This is for my Mother!
In one of our innumerable late night conversations, my Mum made an observation (after a movie) that sounded so bizarre at the time but the more I dwell on it now, it the more it seems plausible...because anything’s possible in Tinsel Town!
In any film industry (my knowledge being limited to Hollywood-Bollywood) there are generations of actors related to each other: it's the family business, after all.
So in India, we have the majestic Kapoor Khandaan with the legendary Prithviraaj Kapoor at the head of the tree to the "Khandaan Ka Ek Lauta Chirag", Ranbir Kapoor stealing the hearts of the PYTs of the present generation (remember the sighs of relief when Ranbir and Deepika had irreconcilable differences).
There's also a marked resemblance between all the Kapoor men and the women (Karisma, Kareena and their paternal aunts): roses and cream complexion, apple cheeks, the light eyes, and a general tendency towards health and happiness when approaching middle age ("Saade Punjabi hain hum")!
When talking Bollywood, obviously one cannot just overlook Big B and his Hum Saath Saath Hain family: (lovely?) wife Jaya Bachchan, daughter Shweta Nanda, son Abhishek Bachchan and "humari gunwanti bahu", Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (who incidentally accompanies her Paa everywhere, even when hubby darling and mom-in-law do the disappearing act)...
My point is pretty clear: the khoon ka rishta (and of course, the genes). AB Baby taking after Dad B in every possible aspect, from his height to his gestures and nuances to his dancing style, while looking like his Mum! ( Even Ranbir looks eerily similar to Neetu Kapoor, especially the wide smile).
Westward Ho to Hollywood now, the names of famous fathers and sons just roll off the tongue: Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen and his clan including Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen, Donald Sutherland and Kiefer Sutherland, among others. All of them share the same, distinctly paternal traits. The Douglas cleft, the gruff Sutherland voice and the slightly curled-lip smile, the square-jawed look of the Sheen men. It’s a pattern.
So how come nobody ever noticed Robert Redford and Brad Pitt? Or did they? Anyone who’s seen Spy Game will know where this is leading to. Is it Hollywood’s best kept secret or is there a conspiracy theory involved?
Take any photograph that has Robert Redford and Brad Pitt together and you will see an uncanny similarity between both actors: the same sandy blonde, tousled hair, the same straight (slightly aquiline nose), the same pair of lips, the same blue eyes and the same height and build. They even sound the same when they give a great guffaw of laughter and lick their fingers in an identical manner when finishing off a sandwich. Now of course a lot of actors look the same, take fellow actors Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Javier Bardem and Robert Downey Jr., for instance. But Robert Redford is a generation older than all of them, and was around 27 years old when Brad Pitt was born in 1963. I’m not saying he fathered one half of Brangelina, but the pieces sort of fit, don’t they?
I was watching The Candidate and All the President’s Men the other day on World Movies and it struck me that what my Mum said after watching Spy Game and The Way We Were isn’t that bizarre after all. Think of Brad Pitt in movies like Meet Joe Black or the Ocean’s Series. In his shirts, causally unbuttoned at the neck and crumpled trousers and tuxedos, he absolutely looks like a younger version of Robert Redford. It was a Ripley’s moment for me. My knowledge of the development of the human gene and the factors affecting heredity and environment might be rudimentary to say the least, but as a layman I know that children inherit the genes of their parents that determine their physical and psychological traits to an extent.
In our very own epic The Mahabharata, Karna was Kunti’s first-born, before she became Pandu’s queen. Even Draupadi gets confused between Kunti’s feet and Karna’s, when she’s asked to pay obeisance to the elders present at the court. Yudhishthira also ponders upon it. If the Dvapar Yuga can prove that Impossible is Nothing, there’s no reason why the 20th and the 21st century shouldn’t. Food for thought, anyone?
When Sir Ben Kingsley had remarked a couple of years ago that Bipasha Basu looked like a dusky Sophia Loren, dimples and smile et al., the world had a collective epiphany. When my Mum had said the same seeing Bips for the first time in Jadoo Hai, Nasha Hai, we had a good laugh! Now we don’t.
In Hollywood, it’s all Show Biz! What’s your dream?
