Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Kate Paltrow (born September 27, 1972) is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe- and double Screen Actors Guild Award-winning American actress.

Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Blythe Danner, an actress, and the late Bruce Paltrow, a film and television director, writer, and producer. Paltrow's father was of Ashkenazi Russian Jewish descent and her mother was raised a Quaker; Paltrow acknowledges her Jewish roots. Raised in Santa Monica, she attended Crossroads School before moving and attending Spence School, a private girls' school in New York City which was also attended by Emmy Rossum and Kerry Washington. Later she briefly studied art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before discontinuing her degree and committing herself to acting. Paltrow has a younger brother, Jake Paltrow, and is a cousin of actress Katherine Moennig. She is an "adopted daughter" of Talavera de la Reina (Spain), where at age 15 she spent a month as an exchange student and learned Spanish. Paltrow was childhood friends with Saturday Night Live's Maya Rudolph.