Goldie Hawn

Lore & Background

Hawn was born in Washington, D.C., to Laura (née Steinhoff), a jewellery shop/dance school owner, and Edward Rutledge Hawn, a musician and conductor who was a descendant of Edward Rutledge, the youngest signatory of the Declaration of Independence. She was named after her mother's aunt. She has one sister, entertainment publicist Patti Hawn; their brother, Edward Jr., died in infancy before Patti was conceived. Growing up, the girls were unaware of their deceased brother. Her father was a Presbyterian of German and English descent. Her mother was Jewish, the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Hawn was raised Jewish in Takoma Park, Maryland, and attended Montgomery Blair High School in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. Hawn began taking ballet and tap dance lessons at the age of three and danced in the corps de ballet of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo production of The Nutcracker in 1955. She made her stage debut in 1964, playing Juliet in a Virginia Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet. In 1964, Hawn ran and taught in a ballet school, having dropped out of American University where she was majoring in drama. She 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 and at the Peppermint Box in New Jersey.

Reader's Guide

Hawn rose to fame on the NBC sketch comedy program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1968–1970). She made her screen debut in a minor role in the western comedy The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), in which she co-starred with her future partner, Kurt Russell. She went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her comedic role in Cactus Flower (1969). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing a woman who enlists for the army in the comedy Private Benjamin (1980). As a singer, she released her debut self-titled album Goldie in 1972. Hawn has also starred in such comedy films as There's a Girl in My Soup (1970), Butterflies Are Free (1972), The Sugarland Express (1974), Shampoo (1975), Foul Play (1978), and Seems Like Old Times (1980). She later starred in Overboard (1987), Bird on a Wire (1990), Death Becomes Her, Housesitter (both 1992), The First Wives Club (1996), The Out-of-Towners (1999), and The Banger Sisters (2002). Hawn made her return to film with roles in Snatched (2017), The Christmas Chronicles (2018), and The Christmas Chronicles 2 (2020). Hawn is the mother of actors Oliver Hudson, Kate Hudson, and Wyatt Russell. She has been in a relationship with Kurt Russell since 1983. In 2003, she founded the Hawn Foundation, which educates underprivileged children.

Did You Know?

• Hawn danced in the corps de ballet of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo production of The Nutcracker in 1955.
• Her debut album Goldie was released in 1972.
• She has been in a relationship with Kurt Russell since 1983.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Goldie Jeanne Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is an American actress, producer, dancer and singer." — Goldie Hawn "Starting out as a dancer gave me an aspect of mindfulness that I didn’t even realise that I was getting…because to dance is to be aware of every piece of your body while you’re moving. It’s like a meditation unto itself." — Goldie Hawn "Women were my obvious focus…because it is not always easy having power and being female…That’s the way it was. It wasn’t that all men were terrible or that the situation was unbearable. It was a cultural problem." — Goldie Hawn