I'm looking for well-known pairs of celebrities whose faces would be readily accessible on Google Images who are second degree relatives:
- Grandfather and grandson
- Grandmother and granddaughter
- Uncle and nephew
- Aunt and niece.
I'd like to do a quick and dirty check of how much second degree relatives of the same sex look like each other. So far, all I can think of is Walter Huston and Angelica Huston, who don't look much like (although Angelica is obviously the daughter of her father John Huston), but crossing sex lines adds to the dissimilarity. (Danny Huston isn't that well-known although he seems to work a lot these days for reasons I don't comprehend.) Also, they'd ideally be the same general race -- that George P. Bush is mestizo distracts from evaluating how much he looks like George W. Bush or George H.W. Bush.
Please don't search out pairs who are particularly similar or dissimilar-looking -- I just want a bunch of pairs whose faces are reasonably well-known.
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38 comments:
Kennedy cousins would make a good start. Well known? Well, some of them.
Wiki, that fount of knowledge, has an entry on famous acting families.
Ethel Barrymore, in some of her pictures, looks a lot like great grandniece Drew.
Miguel Ferrer and George Clooney are first cousines (ethnic and hairline differences there.) Francis Ford Coppola is Nicholas Cage's uncle. Walt Disney and his nephew Roy share a stunning resemblence. Kirk Douglas's grandson is actor Cameron Douglas. And of course I'm sure that Donnie and Marie Osmond have half-a-million showbiz nephews and nieces you could compare them to.
Or why not ask people how many of their relatives look like other second degree relatives?
I have a niece who looks a lot like her aunt and a brother with a striking resemblance to our cousin's son (therefore his first cousin once removed). People often thought my best friend in high school was my brother, because of our physical similarities. Turned out he was my fifth cousin.
Susan Saint James / Christa Miller
Ray Boone / Brett or Aaron Boone
Julia Roberts and her niece Emma Roberts. So much alike it's scary. Face looks just like her. Though Emma is much shorter.
Oh, and there's Julia Roberts and her niece Emma Roberts. And Hank Williams and Hank Williams III.
One problem with using celebrities as resource material: they often don't become celebrities unless they have "the look," meaning that their celebrity may partially come from shared inherited good looks.
and can anyone explain the remarkable resemblance between Helen Hunt and Leelee Sobieski despite no known relation whatsoever? And why, pray-tell, have they never been cast as mother/daughter?
Kirk Douglas' grandson is Cameron Douglas, I think. He's an actor.
John Barrymore and Drew Barrymore?
Rosemary Clooney and George Clooney?
Oh, this might help: http://www.berinsteinresearch.com/Whos_related.htm
Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper.
Well, there's the Sinatra family, you have Frank's parents, Frank and Big Nancy, Frank and Nancy Jr's and Tina, and Little Nancy's daughters AJ and Amanda.
The Reagans-and indeed several presidential families, the Bushes (not counting Jeb's mutts), Kennedys, Roosevelts, etc. have somewhat good distribution.
Judy Garland, her parents, and Liza and Lorna. Lorna has kids but I doubt you'll find photos.
The Barrymores. The RedgraveFondaRichardsonNeeson bunch. (Neeson presents another question as to inheritability, but that's a long subject, to say nothing of thick.)
Chrissie Hynde, who kept her daughters off camera with a vengeance during their youth, now has both in the public eye professionally. You could probably find pictures of Hynde's parents, and possibly of Ray Davies' or Jim Kerr's.
The Cash/Carter hillbilly music dynasty.
The Osmonds. The Cowsills.
The Estevez-Sheens.
The Kirk Douglas and Lloyd Bridges families.
Probably these are not by any means the best examples. Just a few at random.
Nick Cage and Jason Schwartzman are both Francis Ford Coppola's nephews, and they are cousins.
John Carradine is Martha Plimpton's grandfather. Wrong gender.
Maybe you can find one of Jason Robards Sr. and Sam Robards.
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie with the Queen of England.
Hank William Sr. & Hank III
Nelson Rockefeller was Jay Rockefeller's uncle
c23
Ed Wynn's grandkids are both writers in LA, but I was only able to find a photo of Ned Wynn, on his webpage http://wynnwords.com/
Right, Helen Hunt and Leelee Sobieski are dead ringers a generation apart.
Lynn Redgrave and Joely Richardson (aunt & niece)
Speaking of unrelated similars, consider Doris Day, Debbie Harry and Elisha Cuthbert. The latter two look especially alike from certain angles. Since Harry really wants to play DD, from what I've heard, that could be exploited-especially since Cuthbert is probably 40 years younger...
Some notable uncle/nephew sets from baseball-reference.com (GIS should be useful for these, especially where the nephew is a contemporary player):
Chris Gwynn/Tony Gwynn Jr.
all three Alou brothers/Moises Alou and Mel Rojas
Matt Batts/Danny Heep
Hector Cruz/Jose Cruz Jr.
