Goldie Hawn
Goldie Hawn (born November 21, 1945, Washington, D.C., U.S.) is an American actress and producer who had a long career playing winsome, slightly ditzy women in numerous film comedies. Critics noted the endearing and effervescent quality of her performances, and she became a respected comic actress.
Hawn grew up in Maryland and took dance lessons from the age of three. After graduating from high school, she studied drama at American University and taught dance classes. She embarked on a career as a dancer, initially performing in chorus lines in summer stock theatre and as a go-go dancer in discotheques. After an agent spotted her in a chorus line in a 1967 television special, she was cast as the zany neighbour in the 1967–68 sitcom Good Morning, World. Hawn played a small part in the Disney film comedy The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968) before her breakout role (1968–70) on the comedy variety TV show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.
During her time on that show, Hawn also portrayed the free-spirited girlfriend of a dentist (played by Walter Matthau) in Cactus Flower (1969), the film adaptation of a popular stage comedy. While the movie itself drew mixed reviews, her performance was praised, and she won both a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for best supporting actress. Hawn played similar parts in the comedy There’s a Girl in My Soup (1970, opposite Peter Sellers) and the caper movie $ (1971, opposite Warren Beatty), and she costarred with Edward Albert in the 1972 film adaptation of the play Butterflies Are Free.
In 1975 Hawn shared top billing with Beatty and Julie Christie in the popular sex comedy Shampoo. She produced and starred in what was perhaps her best-known film, Private Benjamin (1980), for which she received an Oscar nomination for best actress. Hawn’s later movies included Swing Shift (1984), with Kurt Russell, who became her longtime companion; Bird on a Wire (1990), with Mel Gibson; Housesitter (1992), with Steve Martin; Robert Zemeckis’s dark comedy Death Becomes Her (1992), with Meryl Streep and Bruce Willis; and The First Wives Club (1996), with Bette Midler and Diane Keaton. Hawn played a groupie in middle age in The Banger Sisters (2002), with Susan Sarandon, and, after a long hiatus, she portrayed the mother of Amy Schumer’s character in Snatched (2017). In The Christmas Chronicles (2018) and its sequel (2020), Hawn and Russell appeared as Mrs. Claus and Santa Claus, respectively.
Several of Hawn’s children became actors, most notably daughter Kate Hudson, whose father was Hawn’s second husband, Bill Hudson.