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Hollywood stars you didn't know were (partly, at least) Spanish
29/06/2022
INTERNATIONAL celebrities from Spain or with Spanish relatives are not exactly rare, but are few enough in number that their names are well known – if a quiz show on a non-Spanish TV channel asked contestants to list them, chances are almost everyone would come up with the same stars instantly, but be completely stuck beyond a certain number.
Everybody's heard of Málaga's greatest silver-screen export, Antonio Banderas, and although she was a complete unknown quantity until 21 years ago beyond her native country, Penélope Cruz is a Hollywood household name; her husband, Javier Bardem, less so, and still mainly because of his 'baddie' rôle in the Bond film Skyfall and because of his world-famous wife.
From the music world, Shakira is a global legend now, although she already had been in Latin America for nearly a decade before her first English-language hit took her to the top of the charts in numerous countries 20 years ago.
Yes, she's Colombian – from Barranquilla, on the Caribbean coast – but her dad was born in New York to Lebanese parents, and one set of grandparents on her mother's side is from Catalunya, hence her surname of Mebarak Ripoll; this means she is actually only one-quarter Colombian, or the same quantity of DNA from her nation of birth as from Spain.
Spice Girl Geri Halliwell – who now goes by her married name of Geri Horner – started out her career in the spotlight as 20% of one of the most iconic British pop bands of the 1990s and early Noughties, and her most recognisable outfit of all time has to be her Union Jack mini-dress, but she is in fact half-Spanish on her mum's side.
Ana María Hidalgo was born and grew up in Aragón, in the Pyrénéen province of Huesca, and Geri's great-granddad – Ana María's grandfather – was mayor of the beautiful land-locked Andalucía city of Córdoba. As a result, Spanish, along with English, is Geri's second native language, and she has always been fluent in it.
Fans of classic film might remember Sara Montiel, who made her career in Hollywood, and of course, crooner Julio Iglesias and, later, his son Enrique Iglesias, both of whom live in Miami, are huge names worldwide; the late opera diva Montserrat Caballé became globally famous among pop and rock fans through her duet with Queen frontman Freddy Mercury, which she performed – as did the latter, posthumously, on screen – at the Barcelona Olympic opening ceremony in 1992.
But it turns out Hollywood alone, never mind any other field in the planet's art industry, is full of Spanish stars.
At least, stars who have recent Spanish DNA, through their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.
And quite a few of them will surprise you.
Martin Sheen
Recently, the Apocalypse Now actor born Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez admitted his regret at having anglicised his name in order to triumph in Tinseltown.
Nowadays, this is less likely to be required of a celebrity and greater resistance to doing so is being seen - half-Ecuadorian pop diva Christina Aguilera reportedly refused to make her surname sound 'more English' when launching her career in the year 2000, and British actress Thandie Newton, whose mother is from Zimbabwe and who grew up between the UK and Zambia, has recently 'reclaimed' her birth name publicly and is now known as 'Thandiwe', after declaring in 2020: “I'm taking back what's mine.”
In fact, although Martin Sheen's son Charlie Sheen – born Carlos Irwin Estévez – opted to take his dad's English-language 'stage name' ahead of his Hollywood début in Red Dawn in 1984, Martin's other famous 'brat pack' son and star of Mission: Impossible and Young Guns has kept his name of Emilio Estévez from the start.
Doing so means Emilio is also paying tribute to his paternal grandfather, Francisco Estévez Martínez, who comes from the Pontevedra-province town of Salceda de Caselas in Spain's far north-western region of Galicia.
Perhaps less-known outside the USA, Martin Sheen has two other screen-star children who have also kept their father's birth surname – Ramón Estévez and Renée Estévez.
Rita Hayworth
If the star of the 1939 critically-acclaimed Only Angels Have Wings, born Margarita Carmen Cansino, were still alive today, she would be celebrating her 104th birthday this coming October – but sadly, the prolific Tinseltown legend behind the iconic and highly-controversial character of Gilda passed away from early-onset Alzheimer's aged 68.
Her career in the arts did not start off with acting, but with classical dance – she moved to Hollywood as part of the Spanish Ballet in 1933, aged 15, before making the move into film the following year thanks to composer José Iturbi and a Spanish diplomat based in the USA.
Ballet was far from Rita's first choice of career. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a famous dancer from the Sevilla-province towns of Paradas and Castilleja de la Cuesta, a direct descendant from the Sephardic Jewish community who had been able to remain in Spain following the Inquisition in the 15th century.
Fans of cinema history will know that Rita Hayworth's decision to take her US-born ballerina mother, Volga's maiden name as her surname would not be something she wound up regretting, unlike Martin Sheen. Her relationship with her father was dark and heartbreaking, his abusive treatment of her well-documented in the world's media.
But she did give a nod to her Spanish roots in 1961 when, along with Rex Harrison, Rita played one half of a pair of robbers breaking into Madrid's El Prado Museum to steal Francisco de Goya's painting El 2 de Mayo, in The Happy Thieves.
Jessica Chastain
Winner of the 2022 Best Actress Oscar, and the Concha de la Plata or 'Silver Shell' at San Sebastián Film Festival, for her rôle as the eponymous 'televangelist' in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Jessica, now 45, uses her birth name for her acting – Chastain is her mother Jerri Renée's maiden name, and she was brought up by her mum and stepdad, Michael Hastey.
