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Goldie Hawn

 
Who2 Biography: Goldie Hawn, Actor / Movie Producer
 
Goldie Hawn
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  • Born: 21 November 1945
  • Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
  • Best Known As: The star of the movie Private Benjamin

Goldie Hawn has been a Hollywood comedy star since her big hit in 1980, Private Benjamin. She started as a dancer, first in New York and then in Los Angeles. On the cast of TV's Laugh-In, the mod comedy show of the late 1960s, she flubbed jokes in a bikini and became one of the show's most popular co-stars. Hawn then proved the ding-a-ling act was just an act -- she won an Oscar for a supporting role in Cactus Flower (1969, with Walter Matthau) and turned in a solid performance in Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express (1974). She had one blockbuster, Private Benjamin, and has since had a steady career as a leading lady in hits and misses, often acting as her own producer. Her movies include Shampoo (1975, starring Warren Beatty), Death Becomes Her (1992, with Bruce Willis), The First Wives Club (1996, with Diane Keaton) and The Banger Sisters (2002, with Susan Sarandon). She is the longtime girlfriend of actor Kurt Russell and the mother of actress Kate Hudson.

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Actor: Goldie Hawn
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  • Born: Nov 21, 1945 in Washington, District Of Columbia
  • Occupation: Actor, Director
  • Active: '70s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Comedy Drama
  • Career Highlights: The Sugarland Express, Cactus Flower, Seems Like Old Times
  • First Major Screen Credit: Cactus Flower (1969)

Biography

A goggle-eyed, ditzy blonde, Goldie Hawn's looks alone make her a natural for the kind of breathless comedy in which she originally made her name. Though she has built a lucrative career with her screen persona of a vivacious, giggly, and befuddled naif, Hawn's onscreen antics conceal her real-life level-headedness: Beneath the wide expanse of her blue eyes lies a shrewd, intelligent, and multi-talented woman.

Born the daughter of a musician in Washington, D.C., Hawn grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in suburban Maryland. At the age of three, she took her first dance lesson, and by the age of 17, she was managing a dance studio while studying drama at American University. In 1964, she danced professionally at the Texas Pavilion of the New York World's Fair, and then began appearing in chorus lines in such musicals as Kiss Me Kate, Guys and Dolls, and The Boyfriend. She eventually moved to California, where her first break came when an agent saw her dancing on the Andy Griffith Show and cast her in Good Morning World, a short-lived comedy series. From there she was cast as a dancer in an innovative comedy-variety show hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. It was on Laugh-In (1968-1970) that Hawn became popular. Originally a dancer on the show, her bikini-clad body painted with funny slogans and designs, she was given a few lines and proved herself a talented performer in a winning, air-headed way.

Hawn made her first foray into feature films as a dancer in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968). Her acting debut came a year later playing Walter Matthau's ditzy, bohemian mistress in Cactus Flower (1969); she won an Oscar for her role, making it an inarguably auspicious debut. Later that year she appeared opposite Peter Sellers in There's a Girl in My Soup. These first two films and the subsequent Dollars (1971) utilized Hawn's "blonde" persona, but in 1972, she hinted that she concealed more than a talent for perkiness and comedy when she played a young woman who helps her blind lover deal with his past in Butterflies Are Free. Hawn showed even more depth as a wife who springs her husband from jail in hopes of keeping her child in Sugarland Express, Steven Spielberg's 1973 feature-film directorial debut. Two years later, she starred as Warren Beatty's girlfriend in Shampoo, further exhibiting her capacity as both a comedic and dramatic actress.

