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These mothers would stop at nothing to help their celebrity kids achieve fame and fortune in Hollywood!
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Gertrude Temple
Oh, my goodness! In 1934, 6-year-old Shirley Temple became the nation’s biggest box-office draw — a feat, she admitted, that couldn’t have happened without Gertrude. “She and I did not miss any opportunities. If there was a door open, we’d go through,” said Shirley. “She was a super woman. [And] she was a wonderful mother. We were so close.”
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Sara Taylor
“I’m sure a lot of people think she influenced me and perhaps was living her life through me, but there’s no question that I wanted to act,” Elizabeth Taylor said of Sara, a former actress who turned her attention to making her daughter a star … which she did with 1944’s National Velvet.“My mother was my best girlfriend, my mentor, my constant companion.”
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Jeanne Chauchoin
During Claudette Colbert’s rise to fame, her mom was never far from her side — weighing in on decisions both professional and personal. “[Jeanne] clearly favored my father,” said Claudette’s niece, Coco. “Aunt Claudette spent her life searching for her mother’s approval.”
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Ruby Dandridge
Before Dorothy became the first African American to get an Oscar nod for Best Actress, the star of 1954’s Carmen Jones was pushed into showbiz by her mom, who told her, “You ain’t going to work in [a] kitchen like me. We’re going to fix it so you be something else than that.”
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Rose Hovick
“Wherever we go, whatever we do, we’re gonna go through it together!” As immortalized in the 1959 musical Gypsy, those weren’t just lyrics for the mom of Gypsy Rose Lee, who very well may be the showbiz prototype for the domineering stage mother. And yet, according to Gypsy’s son, Erik, “[My mom] was a trouper. That’s one thing her mother gave her.”
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Maria Zakharenko
“She never had a career of her own,” explained Natalie Wood as to why Maria was so incessant in making her daughter a star. As Natalie’s sister, Lana, recalled: “She was to offer her daughter this incredible life, and she was going to live it with her as well. “
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Minnie Marx
“My mother treated us all equally…with contempt!” Groucho once quipped of Minnie, who pushed him and his brothers into vaudeville, film and stardom. Yet she did something right, as Groucho, Chico and Harpo each gave their daughters names with an M as a tribute.
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Ethel Gumm
“My mother was truly a stage mother [and] a mean one,” Judy Garland said of Ethel, who fixated on Judy being a household name. “She was very jealous because she had absolutely no talent.” It’s no wonder then that long after the success of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, Judy took to calling her mother “the real Wicked Witch of the West.”
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Jean Carpenter
If Jean Harlow’s mother seemed a little too attached to her daughter as she became a Hollywood icon with 1931’s Platinum Blonde, the reason was simple. As Mama Jean often said, “She was always all mine!”
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Lela Rogers
“Of the many gifts bestowed on me, there is one I treasure above all others — my dear mother,” declared Ginger Rogers of Lela, who shepherded her daughter’s career while becoming a producer and screenwriter in her own right.
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