Kurt Russell has come a long way from his childhood spent frequently moving homes.
The Overboard actor, who most recently starred in The Madison, is originally from Springfield, Massachusetts, though his father Bing Russell, who was also an actor, and his mom Louise Julia, a dancer, eventually raised him in Los Angeles.
However, before settling in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood, the former child actor had quite a few alternative living situations.
Kurt, reflecting on his upbringing in conversation with The Wall Street Journal, recalled the time he lived in the attic of a family friend’s house in East Los Angeles. “Our family started out in Rangeley, Maine. We lived in a log cabin that my grandparents built in 1939. My dad played professional baseball in the minor leagues, until an injury forced him to stop.”
“After his injury, he went to Florida to watch spring training and wound up cast in a movie playing an umpire. He and my mom, Louise, packed us up and we took off for California. I was three or four. Dad was determined to become an actor,” he further shared.
Bing — who Kurt’s grandson via daughter Kate Hudson is nicknamed after — is best known for starring in Bonanza and The Magnificent Seven, plus in a slew of his son’s movies.
© Getty Images“For two years, we lived in the attic of a family friend’s house in East Los Angeles,” Kurt, who made his screen debut when he was around ten years old, added.
He also recalled spending his first paycheck, $110, on his sister, Jill. “I took my sister Jill down to the local bike shop and bought us two new Schwinn bikes. I called my father’s agent and said, ‘Count me in, I like this.'”
It was during Kurt’s child acting years that he met his future partner of over 40 years, Goldie Hawn, when in 1968 they appeared on the Disney movie musical The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, when she was 21 and he was 16.
© Getty Images for for Children’sThe couple have been together since 1984, and are parents to Boston Russell, Kurt’s son with ex-wife Season Hubley, Kate and Oliver Hudson, Oliver’s kids with ex-husband Bill Hudson, and Wyatt Russell, their only child together.
© FilmMagicGoldie and Kurt split their time between their Los Angeles home and a home in Aspen, and last year, their daughter-in-law Meredith Hagner, who shares two sons with Wyatt, shared what it’s like to have them as both grandparents to her kids and neighbors.
“They live down the road from us, so my son is like — that’s their second home,” she told Us Weekly, revealing: “They’ll have a cookie jar that’s always full, and my son knows where it is, and they have a toy box that is always brimming with toys.”
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