Subsequently, Hawn continued to work steadily throughout the '80s and '90s, appearing in films of widely varying quality. Some highlights include the successful Private Benjamin (1980), for which Hawn earned her second Best Actress Oscar nomination, Seems Like Old Times (1982), and The First Wives Club (1996), in which she co-starred with Diane Keaton and Bette Midler. Hawn has two children by her second husband, comedian Bill Hudson, and one by her companion since 1986, actor Kurt Russell. She and Russell met on the set of Swing Shift (1984) and have since starred together in such films as Overboard (1987). Following daughter Kate Hudson's success in the wake of Almost Famous (2000), Hawn hit the big screen again in the notorious box-office bomb Town and Country (2001). Though that film did little to re-ignite her appeal as a box office draw, her turn as a free spirited former groupie in the following year's The Banger Sisters drew favorable reviews from critics and audiences and proved a solid indicator that the talented comic actress still had what it takes to bring in the laughs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
 
Spotlight: Goldie Hawn
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From our Archives: Today's Highlights, November 21, 2005

Happy 60th birthday to actress Goldie Hawn! The youthful actress/producer can now add "author" to her resumé; she recently came out with her memoirs, A Lotus Grows in the Mud. Her break-out role was as a giggly, ditsy blonde on NBC's Laugh-In. In 1969, Hawn received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Cactus Flower. In 1997, she became the first actress to be honored by the American MoMI, and was named Hasty Pudding's Woman of the Year in 1999. Hawn is the longtime partner of actor Kurt Russell.
 
Quotes By: Goldie Hawn
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Quotes:

"There are only three ages for women in Hollywood--Babe, District Attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy."

"I'm a woman who was raised to believe that you are not complete unless you have a man. Well, in some ways it's true. I am a feminist to a point. But I'm not going to deny the fact that I love to be with men."

 
Wikipedia: Goldie Hawn
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Goldie Hawn

Hawn at the 61st Academy Awards, 1989
Born Goldie Jean Hawn
November 21, 1945 (1945-11-21) (age 63)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Occupation Actress, producer, director
Years active 1967–present
Spouse(s) Gus Trikonis (1969–1976)
Bill Hudson (1976–1980)
Domestic partner(s) Kurt Russell (1983–present)

Goldie Jean Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is an American actress, film director and producer, known for her 'ditzy blonde' persona in a several comedies.[1]

Contents

Early life

Hawn was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Laura (née Steinhoff), a jewelry shop/dance school owner, and Edward Rutledge Hawn, a band musician who played at major events in Washington. She was named after her mother's aunt.[1] She has a sister, Patricia; a brother, Edward, died before she was born. Through her father, Hawn is a direct descendant of Edward Rutledge, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.[1] Hawn was raised in Takoma Park, Maryland. Her father was Presbyterian and her mother was Jewish, the daughter of immigrants from Hungary;[2] Hawn was raised in Judaism.[3][4][1]

Hawn began taking ballet and tap dance lessons at the age of three, and danced in the chorus of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo production of The Nutcracker in 1955. She made her stage debut in 1961, playing Juliet in a Virginia Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet. By 1964, she ran and instructed a ballet school, having dropped out of American University, where she was majoring in drama. In 1964, Hawn, who graduated from Montgomery Blair High School (class of 1963), made her professional dancing debut in a production of Can-Can at the Texas Pavilion of the New York World's Fair. She began working as a professional dancer a year later, and appeared as a go-go dancer in New York City.[1]

Career

1960s

Hawn began her acting career as a cast member of the short-lived situation comedy Good Morning, World during the 1967-1968 television season, her role being that of the girlfriend of a radio disc jockey, with a stereotypical "dumb blonde" personality.[1] Her next role, which brought her to international attention, was as one of the regular cast members on the 1960s sketch comedy show, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. On the show, she would often break out into high-pitched giggles in the middle of a joke, and deliver a polished performance a moment after. Noted equally for her chipper attitude as for her bikini and painted body, Hawn personified something of a 1960s "It" girl. Her persona was later parlayed into three popular film appearances in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Cactus Flower, There's a Girl in My Soup and Butterflies Are Free.

