FATHER’S Day. Nice. Everyone should have a father. I’m told they’re nice things to have.
I wouldn’t know. I had two, but neither played a role in my life. The biological one, a dentist, Mom got rid of when I was 2, and I never saw him until she reintroduced us just because she was smart and thought I should know of his existence, when I was 12.
I wasn’t pretty when he met me. He was totally disinterested, and neither he nor his family bothered to reach out until I became better known than he certainly was. Mother’s kindly second husband, an insurance man, was loving and raised me — but since my mom was such a powerful influence, he never really played a part.
OK, so, anyone know that many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented and ruled to be “Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden,” hence Dad’s favorite game, golf, entered the English language . . . and does anyone know which day, historically, has had more collect calls than any other in the whole year? Father’s Day.
Julian Lennon on his father, John Lennon: “Knowing his insecurities, I think he might not have liked me doing well. That was one of his problems.” . . . Freddie Prinze Jr.: “I wish my father’s name would have done more for me. It got me in a few doors and had people see me out of respect and sympathy, but that was it.” . . . Bob Dylan‘s kid Jakob Dylan: “Funny about family traditions. If I was to hire a plumber, I’d want the guy whose family’s been doing it 100 years, because he’d probably know something. But when it’s art and music, people get angry with you for having the nerve to do it, too.”
Rachel Weisz: “My father invented thousands of things — a metal detector which clears a safety path for land mines, an artificial respirator, a milking machine so humans needn’t milk cows by hand, valves that open speed-train doors. I am very proud of him.” . . . Chastity Bono: “My dad encouraged my tomboyishness, but my mother constantly criticized my baggy shirts and boy’s sneakers.” . . . Phil Spector‘s father committed suicide when Phil was 9.
Tonya Flynt: “My father, Larry Flynt, doesn’t care about freedom of speech. He cares only about making millions out of sexually exploiting women and children. Pornography and prostitution turned his heart stone cold.” . . . Keanu Reeves: “My father, Samuel Reeves, was sentenced in 1994 to 10 years for cocaine possession. A lot of who I am is a reaction against his actions.” . . . Minnie Driver: “My father, Ronald, owned restaurants, invested in films and was director of an insurance company. When I was in drama school at 19, our once-sizable family fortune was lost. He went bankrupt. I became a waitress.”
Al Gore: “In terms of political rap, my name basically is ‘Stiff Daddy.’ ”
Burt Reynolds‘ dad, also named Burt, was Riviera Beach, Fla.’s chief of police . . . Eric Clapton was born illegitimate to a 16-year-old mum with a Canadian soldier whom he never met and who sang in bars and who died after four marriages and a clutch of half-brothers and sisters . . . Jenny McCarthy: “I didn’t have a great childhood. I was a bed-wetter. It came from my father’s drinking. He never hit us, but when he’d come home drunk and yelling, it scared us all.”
Christina Ricci‘s dad, a primal-scream therapist, saw patients in the basement of their Jersey home. “An air vent went from the basement into my room. I heard everything. I’d go to bed, and shrieking would go until 9:30. He worked with couples, so I heard a lot of, ‘You f- – -ing bitch.’ ” . . . Drew Barrymore: “When I was a kid, my dad [John Barrymore] said, ‘You have to understand, I can’t be a father.’ He did not want a child.” . . . Art Garfunkel, the middle of three boys brought up in Brooklyn and Queens, was the son of a traveling salesman.
Val Kilmer: “My father was raised on Zuni land, which infected me with this sense of romance. His stories of being raised with the Indians was romantic Wild West, like he was carried away by an eagle, and the dog the chief’s son had given him frightened the eagle away.” . . . Joaquin Phoenix‘s father, John Bottom, was a missionary for the Children of God, a cult in the ’60s. He headed the mission from a rat-infested hut in Caracas but had the grand title archbishop of Venezuela and the Caribbean . . . Albert Brooks‘ dad was a standup comic who did Greek ethnic routines under the name “Parkyakarkus.”
Kate Moss‘ dad is a travel agent . . . Jeremy Irons‘ was an accountant . . . Al Pacino: “I remember most when I was young acting out a drunk scene from ‘The Lost Weekend,’ which my mother had taken me to see. I mimicked getting all excited looking for a bottle, and my father laughed.”
Father’s Day. When Dad goes broke giving the family money to surprise him with gifts he doesn’t need.