The star of award-winning productions such as Take Shelter, Coriolanus and The Tree of Life is a quarter Spanish – her father, Michael Monasterio's grandfather was from Lekeitio in the Basque province of Vizcaya, the capital of which is Bilbao, and the latter's wife was from the neighbouring region of Navarra.
Their surnames, Astoreka and Egurrola, have not 'survived' into the fourth generation across the pond, since Jessica has had no real relationship with her father from earliest childhood. Her parents were in their teens when she was born, and Jessica says she was brought up by 'a single mother who worked hard to put food on the table' – although she is very close to her maternal grandmother, Marilyn, whom she says 'has always believed in' her.
Jessica's long string of rôles that resulted in numerous award nominations include that of Celia Foote, the innocent 'rags-to-riches' character in the screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help.
Her first part as a professional actress was in the TV series Dark Shadows, in 2004, a year after finishing her fine arts degree at New York's Juilliard School, which she attended thanks to a scholarship funded by the late Robin Williams.
Helena Bonham-Carter
If you had to pull a name out of thin air for the 'most British actress ever', this English-rose face of period drama, with her very classical looks, would be high up the list. But Helena is in fact part Spanish.
The twice-Oscar nominated actress, 56, who has starred in numerous literary adaptations – the Harry Potter series, Frankenstein, A Room With a View, Howard's End, Great Expectations and The Wings of the Dove, among others – and played British Royalty (Princess Margaret in The Crown, Jane Grey in Lady Jane, Anne Boleyn in Henry VIII) as well as key female figures in re-enactments of major episodes in UK history (children's author Enid Blyton in Enid, Edith New in Suffragette, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in The King's Speech) is the daughter of counsellor-psychologist Elena Propper de Callejón, whose father was from Madrid.
Helena's maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was a high-ranking Spanish diplomat who is credited with having helped thousands of Jews flee occupied France during World War II.
Eduardo's incredible actions over the middle four years of the War led to his being granted the distinction of Justo Entre las Naciones, or 'Righteous Among the Nations' – chasidey umot ha-olam in Hebrew – used to refer to 'non-Jews who have been particularly righteous and/or follow the seven Noahide Laws', according to the dictionary definition.
In practice, Eduardo's father was a Jewish banker from what used to be called Bohemia, although Eduardo himself is said to have been Roman Catholic.
Banker Max Propper married Spanish diplomat's daughter Juana Callejón, their son went to university in his birth city of Madrid, and after his heroic, dangerous and profoundly humane actions in the 1940s, Eduardo would go on to become ambassador for Spain in the USA, Canada, and Norway.
Helena was six when her maternal grandfather passed away, in London, aged 77.
The actress' maternal grandmother was the artist and socialite Hélène Fould-Springer, who was born in France to Jewish parents – a French mum, sister to the Baroness of Rothschild, and Austrian banker dad – so Helena's British genes are very diluted.
Of course, even Brits whose ancestors have been UK-born for centuries will be genetically mixed, given how the country has been a melting pot of nationalities throughout history, but Helena's European roots are much closer in time than her fans would have expected.
Helena Bonham-Carter, OBE, is great-granddaughter of British prime minister H. H. Asquith, and her religion is listed as Jewish.
Anya Taylor-Joy
Despite her joint British-US nationality, the Miami-born star of The Queen's Gambit, 26, also holds permanent legal residence status in Argentina, where her family moved when she was still a baby, and her first language is Spanish.
After moving to London with her parents at age six, Anya admits she refused to learn English until she was eight, as she 'only wanted to go home' and held onto the hope that they would move back to Buenos Aires.
Her Scottish dad, former international banker Dennis Alan Taylor, is a quarter Argentinian on his mother's side, and her mum, Jennifer Marina Joy, was born in Zambia to a British father and Barcelona mother, Montserrat Morancho Saumench.
Anya's maternal grandmother moved to Zaragoza during the Spanish Civil War, where she spent the rest of her working life running a shop, and Jennifer Joy grew up in the Aragón city.
Millie Bobby Brown
She only turned 18 in February, but this up-and-coming young star already has a string of major film and TV rôles under her belt, including playing Madison Russell in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, producing as well as starring in The Adventures of Enola Holmes, fleshing out the characters of Once in Stranger Things, Lizzie in Modern Family, and Ruby in Grey's Anatomy.
At age 14, she made her début as a model, becoming the face of the Calvin Klein By Appointment campaign.
And she doesn't have Spanish roots, but she and her three siblings were born in Marbella, Málaga province.
Millie's parents, Kelly and Robert Brown, ran an estate agency in the Costa del Sol holiday capital, but moved back to the UK when their actress daughter, the third-born of their four children, was four years old.
The family's spell in the south-coast seaside town of Bournemouth was short-lived – when Millie was eight, they relocated to Orlando, Florida.
It was here that her parents enrolled her in a weekend acting, singing and dancing workshop, where she was spotted by a talent scout – still only midway through primary school, she was already showing potential Hollywood prowess, and by age nine she was signed up to play the lead part in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.
According to Spanish media reports, as Millie did not live in her birth town of Marbella long enough to start school, she never learned the language – her Spanish is said to be currently limited to, Hola, ¿Cómo estás? Mi nombre es Millie Bobby Brown.
