The best lessons stars learned from their dads
While it seems that mothers get most of the press, fathers form the backbone of many families.
As we look to celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday, celebrities are no different from the rest of us in honoring that influence, which lasts a lifetime.
Mariska Hargitay (“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”) was 3-1/2 when her mother was killed in an auto accident.
“We grew up in a household where my dad said, ‘Hey, if I’m wrong, tell me.’ He said, ‘If you don’t learn something new every day, you’re an idiot.’ His whole thing was learn something new, gather information. You can learn from anybody. He made me get that everyone has something to say. I try to listen,” she says.
“If I hear the rule, I question it. I like that I’m a questioner. But on the same token, I grew up in a European family where parents are respected. They’re strict. You kiss your parents hello, goodbye, tell them where you’re going … Having my mother taken from me at such a small age, I’m grateful for my stepmother and grateful to have had a dad that loved me and was there.”
Although his father was a doctor, songwriter-singer Randy Newman’s two uncles were famous composers in Hollywood.
“When I was 6 years old, all of a sudden I woke up and there was an upright piano in my room, in case I was Mozart,” he recalls. “My father wanted me very badly to be in music because he loved his brothers … that looked real good to him, show business. I’ve often had thoughts: I didn’t grow up like people who loved music, who’d buy every record and copy guitar licks. There are guys I know in the music business who heard Bartok for the first time, and it changed their lives … I often wondered if I hadn’t been directed, would I have done something else?”
Early in her career Anne Hathaway was offered a show on Broadway. But she was reluctant to move so far from home.
“I thought, ‘How can I be away from my family for two years and what if they need me?’ And my father said, ‘Oh, the show could last for a few weeks, what are you worrying for?’ He said, ‘The show will open up your head and you’ll learn something, and you’ll be the better person for it — no matter whether it’s a success or failure.’ I took his advice.”
“The flip side of me telling my father that I wanted to be an actor, was him telling me how to save money,” says Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”). “And it has been a value lesson that has stayed with me from that day forth. He said, ‘The simple rule is: If it’s not in your pocket, don’t spend it.’ He just said, ‘Save, save, save, and when you think you have enough, save some more.’ I stuck by that.”
Julie Andrews recalls her dad: “My father was this voice of reason and a great lover of nature. He could tell you anything about the length and breadth of England and what tree it was, what stars were in the sky, and what bird that was singing, and the quality of the soil in the garden. And that matters to me.”
Jamie Foxx remembers a moment when his dad made all the difference.
“I’m in the regional track meet, high jumping. I missed at six feet — twice — waiting for my father to show up because I thought, ‘Man, where IS he?’ A burgundy Thunderbird right by the fence, I see him. I ended up taking second place and ended up going to state (finals). That means I was ranked second in the region and 23rd in the whole State of Texas. Changed my life because it gave me that ‘thing.’”
Gwenyth Paltrow recalls celebrating her father’s 40th birthday on a trip to Hawaii.
“I was about 10 years old, and I would meet my dad every morning; we would get up at 6 o’clock and we’d have coffee and take a walk. I remember thinking, ‘He’s regarding me as a grown-up.’ It was the first time I felt understood and validated that I had made the transition from little girl to an older girl. I remember when my father saw that first play I did, he came back after the play and said, ‘I don’t think you should go back to college. I think you should really pursue this.’ He gave me such confidence in that.”
Tom Hanks’ parents divorced when he was very young.
“I was raised by my dad. I think I had probably the best kind of upbringing you could possibly have for an actor. I moved around a lot. Actually my background was like Army or Air Force brats — same thing — a lot of brand-new social circumstances that either break you or make you … I don’t know why, but the ability to present yourself to a room full of strangers — which is what acting is, more or less — and seeming as though you’re familiar to them and faking them out somehow, part of that is the natural aspect of me doing what I do for a living.”
No one in Patricia Heaton’s family had ever been an actor.
“It just wasn’t something you would go to college for, and my father and brother were both journalists, so that’s what I started out as in college — as a journalism major,” she says.
“And I just got really depressed. And I was nervous to tell my dad that I actually wanted to major in acting. I screwed up the courage to tell him and he said, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ But he didn’t think I would actually pursue it. He just wanted me to get a degree, and he’d get me some job in Cleveland so he could keep an eye on me. So I graduated from Ohio State and told him I was moving to New York City, which was a bit of a blow. But my brother was there so I think he felt comfortable about that and gave me $800 and said, ‘Good luck.’”