My family was very supportive of whatever I wanted because my grandfather was an opera singer. My dad's dad. So my dad has an appreciation for the arts and he let me choose my own path.
We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made his own products. We made our own sausages our own meatloafs our own pickles. Dad had to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business.
The people on my mum's side of the family are atheist intellectuals who are ueber-proper. My dad's side of the family are missionaries who are more comfortable sitting around in sweatpants than they are in a five-star restaurant. But those two influences converged in my life.
Work ethic has always been stressed in my family. My dad is going to be 80 years old and he still works part time. My mom just retired a couple years ago and she's in her mid- to late 70s.
I wanted to travel with my dad to be close to him again. Having babies and raising my own family took so much of my time I didn't have a chance to be with him very often.
My dad was a singer in a band and neither of my parents went to college and I ended up getting into Harvard and was the first person in my family that went to college and it happened to be Harvard.
It was sort of just a family sport. My mom and dad were pretty keen golfers when I was young and so were my grandparents and I just sort of tagged along with them.
It would be nice if I did have a good relationship with my family and yes part of me longs to have a mum and dad who love and accept me for who I am. But if they never do it's OK.
My mother is Italian and my dad's Irish. In my family we're expressive. Nobody holds back.
Being an only child I didn't have any other family but my mom and dad really since the rest of my family lived quite far away from London.
We sat together as a family for dinner at night. And my mother had a job. My dad had a job. But there was always a meal on the table at 6:00 you know.
I was a sickly baby and after two sets of adoptive parents took me home they returned me to the orphanage because of a serious respiratory infection. But as they say the third time's a charm because my mom and dad adopted me and took me into their home where I was raised in a family full of love.
Whenever I'm in theatre situations I will go out of my way not to talk about my father but in the film world I can be really proud of my family and say 'You know what: my dad's a really really famous theatre director ' because nobody has any idea.
My first memory of the Rolling Stones is listening to 'Satisfaction' at a sixth-grade slumber party at a friend's house in Ankara Turkey where my family was living at the time. In the middle of our sleepover my friend's dad stopped the record when he heard the words 'girlie action!'
Playing music has always felt very natural. You know you do try to do other things and you do learn lessons that way but eventually - well... if your dad is a plumber you become a plumber. It's the family business and I felt like I was taking over the family business.
I did rebel. I was the rebel in my family because my dad wanted me to go and just travel with him.
I found myself very lost after 'The Partridge Family ' and I lost my dad and I lost my manager and I lived in a bubble and it took me 15 years to get through that and a lot of psychotherapy and I'm laughing about it now!
My parents are very hard working people who did everything they could for their children. I have two brothers and they worked dog hard to give us an education and provide us with the most comfortable life possible. My dad provided for his family daily. So yes that is definitely in my DNA.
I didn't want to travel. I didn't want to leave my family. I heard all these stories from Dad about not having Edward around when he was young and I didn't want that to happen.
I think he would have been proud and smiling... when we laid him to rest because his family was together. I think that was a great gift to be able to give Dad at the end.
My dad's sense of humor was direct and sometimes surreal - his quick wit is well known amongst our family and friends. He raised me on Spike Jones records and W.C. Fields movies and his sense of humor fell somewhere in between.
My dad is a very quick-witted sarcastic dry humorous guy whereas my mom's very silly and that side of the family is very musical.
I've got a really great family round me two sisters and an older brother and my mum and dad. Everybody's equal.
OK so my parents were married in 1955 and my mom knew my dad was gay and my dad knew he was gay and so I was like 'Why in the heck did you get married?' Like what was going on? What was that time? It's like this crazy paradox that my whole life is based on or my family's based on. So I spent a lot of time trying to understand '55.