Charisma Carpenter
Fans of the cult series Buffy the Vampire Slayer will remember the character of Cordelia Chase – the actress who played her, born in Las Vegas, owes her career to her studies at a Spanish-language drama school, and her grandfather on her mother's side was Spanish.
The family moved to San Diego, California, when Charisma was 15, and she made the hour-long journey over the Mexican border to attend her acting classes, leading to her being fluent in the language.
Charisma's maternal grandfather had emigrated to the USA from an unconfirmed location in Spain, but her parents reportedly lost all contact with the Mediterranean side of the family, so little else is known.
But something stayed in the genes, given that Charisma, now 51, had always been interested in learning the Spanish language, applying herself to it diligently in high school, and it is thought this influenced her decision to pursue her drama training south of the border.
Jean Reno
Always thought of as a veteran French actor, the star of Luc Besson epics such as Le Grand Bleu, Nikita and Leon, 73, born in Casablanca, Morocco and moving to Paris aged 17, is in fact Spanish – although he has never lived in Spain.
Jean Reno's birth name is Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez, and his mum and dad were both from the province of Cádiz on Spain's southern coast.
His mother, who died when Jean was a teenager, came from Jerez de la Frontera, and his father from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, but they fled to the French protectorate in Morocco together to escape Franco's dictatorship before Jean/Juan was born.
The actor holds French nationality, and has lived in Casablanca, Paris, Montpellier (southern France), Los Angeles (California) and the German city of Wittlich, where he did his military service.
Starring in The Matrix, Mission: Impossible, The Da Vinci Code, Godzilla alongside Matthew Broderick and French Kiss alongside Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, Jean Reno, married to British-Polish actress and model Zofia Borucka, has homes in Paris, Los Angeles and Malaysia.
He is bilingual, having grown up speaking both Spanish and French.
Noomi Rapace
The Swedish star of Ridley Scott's Prometheus and actress behind the character of Lisbeth Salander in the screen adaptation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy was brought up by her mother, Nina Norén, in her stepfather's native Iceland, and did not know her father until she was 15 years old - mainly because he did not even know she existed.
Born Hilda Noomi Norén in Hudiksvall, Sweden, moving to Iceland aged four and then returning to her home country aged nine, the actress owes her career to her mum's husband, who ran a stud and was involved in filming.
She had a cameo in a Hrafn Gunnlaugsson production aged seven, and decided from that moment on that she wanted to act professionally for a living.
Noomi, 42, did not meet her biological father until 1995, and then only knew him for 11 years until his death in late 2006, just days before his 53rd birthday.
He was Rogelio Durán (pictured left, from Wikimedia Commons), flamenco singer and actor from the western-Spanish province of Badajoz, who went by the stage name of Rogelio Dabargos – and also Rogelio de Badajoz – and was of Spanish gypsy origin, briefly married to actor José Vivó's daughter Silvia after studying music and theatre in Madrid, where he moved aged 18.
Rogelio went on to become a speech and drama tutor in Stockholm's Centre for Dramatic Arts, after touring Europe with a flamenco company, then formed his own flamenco troupe in Sweden, going off on tour around South America, acting in Swedish films in the year or two before his death from cancer, and recording flamenco-fusion records with Swedish artists, such as Erik Steen.
He was living in Gustavsberg, Sweden, when he died, and although it is not known whether Noomi speaks Spanish – given that her father was not in her life when she was growing up – she told reporters during a 2009 interview that her 'roots and talent' were 'Spanish'.
Alfred Molina
The name of this London-born star of Spider-Man: No Way Home is a strong clue as to his Spanish origin – Italian, too, in fact.
Born Alfredo Molina, known for his 2004 rôle of Dr Octopus in Spider-Man 2 and for major parts in The Da Vinci Code, The Pink Panther 2, Chocolat, and Frida, the actor is the son of working-class Mediterranean migrants and grew up in Notting Hill – a cosmopolitan neighbourhood which, at the time, was largely home to families who had emigrated to Britain from all over the world.
Alfred's father, Esteban Molina, was born in Murcia, and made his living in the UK capital dovetailing waiting tables with driving taxis, and his mum, Giovanna Bonelli, had moved there from Italy, working at first as a cleaner and a cook in an Italian hotel and later becoming full-time housewife and mother.
Alfred decided he wanted to be an actor after watching Spartacus and, aged nine, enrolled at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama – exactly 60 years ago.
He married British actress Jill Gascoine in 1986, and they were together until her death in a California care home two years ago from Alzheimer's, aged 83.
Last year, Alfred Molina announced he had married Frozen director and producer Jennifer Lee, 51, and the couple lives in San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles.
Alfred has held joint British-US nationality since 2004, and has one daughter, Rachel Molina, now 42.
Oona Chaplin
She's the granddaughter of the legendary actor Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife Oona O'Neill – making her the great-granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill – and her mother Geraldine earned a Golden Globe nomination for her part as Tonya in Dr Zhivago in 1965.
Geraldine Chaplin's meeting with Spanish film director Carlos Saura, with whom she was professionally- and romantically-linked until 1979, led to her settling in Spain and starring in numerous Spanish films – as well as British, US, French and Swiss productions.
Following in dad Charlie's footsteps, Geraldine, 78, has become a household name in her own right, working alongside the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Michelle Pfeiffer, Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor and Martin Scorsese – and even playing the part of her own grandmother, Hannah Chaplin, in the biographical film produced by Richard Attenborough.
