Do you have any famous friends or family members?

[Danielle]

So... do you?

If so, how do you know them and what are they famous for?


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I have a distant cousin who is a moderately famous folk musician. His name is John Gracie (http://www.limelightgroup.com/default.asp?mn=1.3.34.1044.137) and he's my dad's second cousin. That's as good as it gets. LOL

[Mary]

I've got nothing here. LOL

[Shana]

I actually do :D

My brother was in a pretty semi successful Christian reggae band, Christafari.

You can see him on You Tube... In This Video ("Listening") (http://youtube.com/watch?v=4eA3PTJDOEs), he is the white guy WITHOUT the dreads:lmao My brother is VERY good looking... so yeah. He's the hot one :giggle

This one is called Valley of Decision (http://youtube.com/watch?v=sjWGKvEQI2U), and once again, he is the hot one, sitting on a chair backwards LOL

His name is Erik Sundin... he is still a singer/musician, but he's going to school to get his PA license, because let's face it. Christian Reggae? Not a terribly big market... he also has written award winning songs (Dove Awards) for Jaci Velasquez.

He's a very talented guy :D

[Kate]

If you want to play the really convoluted distan cousin thing, I'm related to an Australian ex-Prime Minister... Gough Whitlam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_Whitlam)

That is if you will accept that my aunt's husband is his wife's second cousin. So tenuous, but frankly, I don't care.

[Beka]

Not so much famous as entirely insane :giggle

My grandad's paternal grandmother was well known in our town as the woman who entered a lions cage, there's a story to it, so I shall tell!

When I was little we got asked to take in old family photos and tell the class about them- my nan produced this really, really old photo (we're talking the brown and white ones here) and it's a big victorian looking family group with a teeny newborn at the front on the oldest womans lap. My nan went on to tell me the baby boy (i was mortified as it was in a dress LOL) was indeed my grandad and the woman holding him was a his grandmother and they had the photo taken because this was her best (and only) silk shirt. They were really broke when my grandads dad had been tiny and the circus came to town- the circus man offered a solid gold watch to anyone brave enough to walk into the lions cage and apparently my great-great grandmother had had enough of not being able to feed people and didn't care much whether she lived or died so volanteered :eek LOL went in... survived standing with the lion for a photo, came out and discovered the gold watch was in fact a myth, they didn't have one to give away because no one had ever gone in with the lion before. According to family legend she accepted the white silk shirt she was pictured in and quite a bit of money to stay quiet, the shirt came out for high days and holidays and so when the eldest grandson (my grandad) was born in 1918 the whole family were photographed and the shirt was worn. It's a nice tale and according to my nan IS true as she researched alot of our family and found newspaper clippings about the woman and lion cage :giggle

So yes... my most famous relative was a mad woman.

On Davids side his grandad swears the name goes back to welsh royalty and there is some distant link to the famous suffragette Emily Wilding Davis but I've never looked into it- it's dent his grandads pride if someone unearthed it wasn't true.

[gr8mommy]

I was friends with Ian Ziering in college. We were in a production of Oklahoma! together--I played Laury, he was Dream Curly. It was right around the time he got the part on Guiding Light, and way before 90210. He was very, very sweet.

I also knew a bunch of professional musicians, not necessarily famous outside of the music world, I guess the biggest one would be John Pizzarelli (http://http://www.johnpizzarelli.com/go.php?id=5). I was a music major, and my college is quite near NYC with a world famous jazz dept., so there were lots who were pros.

[Jbird]

Well - this isn't much, but a friend of mine from college writes for Entertainment Weekly now, and he's been on commentator on a few of those VH1 montage shows ... not sure if that counts, but that's as good as I can do.
Oh - I met Orville Redenbacher once, before he died. I have his autograph somewhere. :)

[Jbird]

I just thought of another thing - not really famous, but my sister did a lot of modeling and acting back in the day - Adele Phares was her maiden name - she's on Coke machines all over the place, and she's done a few independent movies - she has her own imdb page, so that's gotta be something.

[Jo]

I thought everyone already knew that Patrick Dempsey is my older brother.

LOL Don't I wish...then I could be kept in the lifestyle in which I want to be accustomed to having.

In political circles my Dad's cousin and her husband were famous. He was a senator from Wisconsin and very close to George H W Bush. The elder Bush is their son's godfather and if the senator hadn't died suddenly of a heart attack, he would have been our vice president instead of Dan Quayle.

His wife, my Dad's actual cousin was head of the Postal Commission under Reagan and then he made her head of the Federal Trade Commission. She lasted a few years into the Clinton Era in that position. When she died 4 years ago, the Bush family(minus the president), Rumsfeld(ugh), Cheney(the reason the president wasn't there) and much of political Washington came to her funeral. I didn't go because Rai had just had brain surgery and I was due with Mira.

Their son is also on the rise politically and I wouldn't be surprised if he runs for office in Wisconsin in the next few years.


I was friends with Ian Ziering in college. We were in a production of Oklahoma! together--I played Laury, he was Dream Curly. It was right around the time he got the part on Guiding Light, and way before 90210. He was very, very sweet.

That is cool Denise! I remember when he joined Guiding Light. I was a huge fan of the show back then.