Hawn made her feature film debut in the 1968 The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (she was billed as Goldie Jeanne) in a bit role as a giggling dancer. Hawn won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Cactus Flower (1969), which was her first supporting role and which co-starred Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman.[1]

1970s

After Hawn's Academy Award win, her film career took off. She starred in a string of above average and successful comedies starting with There's a Girl in My Soup (1970), $ (1971), Butterflies Are Free (1972) and Shampoo (1975) as well as proving herself in the dramatic league with the satirical dramas The Girl from Petrovka and The Sugarland Express both in 1974. She also hosted two television specials: Pure Goldie in 1971 and The Goldie Hawn Special in 1978. The latter was a sort of comeback for Hawn, who had been out of the spotlight for two years since the 1976 release of The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox, while she was focusing on her marriage and the birth of her son. On the special she performed show tunes and comedy bits alongside comic legend George Burns, teen matinee idol Shaun Cassidy, popular television star John Ritter (during his days on Three's Company) and even the Harlem Globetrotters joined her for a montage. The special later went on to be nominated for a prime-time Emmy. This came four months before the feature film release of Foul Play (with Chevy Chase), which became a box office smash and revived Hawn's career in the film industry. The plot centred around an innocent woman in San Francisco who becomes mixed up in a murder plot. The film was noted for its use of "Hitchcock plagiarism" in that the plot was very similar to some of the late director's murder classics. Hawn's next film, Mario Monicelli's Lovers and Liars (1979), was a box office bomb.

1980s

Hawn's popularity continued into the 1980s, starting with Private Benjamin (1980), a comedy which not only starred Hawn but was also her foray into producing. Private Benjamin, which also starred Eileen Brennan and Armand Assante, garnered Hawn her second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actress.[1] Hawn's box office success continued with an assortment of pictures, including comedies like Seems Like Old Times (1980), Protocol (1984) and Wildcats (1986) (Hawn also served as executive producer on the latter two) and dramas like Best Friends (1982) and Swing Shift (1984).

At the age of thirty-nine, Hawn posed for the cover of Playboy's January 1985 issue, which went on to be one of their highest selling issues. Hawn posed in a giant martini glass wearing nothing but a white collar shirt, a loosened black tie, and a pair of red stilettos. The headline read: "A SPARKLING PLAYBOY INTERVIEW WITH GOLDIE HAWN". Her last film of the 1980s was opposite partner Kurt Russell (for the third time) in the 1987 comedy Overboard, a critical and box office disappointment which questioned the likability and bankability of the two paired together onscreen.[citation needed]

1990s

Hawn's career slowed down after 1987, but was revived somewhat in 1990 with the action comedy Bird on a Wire, a critically panned but commercially successful picture that paired Hawn with action favorite Mel Gibson. Hawn had mixed success in the early 1990s, with the thriller Deceived (1991) and the drama CrissCross (1992). But her role opposite Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep in 1992's film Death Becomes Her garnered her much attention.[citation needed] Earlier that year, she starred in HouseSitter (1992), a screwball comedy with Steve Martin, which was a commercial and critical success. Hawn was absent from the screen again for four years, while caring for her mother who died of cancer in 1994.[1] Hawn made her entry back into the film business with producing the satirical comedy Something to Talk About starring Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid, as well as making her foray into directing with the television film Hope (1997) starring Christine Lahti and Jena Malone.[1]

Hawn returned to the screen again in 1996 as the aging, alcoholic actress Elise Elliot in the financially and critically successful The First Wives Club, opposite Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, with whom she covered the Lesley Gore hit "You Don't Own Me" for the film's soundtrack. Hawn also performed a cover version of the Beatles' song, "A Hard Day's Night", on George Martin's 1998 album, In My Life. She continued her tenure in the '90s with Woody Allen's musical Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and reuniting with Steve Martin for the comedy The Out-of-Towners (1999), a remake of the 1970 Neil Simon hit. The film was critically panned and was not successful at the box office.[citation needed]

2000s

Hawn in The Banger Sisters (2002).

In 2001, Hawn was reunited with former co-stars Warren Beatty (her co-star in $ and Shampoo) and Diane Keaton for the comedy Town & Country, a critical and financial fiasco. Budgeted at an estimated US$90 million, the film opened to little notice and grossed only $7 million in its North American theatrical run. As of 2009, her last film appearance was in The Banger Sisters (2002), opposite Susan Sarandon and Geoffrey Rush.

