Sofia Coppola is clearly the queen of this category for her ruination of every scene in which she dazedly appeared in Godfather 3, but the idea for the thread came while watching the John Wayne movie McLintock, one of several to co-star his cute but absolutely-completely-devoid-of-anything-resembling-acting-ability son Patrick. (Wayne wasn’t known for his great range as an actor, but compared to his kid he was freakin’ Olivier.)
What are some other examples of celebrity relatives who couldn’t act but got cast alongside Mom/Dad/whoever anyway?
Rebecca Pidgeon has gotten several roles by virtue of being David Mamet’s wife. She is a transcendently bad actor, at least as bad as Sofia Coppola, and arguably the worst actor to ever get a substantial number of significant Hollywood parts.
How about Clint Howard? His best work was with the bear, the bear carried the scenes though. His post Gentle Ben work has mostly been due to his brother Ron hiring him for small roles in his movies.
Dude’s appeared in 116 movies and TV series. Seven this year alone. Now, granted, he’s no big star, but the man’s a workhorse. In the “Kevin Bacon” Game, everyone is connected through him and/or Mickey Rooney.
Jerry O’Connell’s no-talent brother Charlie has benefited GREATLY from nepotism. He was on Sliders, he was The Bachelor, he was on *Crossing Jordan * … I wish I had a sibling who would hand me roles I didn’t deserve on a silver platter, but my sister selfishly decided to become a pediatrician instead.
Now now. I can’t say that Steven Baldwin has done much beyond Beetlejuice, but between some brothers we get The Usual Suspects and Homicide: Life on the Streets. Personally I think it’s best to just think of them as a single person, who can magically gain or lose a reasonable amount of weight and age, without having to resort to silly putty.