Actors who are only children

Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla, California. His father was a druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the movies every week and of his dog...

Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. Her parents were middle-class, with her father working as a salesman and her mother as a secretary. They divorced when she was five. When she was a school girl, Lauren originally wanted to be a dancer, but later, she became enthralled with acting...

Leonardo DiCaprio is an American-born actor whose portrayal of doomed suitor Jack Dawson in Titanic made him a generation's definition of a heartthrob. Throughout his career, DiCaprio has demonstrated a high level of dramatic versatility, from his breakout film role as a mentally-challenged teenager in What's Eating Gilbert Grape...

Idris Elba is an English television, theatre, and film actor. He was born an only child and grew up in London. His father is from Sierra Leone and worked at a Ford car factory. His mother is from Ghana and did clerical work. Idris went to school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting...

Janet Leigh's real name was Jeanette Morrison. She was the only child of a couple who often moved from town to town. Living in apartments, Jeanette was a bright child who skipped several grades and finished high school when she was 15. A lonely child, she would spend much of her time at movie theaters...

An only child, Emmanuelle was born Paulette Germaine Riva in Cheniménil, but eventually grew up in Remiremont. Since she was 6, she dreamed of becoming an actress, so that the entire world would take notice of her. This ambition was, however, to be met with firm opposition from her own family. Emmanuelle's father Alfredo...

Celeste Holm was an only child, born into a home where her mother was a painter and her father worked in insurance. She would study acting at the University of Chicago and make her stage debut in 1936. Her Broadway debut came when she was 19. She appeared in many successful plays, including "The Women"...

Samuel L. Jackson usually played bad guys and drug addicts before becoming an action hero, as the character Mitch Henessey, in The Long Kiss Goodnight and in Die Hard: With a Vengeance. From character player to leading man. His performance in Pulp Fiction gave him an Oscar nomination for his character Jules Winnfield...

Robert De Niro, who is thought of as one of the greatest actors of his time, was born in New York City in 1943 to two artists. He was trained at the Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop. He first gained fame for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly, but he gained his reputation as a volatile actor in Mean Streets...

Jack Lemmon's father was the president of a doughnut company. Jack attended Ward Elementary near his Newton, MA home. At age 9 he was sent to Rivers Country Day School, then located in nearby Brookline. After RCDS, he went to high school at Phillips Andover Academy. Jack was a member of the Harvard class of 1947...

"Want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing". If you had not heard of Brooke Shields before, this tagline from her Calvin Klein Jeans ad had to grab your attention. Not that she had not had a previously noteworthy resume. She was born on May 31, 1965 in New York City and, at age 12...

Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant," Grant is said to have replied, "So would I." His early years in Bristol, England, would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort...

Anthony Hopkins was born on 31 December 1937, in Margam, Wales. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, he moved to London and joined the National Theatre, invited by Laurence Olivier, who could see the talent in Hopkins. In 1967, he made his first film for television, A Flea in Her Ear...

Vivian Mary Hartley was born on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, a strange place for one of the world's most celebrated actresses to be born. She was to live in this beautiful country for the next six years. Her parents wanted to go home to England but because of World War I they opted to stay in India...

The son of Hungarian-born photographer Sylvia Plachy and retired history professor Elliot Brody, Adrien Brody grew up an only child in the Woodhaven section of Queens, New York, where he accompanied his mother on assignments for the Village Voice. He credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the camera...