Gene Mauch/Roy Smalley Jr.
Wayne Nordhagen/Kevin Millar
Alex Carrasquel/Chico Carrasquel
George "Nap" Rucker/Johnny Rucker
Larry Bowa/Nick Johnson
Tommy Helms/Wes Helms
Tony Cuccinello/Sam Mele
Ernest Riles/Willie Harris
Dan Driessen/Gerald Perry
Rico Carty/Julio Santana
Dick Schofield Sr./Jayson Werth
Rick Dempsey/Gregg Zaun
Phil Niekro/Lance Niekro
Dwight Gooden/Gary Sheffield
Mookie Wilson/Preston Wilson (who are also stepfather and stepson)
Perhaps more obscure than what you're looking for, but Brian Klugman--most memorable (to me) for playing Kirby on "Frasier"--is the nephew of Jack Klugman of "Quincy" fame.
and can anyone explain the remarkable resemblance between Helen Hunt and Leelee Sobieski despite no known relation whatsoever?
John McKinley, CEO of Texaco during its epic 1980's battle with Pennzoil for control of Getty Oil, looked almost like Lyndon B. Johnson's twin. As far as I know they were unrelated.
Why does Catherine Zita Jones look so much like Ava Gardner? Is there some connection?
PS: ask Colby Cosh about that young hockey star who looks suspiciously like The Great One...
Unrelated similars:
My favorite pair of unrelated similars are Hall of Famer John Stockton and actor Jim Caviezel. Not only is the resemblance amazing, but both are roughly the same height, grew up in Washington State, attended Catholic schools, and played college basketball.
And they both seem to be just really great guys.
the hemmingways? ernest & muriel (i think her name is)
First off, Walter Huston is the answer to a great trivia question:
Q: Who premiered Kurt Weill's September Song?
A: Walter Huston, in the 1938 production of Knickerbocker Holiday.
Anyway, here's a good Grandfather/Grandson pair:
GF: William Frank Knox [often just "Frank Knox"], Alf Landon's 1936 GOP running mate, and FDR's Secretary of the Navy during WWII.
Frank Knox
GS: Mark Harmon, of "St Elsewhere", "Chicago Hope", NCIS, etc.
Mark Harmon
Somebody mentioned the Douglas family - don't forget that the grandfather, Melvyn Douglas, was very famous back in the day.
And somebody else mentioned Frank Sinatra, who ought to have a famous grandchild, but neither his marriage to Ava Gardner nor his marriage to Mia Farrow proved fruitful.
Speaking of Mia Farrow, her mother, Maureen O'Sullivan, played "Jane", opposite Johnny Weissmuller, in Tarzan, so she had a very, very famous face. IMDB says that Mia Farrow had three [natural] children with André Previn, but I don't think any of them are particularly famous today [certainly not compared to their adopted child, Soon-Yi Previn Allen, or whatever her name is these days].
Another place where you see a gazillion celebrities is at the intersection of the Churchill & "Harriman" families. The grandson in the line
F/GF: Winston Churchill
S: Randolph Churchill X Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill [Harriman]
GS: Winston Spencer Churchill III
is making a name for himself as an anti-Muslim acolyte; he spoke just a few months ago on this topic at the John Locke Foundation:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=3158
Here's a progression of their faces:
Winston Churchill
Pamela Harriman
Winston Spencer Churchill III
Pamela Harriman is at the crossroads of a whole mess of sixth-degrees-of-separation-ism-from-Kevin-Bacon-ness. For instance, she is widely rumored to have been lovers with Prince Ali Khan, which gets you over to Rita Hayworth, among others.
And here's something I just learned the other day [from Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar]: Averill Harriman was FDR's choice to go to the USSR and "negotiate" the gift of American weapons that allowed Stalin to defeat Hitler.
So my best guess would be that the Harrimans were essentially communists.
Randall: the hemmingways? ernest & muriel (i think her name is)
Yes, Margaux & Mariel.
Speaking of literary types with, ah, "easy" grand-daughters, that reminds me of the children's author, Roald Dahl [Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches], and his grand-daughter, the "plus-sized" British lingerie model, Sophie Dahl, who is rumored to wear a size 38DD bra:
GF: Roald Dahl
M: Tessa Dahl
GD: Sophie Dahl
By the way, the 1990 movie version of Dahl's The Witches features a bizarrely erotic performance by none other than Walter Huston's grand-daughter, Anjelica Huston [progenitrix of this thread].
I.e. it's one of those rare movies which the kids & the parents can watch at different levels.
Jacqueline Onassis & Rose Schlossberg
Grace Kelly & Charlotte Casiraghi
Whoa - I was just clicking around, and discovered that Sophie Dahl is also the grand-daugher of Patricia Neal, who played opposite Gary Cooper, in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.
