Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow (/ˈpæltroʊ/ PAL-troh; born September 27, 1972) is an American actress and businesswoman. The daughter of filmmaker Bruce Paltrow and actress Blythe Danner, she established herself as a leading lady appearing in mainly mid-budget and period films during the 1990s and early 2000s, before transitioning to blockbusters and franchises. She the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow Martin[1]
Gwyneth Paltrow Falchuk
- Actress
- businesswoman
1989–present
2
- Jake Paltrow (brother)
- Harry Danner (uncle)
- Katherine Moennig (half-cousin)
- Rebekah Neumann (cousin)
- Gabby Giffords (second cousin)
Paltrow gained notice for her early work in films such as Seven (1995), Emma (1996), Sliding Doors (1998), and A Perfect Murder (1998). She garnered wider acclaim for her role as Viola de Lesseps in the historical romance Shakespeare in Love (1998) which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. This was followed by roles in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and Shallow Hal (2001). She made her West End debut in the David Auburn play Proof (2003) earning a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress nomination, and reprised the role in the 2005 film of the same name.
After becoming a parent in 2004, Paltrow reduced her acting workload making intermittent appearances in films such as Two Lovers (2008), Country Strong (2010), and Contagion (2011). Paltrow's career revived through her portrayal of Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe from Iron Man (2008) to Avengers: Endgame (2019). On television, she had a recurring guest role as Holly Holliday on the Fox musical television series Glee (2010–2011) for which she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. After starring in the Netflix series The Politician (2019–2020), she took a break from acting.
In 2005 Paltrow became a "face" of Estée Lauder Companies;[2] she was previously the face of the American fashion brand Coach.[3] She is the founder and CEO of the lifestyle company Goop, which has been criticized for promoting pseudoscience, and has written several cookbooks. She received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for the Brown Bear and Friends (2009). She hosted the documentary series The Goop Lab for Netflix in 2020.
Early life
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born on September 27, 1972, in Los Angeles, to actress Blythe Danner and film producer-director Bruce Paltrow.[4] She has a younger brother, Jake, who is a director and screenwriter.[5] Paltrow's father was Jewish,[6] while her mother is Christian.[7] She was raised celebrating "both Jewish and Christian holidays."[8] Her brother had a traditional Bar Mitzvah when he turned 13.[9][10] Her father's Ashkenazi Jewish family emigrated from Belarus and Poland,[11][12][13][14] while her mother has Pennsylvania Dutch (German) as well as some Irish and English ancestry.[15][16][17] Paltrow's paternal great-great-grandfather was a Rabbi in Nowogród, Poland, and a descendant of the well-known Paltrowicz family of rabbis from Kraków.[18][19]
Paltrow is a half-cousin of actress Katherine Moennig, through her mother, and a second cousin of former U.S. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (AZ-08) through her father.[20] Through Giffords, she is a second-cousin-in-law of U.S. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. Her godfather is director Steven Spielberg.[21][22] Her uncle is opera singer and actor Harry Danner, whose daughter, actress Hillary Danner,[23] is Paltrow's cousin and close friend. Paltrow recalls their family gatherings: "Hillary and I always had this in common, and to this day ... cooking for people we love, eating, hanging out as a family. It's how we were raised. It's what we do."[24] Another cousin is Rebekah Paltrow Neumann, whose spouse is the Israeli-American billionaire Adam Neumann, founder of WeWork.
Paltrow was raised in Santa Monica, California, where she attended Crossroads School, before enrolling in the Spence School, an all-girls private school in Manhattan.[25] Later, she studied art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before dropping out to act.[26] She is an "adopted daughter" of Talavera de la Reina (Spain), where at 15, she spent a year as an exchange student and learned to speak Spanish.[27][28][29] She is also conversant in French, as her family frequently traveled to the South of France throughout her childhood.[30]
Career
1989–1995: Early work
Her career beginnings can be credited to her acting family, as her acting debut was in High (1989), a TV film her father directed, and after spending several summers watching her mother perform at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, Paltrow made her professional stage debut there in 1990.[31] Her film debut followed with the musical romance film Shout (1991), starring John Travolta, and she was cast by her godfather Steven Spielberg in the commercially successful adventure feature Hook (1991) as the young Wendy Darling.[31] Paltrow's next roles were in the made-for-television movies Cruel Doubt (1992) and Deadly Relations (1993).
