JEFFREY TAMBOR
AT 72, THE EMMY-WINNING ACTOR HAS HIS HANDS HAPPILY FULL WITH FIVE KIDS — INCLUDING 7-YEAR-OLD TWINS!
The Transparent star is head over heels for his five kids.
Jeffrey Tambor has played his share of unconventional parents, from Arrested Development’s convict George Bluth to Transparent ’s transgendered Maura Pfefferman. His real life sounds like a sitcom, too: The awardwinning 72-year-old star has five kids ranging in age from a 41-year-old daughter, Molly, to twin 7-year-old boys, Eli and Hugo. “I’m very grateful because I get a second chance,” he tells Closer. “We all like a second chance.”
He’s making the most of that opportunity. “Your knees aren’t as good, but you get a little more wisdom and gratitude with age,” says Jeffrey, who also has a 12-year-old son, Gabriel, and a 10-year-old daughter, Eve, with wife Kasia. “You realize that top billing goes to the kids, and you get last billing.”
In fact, the actor, who recently appeared in a series of Super Bowl ads for Tide, says, “The kids are my best teachers. They give me great courage, and they teach me enthusiasm.”
ACTS OF KINDNESS
Eve taught him a valuable lesson when he took her to the set of Transparent two years ago, and he fumblingly tried to explain Maura’s transgender status to her. “She said, ‘Daddy, I understand your character is more comfortable being a woman,’ ” Jeffrey recalls. “Out of the mouths of babes — they get it faster than adults. Hate and fear is learned.”
His kids only add to how much Jeffrey’s loving his life, as he shoots season four of Transparent and has a memoir, Are You Anybody?, due in May. “Many years ago in Detroit, this fortuneteller said, ‘You have to be patient — success is going to happen very late in your career,’ ” remembers the actor, who earned a master’s degree in fine arts from Michigan’s Wayne State University before snaring his first Emmy nomination at 49 for The Larry Sanders Show. “She wasn’t messing around!”