Apparently Neal somehow found time to make five babies with Roald Dahl [assuming none of them were adopted].
Now, at 81, she's a pro-life activist, living in NYC - she was [literally] less than half as old as Cooper when they starred in The Fountainhead [note that Cooper died more than 46 years ago, in 1961].
Someone mentioned the Fondas: Troy [I think] Vadim, son of Roger V., grandson of Henry Fonda, and looking nothing like him at all. No Fonda fineness.
ll
Another trio: Ephraim Zimbalist Sr, the Russian violinist, Efrem Zimbalist Jr, the actor [Inspector Lewis Erskine of THE FBI], and Stephanie Zimbalist [Pierce Brosnan's love interest in Remington Steele]:
Efrem Zimbalist Sr
Efrem Zimbalist Jr
Stephanie Zimbalist
If you guys want to do the Fondas, then you need to go through Peter to get to Bridget.
She also gives you the Aunt/Niece thang with Hanoi Jane.
Some people were mentioning Grace Kelly; her father, John Brendan Kelly, Sr, was a very famous athlete in his day - the first man to win three Olympic gold medals in rowing [1920 single skull, 1920 double skull, 1924 double skull], and the only rower ever elected to the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.
So that gets you:
John Brendan Kelly, Sr
Grace Kelly
Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stephanie
Are there pictures of Aaron Director? If so, you could get a picture of him vs. David Friedman.
Autoracing has several family dynasties. The Petty family has four generations to compare.
Sorry I'm late. Has anyone mentioned Drew Barrymore's grandmother the silent screen star Dolores Costello?
Would it be mean spirited of me to suggest Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, and his grandson Prince Harry?
Yes. Yes it would.
One problem you may run into is that overbites and underbites and other dental irregularities, which are often inherited and greatly affect facial appearance, are less likely to be corrected the farther back in time you go.
For example, if Jay Leno had had children, even if they had inherited his orthodontic problems, it is unlikely that he would have allowed them to go uncorrected. Thus, his children as teens and young adults might not have been easily recognizable as being close genetic relatives.
alan: Has anyone mentioned Drew Barrymore's grandmother the silent screen star Dolores Costello?
Huh - from the Wikipedia article you linked to: "Costello spoke with a lisp (something that her granddaughter, Drew Barrymore has seemed to inherit), and found it difficult to make the transition to talking pictures, but after two years of voice coaching she was comfortable speaking before a microphone."
Meant to add this a while back.
There are several pictures of Grace Kelly's mother, Margaret Katherine Majer Kelly, at UPenn [apparently she was the first coach of a woman's sport]:
Margaret Katherine Majer Kelly
Grace Kelly's uncle, George Edward Kelly, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. I tried googling, but didn't come up with much; recently an art gallery sold a portrait of a "George Edward Kelly", but I don't know if that's the same man:
George Edward Kelly
BTW, his Pulitzer-Prize-winning play, Craig's Wife, is online at Google books:
Craig's Wife: A Drama, by George Edward Kelly
Finally, Grace Kelly's brother, John Brenden Kelly Jr, was a famous amateur athlete, and later the president of the USOC. Like his mother, he also has a page at UPenn [with one photo, which shows a pretty remarkable familial similarity to his sister]:
John Brenden Kelly Jr., B.A. 1950
And, of course, it shouldn't be all that difficult to find pictures of the royal family of Monaco:
Rainier III, Prince of Monaco
Charlotte, Duchess of Valentinois
Louis II, Prince of Monaco
Albert I, Prince of Monaco
etc etc etc
Just discovered this one last night:
Bryce Dallas Howard
Ron Howard
Cheryl Howard
Rance Howard
Jean Speegle Howard
Another one which I just discovered last night is Helena Bonham Carter - apparently she has about a gazillion celebrities in her genealogy, going all the way back to a great-grandfather who was prime minister during WWI:
H. H. Asquith
Look for Dionne Warwick and her cousin, Whitney Houston. Jane and her niece Bridgette Fonda, and then there's Gladys Knight and her late niece Aalyiah. Good luck! Oh, and Maria Shriver and her Kennedy cousins. It's crazy how much she looks like her uncles!!!
Here's one I just discovered:
Grandfather: Robert Montgomery
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0599910/
http://images.google.com/images?safe=off&q=Robert+Montgomery
Grandmother: Elizabeth Bryan Allen
e.g. here & here
Daughter: Elizabeth Montgomery
http://images.google.com/images?safe=off&q=Elizabeth+Montgomery
Husband: William Asher
http://images.google.com/images?safe=off&q=%22William+Asher%22
Grand-Daughter: Rebecca Asher
http://images.google.com/images?safe=off&q=Rebecca+Asher
e.g. this one
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