Early Life
Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of actress Blythe Danner and the late film producer/director Bruce Paltrow. Her father was Jewish (of Belarusian Ashkenazi origin), and her mother is a Quaker of Pennsylvania Dutch and more distant white Barbadian ancestry. Paltrow's paternal great-great-grandfather, whose surname was "Paltrowicz," was a rabbi in Nowogród, Poland. Paltrow has a younger brother, Jake Paltrow, and is a half-cousin of actress Katherine Moennig, and a second cousin of former U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08).
Paltrow was raised in Santa Monica, where she attended Crossroads School, before enrolling in The Spence School, a private girls' school in New York City. Later, she briefly studied anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before dropping out to act. She is an "adopted daughter" of Talavera de la Reina (Spain), where at 15 she spent a year as an exchange student and learned to speak Spanish.
Read more about this topic: Gwyneth Paltrow
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)