Teachers Who Raised Hollywood Superstars
When actor Matt Damon addressed the crowd at this summer’s Save Our Schools march, his speech in support of teachers was met with thunderous applause.
“I was raised by a teacher,” he began. “My mother is a professor of early childhood education… As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself—my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity—all come from how I was parented and taught.”
Matt Damon isn’t the only Hollywood A-lister to be raised by a teacher. Some of today’s most popular actors, rock stars, and comedians also have educator parents.
As World Teachers’ Day approaches on October 5, each of these superstars has a special teacher in the family to honor and thank:
1. TOM CRUISE is the proud son of special education teacher Mary Lee Mapother. “I saw how my mother created her [own life] and made it possible for us to survive,” he told Parade. “My mother was the one who rose to the occasion.”
2. BRAD PITT’s mom, Jane Etta Hillhouse, graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1962 with a double major in secondary education and English. She worked as a high school counselor.
3. JULIA ROBERTS’ parents, Betty Lou and Walter Grady Roberts, ran an acting school for children in Decatur, Georgia. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King sent their children to that school. When Julia was born in 1967, Mrs. King paid the hospital bill to thank the Roberts family for teaching her children.
4. SARAH JESSICA PARKER was born in Nelsonville, Ohio. Her mom, Barbara Parker, was a preschool teacher.
5. WILL SMITH’s mother, Caroline (née Bright), was a school administrator who worked for the Philadelphia school board. According to Smith, his mom hoped her son would attend a prestigious university. “My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT,” he added. “I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college.”
6. STACY FERGUSON (A.K.A. FERGIE), was born in Hacienda Heights, California, to Catholic school teachers Theresa Ann and Jon Patrick Ferguson.
7. ALEC BALDWIN is the son of Alexander Rae Baldwin, Jr., a history and government teacher who also coached high school football. With a reputation for outspokenness on school and local issues, Baldwin inspired his eldest son Alec to pursue a political science degree at Georgetown University before becoming an actor.
8. BEN AFFLECK was born in Berkeley, California. His mother, Christine Anne Affleck, is a public school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
9. JENNIFER GARNER is the second of three daughters born to Patricia Ann Garner, an English teacher originally from Oklahoma.
10. WILL FERRELL’s mom, Betty Kay Overman, taught at Old Mill School and Santa Ana College.
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