Her first plum feature film role was in the noir drama Flesh and Bone (1993) as the much-younger girlfriend of James Caan. Janet Maslin of The New York Times described Paltrow as a scene-stealer "who is Blythe Danner's daughter and has her mother's way of making a camera fall in love with her."[32]
In 1995, she starred in the thriller Se7en, as the wife of a young detective (Brad Pitt), who is partnered with the retiring William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and then tasked with tracking down a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as tropes in his murders. The seventh highest grossing film of the year,[33] Se7en (also known as Seven) earned her a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in Moonlight and Valentino, as a grieving chain-smoker, and in Jefferson in Paris, portraying Martha Jefferson Randolph.[34][35]
1996–2001: Breakthrough and film stardom
In 1996, Paltrow played the title character in the period film adaptation Emma, based on the 1815 novel of the same name by Jane Austen. Director Douglas McGrath decided to bring in Paltrow to audition for the part of Emma Woodhouse, after a suggestion from his agent and after seeing her performance in Flesh and Bone.[36] On his decision to cast the actress, McGrath revealed: "The thing that actually sold me on her playing a young English girl was that she did a perfect Texas accent. I know that wouldn't recommend her to most people ... I knew she had theater training, so she could carry herself. We had many actresses, big and small, who wanted to play this part. The minute she started the read-through, the very first line, I thought, 'Everything is going to be fine; she's going to be brilliant.'"[36] While she recovered from wisdom-tooth surgery, Paltrow had a month to herself to do her own research for the part;[37] she studied horsemanship, dancing, singing, archery and the "highly stylized" manners and dialect during a 3-week rehearsal period.[37] The film was released to critical acclaim and commercial success through arthouse cinemas.[38] Variety proclaimed: "Gwyneth Paltrow shines brightly as Jane Austen's most endearing character, the disastrously self-assured matchmaker Emma Woodhouse. A fine cast, speedy pacing, and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes."[39] Paltrow starred in the crime film Hard Eight.[40]
1998 marked a turning point in Paltrow's career as she took on leading roles in five high-profile film releases in the year—Great Expectations, Sliding Doors, Hush, A Perfect Murder and Shakespeare in Love. In the adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, also starring Ethan Hawke, Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft and Chris Cooper, she played the unrequited and haughty childhood love of a New York City painter. The British drama Sliding Doors saw her star as a woman whose life could take two central paths depending on whether or not she catches a train, causing different outcomes. Great Expectations and Sliding Doors both grossed over $55 million worldwide.[41][42] Paltrow starred opposite Jessica Lange in the thriller Hush, as an unsuspecting woman living with her psychotic mother-in-law. The film made $13.5 million domestically and was generally panned by critics.[43][44] In another thriller, A Perfect Murder, inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film, Dial M for Murder, Paltrow starred alongside Michael Douglas, playing Emily Taylor, who was based on Grace Kelly's character from the original film. Despite a mixed critical response towards A Perfect Murder, the film grossed $128 million globally.[45] She was also considered for the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater in the 1997 film Titanic.[46]
Other ventures
Philanthropy and politics
Paltrow is a Save the Children artist ambassador, raising awareness about World Pneumonia Day.[111] She is on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization that works to alleviate poverty in New York City.[112] In October 2014, she hosted a Democratic fundraiser attended by President Barack Obama at her private residence in Los Angeles.[113]
In May 2019, Paltrow and actor Bradley Whitford hosted a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg.[114]
In April 2020, Paltrow, along with other celebrities, discussed the COVID-19 pandemic with Dr. Anthony Fauci on a one-hour-long zoom call. Fauci hoped the celebrities would use their social media "megaphones" to encourage proper precautions among their followers.[115][116]
Audiobooks
In 2009, Paltrow narrated the audiobook The Brown Bear & Friends by Bill Martin Jr., the first of a series of children's audiobooks that she narrated. The Brown Bear & Friends earned Paltrow a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Children.[117] Since, she has also narrated Bill Martin's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?, Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?, and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?.[118]