In 2005, Hawn's autobiography, A Lotus Grows in the Mud, was published. Hawn has said that the book is not a Hollywood tell-all, but rather a memoir and record of what she has learned in her life so far. Hawn announced in an interview with AARP's magazine that her next film project would be called Ashes to Ashes and co-star her partner Kurt Russell. The film is about a New York widow who loses her late husband's ashes in India.[5]

Personal life

Relationships and family

Hawn's first husband was dancer (later director) Gus Trikonis, who appeared as a Shark in West Side Story; his sister Gina played Graciella, Riff's girlfriend. Her second husband was Bill Hudson, of the Hudson Brothers, but the two divorced in 1980. They have two children, Oliver Hudson (born 1976) and Kate Hudson (born 1979), both of whom are now actors.

Hawn has been in a relationship with actor Kurt Russell since 1983, when the two met again on the set of Swing Shift (they had previously met while filming 1968's The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band). The couple have a son, Wyatt Russell (born July 10, 1986), who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Hawn is stepmother to Kurt Russell's son Boston and she became a grandmother on January 7, 2004, when her daughter, Kate Hudson, gave birth to son Ryder Russell Robinson. Hawn became a grandmother for a second time when her son, Oliver Hudson and his wife, actress Erinn Bartlett had a son Wilder Brooks Hudson, on August 23, 2007.

Religion

Hawn became involved in Eastern philosophy in 1972. She is a practising Buddhist and has raised her children in both Buddhist and Jewish traditions. She stated on the Larry King Show that she is a Jewish Buddhist, but neither more Jewish nor more Buddhist;[6] in interviews, she also detailed that she never had to forsake her Jewish heritage to embrace Buddhism[3] and that her Jewish religion and heritage come before Buddhism.[7] Hawn travels to India annually, and has visited Israel, stating that she felt a strong identification with its people.[3] She has been criticized, by pro-Palestinians, for lending out her support for Israel and for the Jewish National Fund.[8] In 1997, she was one of a number of Hollywood stars and executives to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany.[9]

Hawn founded and funds the Goldie Hawn Institute, formerly called the Bright Lights Foundation. The institute teaches the Buddhist technique of mindfulness training; where fourth through seventh graders are instructed in mindful awareness techniques and positive thinking skills, then tested for changes in behavior, social and emotional competence, and moral development. One school official reports that in one classroom, the children went from having the most behavioral problems, to having zero behavioral problems.

Hawn realizes that many parents oppose bringing Buddhist methods into public schools, and recently stated in Greater Good magazine, published by Greater Good Science Center: "There will always be people who see this as scary, or as some kind of Eastern philosophy that they don't want for their kids." Hawn adds, "Mindfulness gives kids a tool for understanding how their brain works, for having more self-control".

Filmography

Year Film Role Other notes
1968 The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band Giggly Girl Credited as Goldie Jeanne.
1969 Cactus Flower Toni Simmons Academy Award - Best Supporting Actress Oscar
1970 There's a Girl in My Soup Marion
1971 $ Dawn Divine aka Dollars
1972 Butterflies Are Free Jill Tanner
1974 The Sugarland Express Lou Jean Poplin
The Girl from Petrovka Oktyabrina
1975 Shampoo Jill
1976 The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox Amanda Quaid/Duchess Swansbury
1978 Foul Play Gloria Mundy
1979 Lovers and Liars Anita
1980 Private Benjamin Pvt. Judy Benjamin/Goodman Academy Award nomination - Best Actress
Seems Like Old Times Glenda Gardenia Parks
1982 Best Friends Paula McCullen
1984 Swing Shift Kay Walsh
Protocol Sunny Davis
1986 Wildcats Molly McGrath
1987 Overboard Joanna Stayton/Annie Proffitt
1990 Bird on a Wire Marianne Graves
1991 Deceived Adrienne Saunders
1992 CrissCross Tracy Cross
HouseSitter Gwen Phillips
Death Becomes Her Helen Sharp
1996 The First Wives Club Elise Elliot
Everyone Says I Love You Steffi Dandridge
1999 The Out-of-Towners Nancy Clark
2001 Town & Country Mona Miller
2002 The Banger Sisters Suzette
2009 Ashes To Ashes Hawn's first film as director

References

External links

Interviews



 
 

 

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Mentioned in

From Today's Highlights
November 21, 2005

There are only three ages for women in Hollywood – Babe, District Attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy.
- Goldie Hawn

See more quotes