US-born but growing up in Switzerland, Geraldine won a Goya Award for her part in Antonio Hernández's En la Ciudad Sin Límites ('In the City Without Limits'), a Goya nomination for her rôle in Juan Antonio Bayona's psychological thriller El Orfanato ('The Orphanage'), and she starred in Pedro Almodóvar's 2002 blockbuster Hable Con Ella ('Talk to Her').
After her 14-year relationship with Carlos Saura ended, Geraldine opted to stay in Spain and married Chilean photographic director Patricio Castilla.
Their daughter Oona, named after her maternal grandmother, was born in Madrid in 1986, and is already proving to be a chip off the old block – having studied drama in Scotland, thanks to a scholarship won when she was 15, travelling the UK with a theatre company in Romeo and Juliet and as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, earning a place at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), from which she graduated aged 21, Oona Castilla Chaplin has appeared in multiple Spanish TV and cinema productions, and also key international ones.
Game of Thrones fans will recognise her as the face of Talisa Maegyr, and UK television viewers will remember her from the series The Hour (2012) and alongside Tom Hardy in Taboo.
Oona, 36, is a Spanish national and mostly lives in Spain – although she has spent many years in the UK, Cuba, and Switzerland, too – but is actually British-Chilean in genetic terms. In fact, her grandmother Hilda, on her dad's side, is Mapuche, coming from the South American country's original ethnic population who were in residence long before the colonisers got there.
Daniel Brühl
Best Supporting Actor winner in the Screen Actors' Guild Awards for his part in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, starring in the 2003 Goodbye, Lenin!, the 2018 The Alienist, and as Helmut Zemo in the Marvel production Captain America: Civil War, the Berlin-based star, 44, is as well-known in Tinseltown as he is in Germany, where he grew up.
Born Daniel César Martín Brühl González in Barcelona's Gràcia district, he is the son of German theatre and TV director Hanno Brühl, of Brazilian origin, and teacher Marisa González Domingo, whom Hanno met and fell in love with whilst travelling in Spain's second-largest city.
The family moved to Cologne, Germany when Daniel was just a few weeks old, but they spent all their summers in Spain, mostly in Pratdip, Tarragona province.
Daniel holds joint German and Spanish citizenship, and is a self-proclaimed fan of FC Barcelona.
As well as mainstream Hollywood films, Daniel has starred in numerous German productions and a handful of Spanish ones.
His most recent work was the Matthew Vaughn film The King's Man, alongside British veterans Rhys Ifans, Ralph Fiennes, Alison Steadman and Liam Neeson, among others.
He stars in and directs the critically-acclaimed German film Nebenan ('Next Door'), released in late 2021.
Ricardo Montalbán
Late Mexican legend Ricardo, whose face in any western was practically de rigueur, worked in an average of a film a year since moving to the USA in 1945, although his career had started about five years earlier in his native country.
More recently, Montalbán was seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and The Naked Gun, in the 1980s.
In the 21st century, he has starred in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, and The Ant Bully, his last-ever full-length film, in 2006.
He had just turned 88 when he died in January 2009 from heart failure – if he was still alive today, he would have been celebrating his 102nd birthday this coming November, and his three surviving children, Víctor, Mark and Anita are all in their 70s (the eldest, Laura, died five years ago from cancer aged 72).
Ricardo, despite living in the Los Angeles area for 64 years, chose to stay Mexican and did not wish to become a nationalised US citizen.
But in genetic terms, he was actually 100% Spanish.
His parents, Genaro Montalbán and Ricarda Merino, moved to the Latin American country from their native Spain before his birth in México DF.
Ricardo, his sister Carmen, and brothers Pedro and Carlos grew up in the city of Torreón, in the north-eastern Mexican State of Coahuila, and he never lived in Spain – nor is it known where in Spain his parents originated from – but even though he identified as Mexican and lived his whole life in North America, Ricardo Montalbán was, in reality, as Spanish as paella and Don Quijote.
Eva Longoria
You could probably have guessed the star behind the Desperate Housewives stalwart Gabrielle Solís had Spanish blood in her somewhere, given that her parents, Enrique Longoria and Eva Mireles, are Mexican – but what might surprise you is that she did not speak their native language until she was 34, and only found out about her Asturias roots when she was 42.
Eva was born and grew up in Texas, but only spoke English at home with her parents, who gave her a 'proper US upbringing', according to an interview in 2008, and was raised as North American Catholic.
She earned a BSc degree in Kinesiology from Texas A&M University-Kingsville, won the Miss Corpus Christi contest in 1998, and ended up in Los Angeles through a talent competition, where she was discovered by a theatre agent.
Describing herself as 'an ugly duckling' in childhood and adolescence – claiming she was much plainer than her three sisters Elizabeth, Emily and Esmeralda – Eva grew up on a family farm, where she said her parents worked hard and were relatively poor.
She started learning Spanish in 2009, and eventually decided to trace her family tree – which led her to Spain's northern coastal region of Asturias.
It turned out her dad's grandfather – her great-granddad – was originally from there, and in fact, her surname came from the town he was born in.
Five years ago, armed with this new and fascinating knowledge, Eva travelled across the pond to visit Asturias, spending some time exploring the municipality of Llongoria.
