I was born in 1968 and grew up in my grandmother’s house in suburban Connecticut, where I was convinced a ghost named Virgil lived in the attic.
I grew up watching ‘Gigi.’ My grandmother had it, and I watched it there.
My dad was born in Chicago in 1908… his parents came from Russia. They settled in Chicago, where they lived in a little tiny grocery store with eight or nine children – in the backroom all together – and my grandmother got the idea to go into the movie business.
My grandmother had six kids – one died as an infant – and she was dirt-poor, and all her kids got an education. And my mom grew up poor. And they both worked so hard and cultivated so much of their own happiness. I wanted to have that like an amulet. Not like armor, but like a magic feather. Like Dumbo’s magic feather.
I’m passionate about making a difference in increasing the quality of life and survivorship for all affected by lung cancer, having lost my mother and grandmother to this terrible disease.
We had a cistern for water. My grandmother churned butter and made lye soap. She and my mother did the washing in a wash kettle outdoors, using a fire to heat the water. That’s the way they did the wash until the 1950s.
I blame my grandmother for encouraging me to become an actress.
My family was going back to England to visit my mother’s grandmother, who was very ill. We went up to Liverpool and I met my great-aunt, who was just a force of nature. She was an elocution teacher and a huge enthusiast for theater and the classics. I took her amateur acting class, and she was really impressed with me.
I seriously love to cook… My grandmother was an amazing cook. As a kid I used to help her make handmade pasta, Cavatelli and Ravioli. It was one of my favorite things to do. I love the idea of making whatever is in the fridge into something.
I was the oldest model in South Africa – I grew up in South Africa, but I was born in Canada – and then when I moved back to Canada, to Toronto, at 42, I was a grandmother doing front covers. I was the oldest model in Canada.
If a studio is going to offer me the opportunity to invite my mother and grandmother and all my friends to visit me free of charge in Thailand, I’m going to take that opportunity.
My parents didn’t have records, they didn’t have radios, and they didn’t listen to music. My grandmother was my main connection to art and music. She could play piano very well, and she had perfect pitch.
My grandmother always told me that regardless of what the world gives you, stay humble. Stay strong in your beliefs, and be honest. And when you’re wrong, be a man and say you’re wrong. And be strong when you’re right.
I grew up in a society with a very ancient and strong oral storytelling tradition. I was told stories, as a child, by my grandmother, and my father as well.
I’m actually the son of Mary Guibert. My mother was born in the Panama Canal zone and came to America when she was five with my grandmother and grandfather, and that was the family I knew. Everybody sang; everybody had songs all the time, and they loved music.
I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren’s hands.
For my grandmother’s generation, the big invention was cake mix; for our moms, it was the microwave, and for me, it’s the iPhone. And that’s enabled us to do so many different things more efficiently at home.
Playing with my grandfather, grandmother and my parents, I came to music pretty naturally.
I’ve always known that my father’s father and grandfather and grandmother were from Mexico. I’ve never denied it. I’ve always said it.
My whole family is spiritual. My grandmother, grand aunt, cousins, they’re all preachers and pastors. Spirituality is a part of my family, from generations ago.
I’ve been blessed with three wonderful careers: motion pictures and television, wife, mother and grandmother… and diplomatic services for the United States government.
Living with my grandmother in Bath, I sort of thought I was living in the 19th century. My grandmother was someone who, in a way, was rather defiantly trying to live a pre-World War I existence.
I have to feel like my grandmother was my first mix engineer.
My grandmother, she say I shouldn’t be playing. I should go to church. Fially, I say I’m going do this, I’m going do it. And she got where she didn’t bother me about it.
I remember going with my grandmother to the houses she cleaned when I was little, and I would have to stay down in the basement while she cleaned, and then we walked back home together.
For a child, it’s not so much scary, it’s surreal; there was a lot of fighting in my great-grandmother’s house; you’d go there and then someone would meet up and there’d be a fight; I’ve seen my uncles fight in the street, I’ve seen my grandmother fight in the street, it becomes normal.
I think when I became a grandmother my life changed a lot, and I think I changed personally.
My grandmother, when she was young, would’ve walked past shops where some folks had out a sign that said, ‘No Mexicans or dogs allowed.’
When you a ghetto star, when you a hood star, you gonna take care of your grandmother, your mother. When you on that next level, you gotta take care of the city, the streets.
Due to my genetic predisposition to certain cancers and having experienced the travails of my mom and grandmother in their battles against this awful disease, I wanted to use my platform to raise awareness and funds for crucial research for these below-the-belt cancers.
I grew up playing with kids from Hurt Village, playing with kids from other housing projects, Lamar Terrace, because my grandmother lived in that particular area. So, I always wondered how I would have turned out if I would have lived in that particular given circumstance.
I lived in the library with my grandmother as a child. I still love the smell of books; the library card is still my friend.
My mom had me at 16 and took me every place she went. I remember going on peace marches. She tried to take me to Woodstock – it was pouring rain. It was on my birthday, and I was crying so much in the car they turned the car around and dumped me at my grandmother’s house… I had a little attitude.
Now my grandmother, who used to want sons, says that she does not really want boys anymore. She says I’m the lion of the family.
I wasn’t happy at all as a child. I was very privileged and knew extraordinary people, but I felt very lonely: my mother thought I was extremely difficult and my grandmother was extremely severe.
I remember the words of my grandmother who died at 102. I remember my great mother, Grand Brika, who died at the age of 106. They talked to us all the time. And my grandmother even lied to me. She said there was royalty. She said that my great-great-great grandfather was the king of the outer Thembu.
My grandmother though, began to prepare in her own neurotic – and I think psychotic – way to face racism. So she taught us to be racist, which is something I had to undo later when I got to Michigan, you know.
I’m a believer, but an unsettled one. I think it has something to do with the fact that my grandmother always told me she would come back and tickle my feet at night time when she passed away. She hasn’t gotten me yet. But I keep the blanket over my feet at night, no matter how hot it is.
I originally got very interested in memory in high school when my grandmother came to live with us. She had been diagnosed with dementia. It was the first time I had heard the word ‘Alzheimer’s disease.’
Males and females are unique and different, because their brains are different. There’s not a limitation on girls. My grandmother was very strong, and so was my mother. She also knew what it meant to be a woman and wife and was very successful at it.
I’ve been a godmother loads of times, but being a grandmother is better than anything.
The word’s out: I’m a woman, and I’m going to have trouble backing off on that. I am what I am. I’ll go out and talk to people about what’s happening to their families, and when I do that, I’m a mother. I’m a grandmother.
I just think I’m blessed. I love the Lord Jesus Christ. I have a great grandmother that passed away at 104 and two grandparents that passed away at 97 and 95, and they never worried about protein. They just enjoyed life, and that’s what I’m doing.
My grandmother, in her retirement home, actually has a picture of me from ‘Star’ magazine on their fashion police list. I think that’s hilarious, but if Grandma approves, then I feel like I am all good.
My grandmother and father both had diabetes.
Joining the Grand Old Party seemed like a natural choice for someone like me who fled the Soviet Union as a boy and came to Los Angeles with his mother and grandmother in 1976.
My grandmother did all the cooking at Christmas. We ate fattened chicken. We would feed it even more so it would be big and fat.
My grandmother would give me a beautiful book each year. I especially loved the Beatrix Potter books. They were very detailed. And I promised myself that was what I’d do. I also loved the big words she used. I was excited because I knew what they meant from the context. I put a few big words in for just that reason.
My grandmother had a great saying. It always stuck with me: ‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’ They’ve got to see it and feel it. And it’s for real. And that’s all. Be who you are.
