When it comes to making movies, blood is thicker than water
The Coppolas
As you might expect from the maker of The Godfather trilogy, Italian-American director Francis Ford Coppola is a man who takes ‘la famiglia’ very seriously off screen, too. He gave his father, Carmine, the job of writing the music for The Godfather Part 2 (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979). He cast his sister, Talia Shire, as Michael Corleone’s sister, Connie, in all three parts of The Godfather, and his daughter, Sofia, as Michael’s daughter Mary in Part 3 (1990). Sofia sensibly gave up acting soon afterwards, before turning into an Oscar-winning writer/director in her own right with Lost in Translation (2003), which, of course, featured daddy as one of the producers. Francis’ nephew Nicolas, meanwhile, changed his surname to Cage and, after appearing in his uncle’s films Rumble Fish (1983), The Cotton Club (1984) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), went on to become one of the biggest stars of his generation. One of Francis’ sons, Roman, is a director. And another, Gian-Carlo, had a small part in Rumble Fish before being tragically killed in a boating accident in 1986. The boat in question was being driven by actor Griffin O’Neal, son of Ryan O’Neal and brother of Tatum O’Neal. But that’s another family and another story…
The Hustons
At the 1949 Oscars John Huston and his father Walter pulled off a unique triple whammy when John picked up the Best Director and Best Screenplay statuettes for his greed-in-the-desert classic The Treasure of Sierra Madre, while pop was named Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Howard in the same film. Key to Walter’s transformation from dignified leading man of the 1930s to the whiskery old gold prospector he played here was the fact that, on John’s insistence, he removed his false teeth for the role – the sort of thing only your nearest and dearest could ask of you.
Working with family members paid such dividends that John did it again with his daughter Anjelica, who picked up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1986 for her performance as ruthless mafiosa Mae Rose in Huston’s mob comedy Prizzi’s Honor, opposite her then long-time boyfriend Jack Nicholson. On that occasion, however, John had to content himself with a mere nomination as Best Director. John Huston’s final film as director, 1987’s The Dead, was scripted by his son Tony, while another son, Danny, is a director and gifted supporting actor, recently seen in such films as The Aviator and 21 Grams.
The Redgraves
When Joely Richardson and her Oscar-winning mum Vanessa Redgrave recently appeared together in the American plastic-surgery series Nip/Tuck, it was but the latest chapter in the saga of Britain’s most illustrious – and politically radical – acting dynasty. Daughter of actor Sir Michael Redgrave (The Dam Busters, Dead of Night) and actress Rachel Kempson, sister of actors Lynn and Corin, Vanessa is also the ex-wife of director Tony Richardson (The Charge of the Light Brigade), mother of actress Natasha Richardson (The Comfort of Strangers) and mother-in-law of Liam Neeson. A liaison with the piercingly blue-eyed Italian actor Franco Nero, who played Lancelot to her Guinevere in Camelot (1967), also produced a son, Carlo Gabriel Nero, who grew up to be – guess what? – a film director. Nominated six times for Oscars, Vanessa won in 1978 for her performance as the eponymous heroine Julia – but she’s even better remembered for her agitprop acceptance speech when she attracted boos by railing against ‘Zionist hoodlums’.
The Barrymores
Booze, drugs, broken marriages – and all that before she was out of her teens. But the escapades associated with Drew Barrymore ever since she became a star at the tender age of seven in ET may just be the consequence of rogue genes. She is but the latest in the line of a showbiz dynasty – great-niece of Ethel and Lionel Barrymore, granddaughter of John. It’s grandpa who would probably be most proud of her. One night, while drunk, John Barrymore accidentally went into the Ladies and proceeded to relieve his bladder in a potted plant. A woman standing nearby reminded him that the room was ‘for ladies exclusively’. Turning around, his penis still exposed, Barrymore responded, ‘So, madam, is this. But every now and again, I’m compelled to run a little water through it.’
When Barrymore died at 62 (of pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver), no one was harder hit by his passing than his pal Errol Flynn. One of Flynn’s drinking buddies, director Raoul Walsh, decided that Errol deserved a last moment with the dead film legend. Stealing Barrymore’s corpse from a mortuary, he drove to Flynn’s home and posed the body in the easy chair where he’d spent so many of his less-than-sober nights. Hiding, the drunken prankster waited for Flynn’s return… and was rewarded by a horrified scream as the inebriated Flynn stumbled in, turned on the lights, and found the dead Barrymore ‘waiting’ for him. And what did the mortician have to say when Walsh returned the corpse to the funeral parlour? ‘Gee, you should’ve told me you were taking him to Errol Flynn’s house – I’d have put a nicer suit on him.’
The Long Riders
In Ivan Reitman’s 1988 comedy of the same name, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito were memorably cast as Twins. But say you have two characters in a film who are supposed to be brothers, and you actually want them to have some kind of family resemblance. What’s better than casting actors who are actually brothers in real life? It’s hardly a unique idea, but no one has taken this approach further than director Walter Hill in his 1980 western The Long Riders. The legendary outlaw Jesse James and his brother Frank were played by James and Stacy Keach, while the other sets of brothers in their gang – three Youngers and two Millers – were played, respectively, by David, Keith and Robert Carradine and Dennis and Randy Quaid. Meanwhile, Jesse’s nemeses – Bob Ford, the ‘dirty little coward’ of popular legend who shot him in the back, and his brother Charlie – were played by Nicholas and Christopher Guest, the latter of whom went on to achieve screen immortality as Nigel Tufnel, the Spinal Tap guitarist whose amplifier goes up to 11.
Movie Idols, excerpt from Chapter 2, © John Wrathall & Mick Molloy 2005, All Rights Reserved
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