Related Topics
INTERNATIONAL celebrities from Spain or with Spanish relatives are not exactly rare, but are few enough in number that their names are well known – if a quiz show on a non-Spanish TV channel asked contestants to list them, chances are almost everyone would come up with the same stars instantly, but be completely stuck beyond a certain number.
Everybody's heard of Málaga's greatest silver-screen export, Antonio Banderas, and although she was a complete unknown quantity until 21 years ago beyond her native country, Penélope Cruz is a Hollywood household name; her husband, Javier Bardem, less so, and still mainly because of his 'baddie' rôle in the Bond film Skyfall and because of his world-famous wife.
From the music world, Shakira is a global legend now, although she already had been in Latin America for nearly a decade before her first English-language hit took her to the top of the charts in numerous countries 20 years ago.
Yes, she's Colombian – from Barranquilla, on the Caribbean coast – but her dad was born in New York to Lebanese parents, and one set of grandparents on her mother's side is from Catalunya, hence her surname of Mebarak Ripoll; this means she is actually only one-quarter Colombian, or the same quantity of DNA from her nation of birth as from Spain.
Spice Girl Geri Halliwell – who now goes by her married name of Geri Horner – started out her career in the spotlight as 20% of one of the most iconic British pop bands of the 1990s and early Noughties, and her most recognisable outfit of all time has to be her Union Jack mini-dress, but she is in fact half-Spanish on her mum's side.
Ana María Hidalgo was born and grew up in Aragón, in the Pyrénéen province of Huesca, and Geri's great-granddad – Ana María's grandfather – was mayor of the beautiful land-locked Andalucía city of Córdoba. As a result, Spanish, along with English, is Geri's second native language, and she has always been fluent in it.
Fans of classic film might remember Sara Montiel, who made her career in Hollywood, and of course, crooner Julio Iglesias and, later, his son Enrique Iglesias, both of whom live in Miami, are huge names worldwide; the late opera diva Montserrat Caballé became globally famous among pop and rock fans through her duet with Queen frontman Freddy Mercury, which she performed – as did the latter, posthumously, on screen – at the Barcelona Olympic opening ceremony in 1992.
But it turns out Hollywood alone, never mind any other field in the planet's art industry, is full of Spanish stars.
At least, stars who have recent Spanish DNA, through their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.
And quite a few of them will surprise you.
Martin Sheen
Recently, the Apocalypse Now actor born Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez admitted his regret at having anglicised his name in order to triumph in Tinseltown.
Nowadays, this is less likely to be required of a celebrity and greater resistance to doing so is being seen - half-Ecuadorian pop diva Christina Aguilera reportedly refused to make her surname sound 'more English' when launching her career in the year 2000, and British actress Thandie Newton, whose mother is from Zimbabwe and who grew up between the UK and Zambia, has recently 'reclaimed' her birth name publicly and is now known as 'Thandiwe', after declaring in 2020: “I'm taking back what's mine.”
In fact, although Martin Sheen's son Charlie Sheen – born Carlos Irwin Estévez – opted to take his dad's English-language 'stage name' ahead of his Hollywood début in Red Dawn in 1984, Martin's other famous 'brat pack' son and star of Mission: Impossible and Young Guns has kept his name of Emilio Estévez from the start.
Doing so means Emilio is also paying tribute to his paternal grandfather, Francisco Estévez Martínez, who comes from the Pontevedra-province town of Salceda de Caselas in Spain's far north-western region of Galicia.
Perhaps less-known outside the USA, Martin Sheen has two other screen-star children who have also kept their father's birth surname – Ramón Estévez and Renée Estévez.
Rita Hayworth
If the star of the 1939 critically-acclaimed Only Angels Have Wings, born Margarita Carmen Cansino, were still alive today, she would be celebrating her 104th birthday this coming October – but sadly, the prolific Tinseltown legend behind the iconic and highly-controversial character of Gilda passed away from early-onset Alzheimer's aged 68.
Her career in the arts did not start off with acting, but with classical dance – she moved to Hollywood as part of the Spanish Ballet in 1933, aged 15, before making the move into film the following year thanks to composer José Iturbi and a Spanish diplomat based in the USA.
Ballet was far from Rita's first choice of career. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a famous dancer from the Sevilla-province towns of Paradas and Castilleja de la Cuesta, a direct descendant from the Sephardic Jewish community who had been able to remain in Spain following the Inquisition in the 15th century.
Fans of cinema history will know that Rita Hayworth's decision to take her US-born ballerina mother, Volga's maiden name as her surname would not be something she wound up regretting, unlike Martin Sheen. Her relationship with her father was dark and heartbreaking, his abusive treatment of her well-documented in the world's media.
But she did give a nod to her Spanish roots in 1961 when, along with Rex Harrison, Rita played one half of a pair of robbers breaking into Madrid's El Prado Museum to steal Francisco de Goya's painting El 2 de Mayo, in The Happy Thieves.
Jessica Chastain
Winner of the 2022 Best Actress Oscar, and the Concha de la Plata or 'Silver Shell' at San Sebastián Film Festival, for her rôle as the eponymous 'televangelist' in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Jessica, now 45, uses her birth name for her acting – Chastain is her mother Jerri Renée's maiden name, and she was brought up by her mum and stepdad, Michael Hastey.
