Robert Pattinson, who plays a vampire in the popular Twilight movie series, is a distant relative of Vlad the Impaler on whom Brad Stoker based his immortal character Dracula. Many celebrities related to illustrious ancestors, including those of royal blood. What is even more amazing is that multiple celebrities share a common ancestor of great provenance.
Barack Obama
President Barack Obama is related to King Edward I of England, as were Presidents James Madison, William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush & George W. Bush. Via Edward I, he also is related to fellow 2008 Presidential candidates John McCain (whom he beat in the November election), Mitt Romney & Bill Richardson. He also is related to McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin.
Obama’s blood tie to Edward I relates him to the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley & Robert Frost and the English novelists W. Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene & Christopher Isherwood. Obama also is related to Walt Disney, Fay Wray, Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine & Uma Thurman.
Tom Hanks
Superstar Tom Hanks is related to King John of England, which provides him with such distinguished kin as Sir Francis Bacon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe & Ernest Hemingway. He also is related to President Herbert Hoover: Both Hoover and King John rank among the worst in their respective jobs.
The King John bloodline also relates Hanks to Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, Sissy Spacek & Glen Close.
The Great Kate
The legendary Katharine Hepburn is ia descendant of King Louis IV of France. Among her fellow “cousins” are three famous writers: Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Lyman Frank Baum (The Wizard of Oz), & Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan).
Hepburn also is related via Louis IV to Anthony Perkins, who was immortalized in Alfred Hitchcock’s Pyscho.
Clint Eastwood
Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood, who five times played Dirty Harry in the movies, is descended from another famous “Harry” — King Henry I of England. This ties Eastwood to former President Franklin Pierce and former First Lady Nancy Reagan as well as former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
Other “cousins” are actress Sigourney Weaver and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Paris Hilton
Speaking of King Henrys, famous-for-being-famous Paris Hilton — the woman who single-handed made amateur porn a career path to celebrity — is descended from Henry II of England. This relates her to Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon & Jimmy Carter, all considered among the worst Presidents in history, as well as political crackpot Lyndon LaRouche.
Henry II’s bloodline is burnished by the great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer & Dag Hammarskjöld, the former UN Secretary-General, who are Paris Hilton’s kin, as are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bette Davis & Brad Pitt.
Jake & Maggie Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal & his sister Maggie Gyllwnhaal are related to King Edward III of England, as are. Michael Dogulas, Hillary Duff, Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart & Randolph Scott. Other kin are the legendary writers Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, P.G. Wodehouse, H.P. Lovecraft, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell & Thomas Pynchon.
Presidents Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft & Calvin Coolidge as well as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt also were descended from Edward III, as was Vice Presidents George Clinton & Nelson Rockefeller.
The rebels Patrick Henry, Fletcher Christian (Mutiny on the Bounty) & Robert Emmet are part of the bloodline, as are four Prime Ministers: the Duke of Wellington, William Gladstone & Margaret Thatcher of the UK and Prince Talleyrand of France. Other kin are Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Charles Darwin, Noel Coward & the Von Trapp children of Sound of Music fame.
Sources:
MTV.com, Robert Pattinson Related To Real Dracula, Vlad The Impaler
Reference:
- Humphreys Family Tree, Royal Descents of Famous People humphrysfamilytree.com/famous.descents.html
