’s wife was Sian Phillips, best known for her delightfully evil portrayal of Livia in I, Claudius.
Met him at a trade show in the late 80s. He, fortunately, was selling something besides his talent. It might’ve been wine. Didn’t watch Falcon Crest, but I pulled a recognition out of my ass just in time to not be embarrassed.
It can work for straight guys. It’s called “quirky” and is part of how the species has continued, despite most of us being, objectively, not all that attractive.
Tammy’s voice worked for guys my age, but is a stupid cliche these days.
Did anyone mention Diamonds Are Forever yet?
Plenty O’Toole is Natalie Wood’s sister
The old comedian/gangster is Dean Martin’s uncle
The more theatrical of the two gay assassins is Chispin Glover’s dad.
She’s also distant cousins with George Plimpton.
Speaking of distant cousins, Conan O’Brien and Denis Leary mentioned their relationship on Conan’s Late Night show.
They’ve told various stories about their relationship - depending on which account you heard, they’re cousins, distant cousins, possible cousins, or unrelated. What seems to happen is that one of them will say something about it and the other will refute what was said. It appears to have become a running joke they’re both playing on.
Another Chicago connection: Tony Shalhoub (Monk) and former WLUP morning guy Jonathon Brandmeier are cousins on the Lebanese side.
Shalhoub’s wife, Brooke Adams, is a busy and recognizable character actress. She was on Monk several times. She’s a descendant of John and Abigail Adams.
Speaking of John Adams, he (and, of course, John Quincy) are related to Charles Addams - distantly. I can’t remember the story of how the name came to be changed, unfortunately.
Name spellings changed all the time in the early centuries of the U.S.. I have a Jamestown ancestor whose surname was Bybee; his descendants today go by Bybee, Bibby, Bibbie and Beebe and probably other variants. It’s not even uncommon to see a person’s surname spelled two different ways in the same legal document.
1776 fans will appreciate The Adams Family Theme Song (1 d spelling intentional).
As is my wife! John Quincy looks just like my MIL, except she has more hair and sometimes smiles.
ETA: My wife and Brooke are, FTR, prettier.