The star of award-winning productions such as Take Shelter, Coriolanus and The Tree of Life is a quarter Spanish – her father, Michael Monasterio's grandfather was from Lekeitio in the Basque province of Vizcaya, the capital of which is Bilbao, and the latter's wife was from the neighbouring region of Navarra.
Their surnames, Astoreka and Egurrola, have not 'survived' into the fourth generation across the pond, since Jessica has had no real relationship with her father from earliest childhood. Her parents were in their teens when she was born, and Jessica says she was brought up by 'a single mother who worked hard to put food on the table' – although she is very close to her maternal grandmother, Marilyn, whom she says 'has always believed in' her.
Jessica's long string of rôles that resulted in numerous award nominations include that of Celia Foote, the innocent 'rags-to-riches' character in the screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help.
Her first part as a professional actress was in the TV series Dark Shadows, in 2004, a year after finishing her fine arts degree at New York's Juilliard School, which she attended thanks to a scholarship funded by the late Robin Williams.
Helena Bonham-Carter
If you had to pull a name out of thin air for the 'most British actress ever', this English-rose face of period drama, with her very classical looks, would be high up the list. But Helena is in fact part Spanish.
The twice-Oscar nominated actress, 56, who has starred in numerous literary adaptations – the Harry Potter series, Frankenstein, A Room With a View, Howard's End, Great Expectations and The Wings of the Dove, among others – and played British Royalty (Princess Margaret in The Crown, Jane Grey in Lady Jane, Anne Boleyn in Henry VIII) as well as key female figures in re-enactments of major episodes in UK history (children's author Enid Blyton in Enid, Edith New in Suffragette, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in The King's Speech) is the daughter of counsellor-psychologist Elena Propper de Callejón, whose father was from Madrid.
Helena's maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was a high-ranking Spanish diplomat who is credited with having helped thousands of Jews flee occupied France during World War II.
Eduardo's incredible actions over the middle four years of the War led to his being granted the distinction of Justo Entre las Naciones, or 'Righteous Among the Nations' – chasidey umot ha-olam in Hebrew – used to refer to 'non-Jews who have been particularly righteous and/or follow the seven Noahide Laws', according to the dictionary definition.
In practice, Eduardo's father was a Jewish banker from what used to be called Bohemia, although Eduardo himself is said to have been Roman Catholic.
Banker Max Propper married Spanish diplomat's daughter Juana Callejón, their son went to university in his birth city of Madrid, and after his heroic, dangerous and profoundly humane actions in the 1940s, Eduardo would go on to become ambassador for Spain in the USA, Canada, and Norway.
Helena was six when her maternal grandfather passed away, in London, aged 77.
The actress' maternal grandmother was the artist and socialite Hélène Fould-Springer, who was born in France to Jewish parents – a French mum, sister to the Baroness of Rothschild, and Austrian banker dad – so Helena's British genes are very diluted.
Of course, even Brits whose ancestors have been UK-born for centuries will be genetically mixed, given how the country has been a melting pot of nationalities throughout history, but Helena's European roots are much closer in time than her fans would have expected.
Helena Bonham-Carter, OBE, is great-granddaughter of British prime minister H. H. Asquith, and her religion is listed as Jewish.
Anya Taylor-Joy
Despite her joint British-US nationality, the Miami-born star of The Queen's Gambit, 26, also holds permanent legal residence status in Argentina, where her family moved when she was still a baby, and her first language is Spanish.
After moving to London with her parents at age six, Anya admits she refused to learn English until she was eight, as she 'only wanted to go home' and held onto the hope that they would move back to Buenos Aires.
Her Scottish dad, former international banker Dennis Alan Taylor, is a quarter Argentinian on his mother's side, and her mum, Jennifer Marina Joy, was born in Zambia to a British father and Barcelona mother, Montserrat Morancho Saumench.
Anya's maternal grandmother moved to Zaragoza during the Spanish Civil War, where she spent the rest of her working life running a shop, and Jennifer Joy grew up in the Aragón city.
Millie Bobby Brown
She only turned 18 in February, but this up-and-coming young star already has a string of major film and TV rôles under her belt, including playing Madison Russell in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, producing as well as starring in The Adventures of Enola Holmes, fleshing out the characters of Once in Stranger Things, Lizzie in Modern Family, and Ruby in Grey's Anatomy.
At age 14, she made her début as a model, becoming the face of the Calvin Klein By Appointment campaign.
And she doesn't have Spanish roots, but she and her three siblings were born in Marbella, Málaga province.
Millie's parents, Kelly and Robert Brown, ran an estate agency in the Costa del Sol holiday capital, but moved back to the UK when their actress daughter, the third-born of their four children, was four years old.
The family's spell in the south-coast seaside town of Bournemouth was short-lived – when Millie was eight, they relocated to Orlando, Florida.
It was here that her parents enrolled her in a weekend acting, singing and dancing workshop, where she was spotted by a talent scout – still only midway through primary school, she was already showing potential Hollywood prowess, and by age nine she was signed up to play the lead part in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.
According to Spanish media reports, as Millie did not live in her birth town of Marbella long enough to start school, she never learned the language – her Spanish is said to be currently limited to, Hola, ¿Cómo estás? Mi nombre es Millie Bobby Brown.