[Beka]

I just thought of another thing - not really famous, but my sister did a lot of modeling and acting back in the day - Adele Phares was her maiden name - she's on Coke machines all over the place, and she's done a few independent movies - she has her own imdb page, so that's gotta be something.

That is really cool- do you have the DVDs for when the kids are older?

And Jo- I am sooooo not awake today i thought "cool, I know who Patrick Dempsey is too" - ok, ok... I'm joining the back of the line for my stupid sticker LOL

[Danielle]

This is all very cool :D.

I just remembered as well that my friend's sister is in tons of commercials on both TV and billboards. I see her all the time.

Denise- soooo jealous! LOL

[Faith]

No one famous.

I do have lots of family that have worked in the entertainment industry. My aunt was a production assistant on lots of shows including Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman...she was an extra on the last show. Both my brother and a cousin worked at Dreamworks studios as couriers. Two of my younger cousins were in a couple of commercials when they were younger....they also have done voice over commercial work. I also have many family members that work in "adult entertainment." :giggle They aren't in the movies but in the production of them. :lmao

Oh and my grandma's house often seen on LA Ink. :giggle They film right around the block from my grandma's house in Hollywood and in shots of the front of the shop, you can often see my grandma's little red house with white trimmed windows. :giggle

[MathSpeak]

Well, they're not really "famous" but my cousins from Canada are dancers. The professional kind that you see in reggae/r&b videos WITH their clothes on. I've seen them perform, before and they're really good. The discipline it takes to get their bodies to look the way they do and do what they're able to is amazing. There's one cousin who was in that movie "Step Up"... but, that's the extent of our talent. LOL

[Renita]

My cousin is a PGA golfer (NB3 (http://www.notah.com/)). He was a senior in college at Stanford when Tiger Woods was a freshman. Too bad I haven't met Tiger yet....but a lot in my family have!

He is my cousin once removed? He & my mom are first cousins. Their mothers are sisters.

That's about it for family.

[Stacy]

No one in my family that I can think of.

Sonny is a distant cousin to Shannon Miller who won the gold medal in the olympics. Sonny's grandpa was her uncle. (dad's side of family) http://shannonmiller.com/

Sonny is also cousins with Jan Michael Vincent. He was Sonny's mom's cousin. http://janmichaelvincent.org/retry=a0db9a9f5eaf4c7a06611

I think there is one more but I can not think of it right now....

[Christi]

Yep. Eve Plumb, Jan on the Brady Brunch, is my first cousin once removed. Her dad and my grandfather were brothers. Her dad, Neely Plumb, produced several well known albums, such as the soundtracks for Sound of Music (you can see his name on the back of the CD in teeeeeniny print) and Mary Poppins, and the original recording of Multiplication Rock.

[Veronica]

I am friends with a family who were in politics and through them I met the man who is now our nations treasurer. I didn't socialise with him much but I did babysit his kids a fair bit and for meetings he held.

[Beka]

Christi David would be soooo jealous of anyone who worked on Mary Poppins (yes- my large hairy husband can sing & talk you through that, the sound of music and the wizard of oz from start to end LOL)

[Christi]

Christi David would be soooo jealous of anyone who worked on Mary Poppins (yes- my large hairy husband can sing & talk you through that, the sound of music and the wizard of oz from start to end LOL)

That cracks me up!! That is like my big federal probation officer bil whose favorite movie is Sound of Music! LOL

[Jejune]

Not at the moment. I've met or known a few famous folks in the past, but no one I'm related to is anyone you'd have heard of.

My best celebrity story is that the fellow who played Bull on Night Court, Richard Moll, was at a party I went to with my parents when I was in about sixth or seventh grade. I had a role in a local production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and someone said, "Oh, you should talk to Richard. He's an actor, and he's done a lot of Shakespeare." I didn't have a TV, and wouldn't have recognized him anyway, since he had a beard and hair, unlike his part on the show. I was too shy to approach a strange grown up, but he came up to me later and said he'd heard I was in a play. He helped me out with my lines, was a very nice conversationalist, and knew how to talk to kids without making them feel stupid. I used a lot of his advice when I was in the play. It was only well after the party that I found out who he was. And I thought that was the end of it, but several years later, I was at another party with the same group of people and Richard Moll came over and asked me how my play went. I thought it was pretty amazing and cool that he remembered that. So I am very pro-Richard Moll, as a result.

[Stacy]

Oh I missed the friends part. I was friends with Jesse Sapolu and some of his family for a few years. He was the center for the San Francisco 49ers.

[elin]

My godfather is a general in the Marines. He had the distinction of setting up the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

My cousins were babysat by Madonna when they were little. They have the cancelled checks with her signature to prove it. THey say she used to make them watch her perform.

[Tobye]

My husband has a distant relative that was a munchkin in The Wizard of Oz. He was a member of the Lollipop Guild, if anyone remembers that!

[Danielle]

OMG Tobye! That's so funny! Can you imagine how politically incorrect that movie would be today?

[Jenny]

nobody famous that is currently alive. My grandfather on my dad's side did win gold in the 1936 Olympics.

Josh's cousin was on Jenny Jones twice, LOL I don't know how famous that is