Charisma Carpenter
Fans of the cult series Buffy the Vampire Slayer will remember the character of Cordelia Chase – the actress who played her, born in Las Vegas, owes her career to her studies at a Spanish-language drama school, and her grandfather on her mother's side was Spanish.
The family moved to San Diego, California, when Charisma was 15, and she made the hour-long journey over the Mexican border to attend her acting classes, leading to her being fluent in the language.
Charisma's maternal grandfather had emigrated to the USA from an unconfirmed location in Spain, but her parents reportedly lost all contact with the Mediterranean side of the family, so little else is known.
But something stayed in the genes, given that Charisma, now 51, had always been interested in learning the Spanish language, applying herself to it diligently in high school, and it is thought this influenced her decision to pursue her drama training south of the border.
Jean Reno
Always thought of as a veteran French actor, the star of Luc Besson epics such as Le Grand Bleu, Nikita and Leon, 73, born in Casablanca, Morocco and moving to Paris aged 17, is in fact Spanish – although he has never lived in Spain.
Jean Reno's birth name is Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez, and his mum and dad were both from the province of Cádiz on Spain's southern coast.
His mother, who died when Jean was a teenager, came from Jerez de la Frontera, and his father from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, but they fled to the French protectorate in Morocco together to escape Franco's dictatorship before Jean/Juan was born.
The actor holds French nationality, and has lived in Casablanca, Paris, Montpellier (southern France), Los Angeles (California) and the German city of Wittlich, where he did his military service.
Starring in The Matrix, Mission: Impossible, The Da Vinci Code, Godzilla alongside Matthew Broderick and French Kiss alongside Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, Jean Reno, married to British-Polish actress and model Zofia Borucka, has homes in Paris, Los Angeles and Malaysia.
He is bilingual, having grown up speaking both Spanish and French.
Noomi Rapace
The Swedish star of Ridley Scott's Prometheus and actress behind the character of Lisbeth Salander in the screen adaptation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy was brought up by her mother, Nina Norén, in her stepfather's native Iceland, and did not know her father until she was 15 years old - mainly because he did not even know she existed.
Born Hilda Noomi Norén in Hudiksvall, Sweden, moving to Iceland aged four and then returning to her home country aged nine, the actress owes her career to her mum's husband, who ran a stud and was involved in filming.
She had a cameo in a Hrafn Gunnlaugsson production aged seven, and decided from that moment on that she wanted to act professionally for a living.
Noomi, 42, did not meet her biological father until 1995, and then only knew him for 11 years until his death in late 2006, just days before his 53rd birthday.
He was Rogelio Durán (pictured left, from Wikimedia Commons), flamenco singer and actor from the western-Spanish province of Badajoz, who went by the stage name of Rogelio Dabargos – and also Rogelio de Badajoz – and was of Spanish gypsy origin, briefly married to actor José Vivó's daughter Silvia after studying music and theatre in Madrid, where he moved aged 18.
Rogelio went on to become a speech and drama tutor in Stockholm's Centre for Dramatic Arts, after touring Europe with a flamenco company, then formed his own flamenco troupe in Sweden, going off on tour around South America, acting in Swedish films in the year or two before his death from cancer, and recording flamenco-fusion records with Swedish artists, such as Erik Steen.
He was living in Gustavsberg, Sweden, when he died, and although it is not known whether Noomi speaks Spanish – given that her father was not in her life when she was growing up – she told reporters during a 2009 interview that her 'roots and talent' were 'Spanish'.
Alfred Molina
The name of this London-born star of Spider-Man: No Way Home is a strong clue as to his Spanish origin – Italian, too, in fact.
Born Alfredo Molina, known for his 2004 rôle of Dr Octopus in Spider-Man 2 and for major parts in The Da Vinci Code, The Pink Panther 2, Chocolat, and Frida, the actor is the son of working-class Mediterranean migrants and grew up in Notting Hill – a cosmopolitan neighbourhood which, at the time, was largely home to families who had emigrated to Britain from all over the world.
Alfred's father, Esteban Molina, was born in Murcia, and made his living in the UK capital dovetailing waiting tables with driving taxis, and his mum, Giovanna Bonelli, had moved there from Italy, working at first as a cleaner and a cook in an Italian hotel and later becoming full-time housewife and mother.
Alfred decided he wanted to be an actor after watching Spartacus and, aged nine, enrolled at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama – exactly 60 years ago.
He married British actress Jill Gascoine in 1986, and they were together until her death in a California care home two years ago from Alzheimer's, aged 83.
Last year, Alfred Molina announced he had married Frozen director and producer Jennifer Lee, 51, and the couple lives in San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles.
Alfred has held joint British-US nationality since 2004, and has one daughter, Rachel Molina, now 42.
Oona Chaplin
She's the granddaughter of the legendary actor Charlie Chaplin and his fourth wife Oona O'Neill – making her the great-granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill – and her mother Geraldine earned a Golden Globe nomination for her part as Tonya in Dr Zhivago in 1965.
Geraldine Chaplin's meeting with Spanish film director Carlos Saura, with whom she was professionally- and romantically-linked until 1979, led to her settling in Spain and starring in numerous Spanish films – as well as British, US, French and Swiss productions.
Following in dad Charlie's footsteps, Geraldine, 78, has become a household name in her own right, working alongside the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Michelle Pfeiffer, Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor and Martin Scorsese – and even playing the part of her own grandmother, Hannah Chaplin, in the biographical film produced by Richard Attenborough.
US-born but growing up in Switzerland, Geraldine won a Goya Award for her part in Antonio Hernández's En la Ciudad Sin Límites ('In the City Without Limits'), a Goya nomination for her rôle in Juan Antonio Bayona's psychological thriller El Orfanato ('The Orphanage'), and she starred in Pedro Almodóvar's 2002 blockbuster Hable Con Ella ('Talk to Her').
After her 14-year relationship with Carlos Saura ended, Geraldine opted to stay in Spain and married Chilean photographic director Patricio Castilla.
Their daughter Oona, named after her maternal grandmother, was born in Madrid in 1986, and is already proving to be a chip off the old block – having studied drama in Scotland, thanks to a scholarship won when she was 15, travelling the UK with a theatre company in Romeo and Juliet and as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, earning a place at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), from which she graduated aged 21, Oona Castilla Chaplin has appeared in multiple Spanish TV and cinema productions, and also key international ones.
Game of Thrones fans will recognise her as the face of Talisa Maegyr, and UK television viewers will remember her from the series The Hour (2012) and alongside Tom Hardy in Taboo.
Oona, 36, is a Spanish national and mostly lives in Spain – although she has spent many years in the UK, Cuba, and Switzerland, too – but is actually British-Chilean in genetic terms. In fact, her grandmother Hilda, on her dad's side, is Mapuche, coming from the South American country's original ethnic population who were in residence long before the colonisers got there.
Daniel Brühl
Best Supporting Actor winner in the Screen Actors' Guild Awards for his part in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, starring in the 2003 Goodbye, Lenin!, the 2018 The Alienist, and as Helmut Zemo in the Marvel production Captain America: Civil War, the Berlin-based star, 44, is as well-known in Tinseltown as he is in Germany, where he grew up.
Born Daniel César Martín Brühl González in Barcelona's Gràcia district, he is the son of German theatre and TV director Hanno Brühl, of Brazilian origin, and teacher Marisa González Domingo, whom Hanno met and fell in love with whilst travelling in Spain's second-largest city.
The family moved to Cologne, Germany when Daniel was just a few weeks old, but they spent all their summers in Spain, mostly in Pratdip, Tarragona province.
Daniel holds joint German and Spanish citizenship, and is a self-proclaimed fan of FC Barcelona.
As well as mainstream Hollywood films, Daniel has starred in numerous German productions and a handful of Spanish ones.
His most recent work was the Matthew Vaughn film The King's Man, alongside British veterans Rhys Ifans, Ralph Fiennes, Alison Steadman and Liam Neeson, among others.
He stars in and directs the critically-acclaimed German film Nebenan ('Next Door'), released in late 2021.
Ricardo Montalbán
Late Mexican legend Ricardo, whose face in any western was practically de rigueur, worked in an average of a film a year since moving to the USA in 1945, although his career had started about five years earlier in his native country.
More recently, Montalbán was seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and The Naked Gun, in the 1980s.
In the 21st century, he has starred in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, and The Ant Bully, his last-ever full-length film, in 2006.
He had just turned 88 when he died in January 2009 from heart failure – if he was still alive today, he would have been celebrating his 102nd birthday this coming November, and his three surviving children, Víctor, Mark and Anita are all in their 70s (the eldest, Laura, died five years ago from cancer aged 72).
Ricardo, despite living in the Los Angeles area for 64 years, chose to stay Mexican and did not wish to become a nationalised US citizen.
But in genetic terms, he was actually 100% Spanish.
His parents, Genaro Montalbán and Ricarda Merino, moved to the Latin American country from their native Spain before his birth in México DF.
Ricardo, his sister Carmen, and brothers Pedro and Carlos grew up in the city of Torreón, in the north-eastern Mexican State of Coahuila, and he never lived in Spain – nor is it known where in Spain his parents originated from – but even though he identified as Mexican and lived his whole life in North America, Ricardo Montalbán was, in reality, as Spanish as paella and Don Quijote.
Eva Longoria
You could probably have guessed the star behind the Desperate Housewives stalwart Gabrielle Solís had Spanish blood in her somewhere, given that her parents, Enrique Longoria and Eva Mireles, are Mexican – but what might surprise you is that she did not speak their native language until she was 34, and only found out about her Asturias roots when she was 42.
Eva was born and grew up in Texas, but only spoke English at home with her parents, who gave her a 'proper US upbringing', according to an interview in 2008, and was raised as North American Catholic.
She earned a BSc degree in Kinesiology from Texas A&M University-Kingsville, won the Miss Corpus Christi contest in 1998, and ended up in Los Angeles through a talent competition, where she was discovered by a theatre agent.
Describing herself as 'an ugly duckling' in childhood and adolescence – claiming she was much plainer than her three sisters Elizabeth, Emily and Esmeralda – Eva grew up on a family farm, where she said her parents worked hard and were relatively poor.
She started learning Spanish in 2009, and eventually decided to trace her family tree – which led her to Spain's northern coastal region of Asturias.
It turned out her dad's grandfather – her great-granddad – was originally from there, and in fact, her surname came from the town he was born in.
Five years ago, armed with this new and fascinating knowledge, Eva travelled across the pond to visit Asturias, spending some time exploring the municipality of Llongoria.
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