This Father’s Day, I’m thinking about my own dad, sure, but I’m also thinking about a special class of celebrity dad. The kind of dad who keeps producing heirs well into his silver years. The dad who becomes a dad for the first or fifth time in his 60s. It can’t be easy to do: The dad has to find a partner who’s roughly 30 years younger, for one, and he probably also has to do some foreign action films or Vegas residencies to make sure he can line the trust funds of his little tykes.
This kind of dad comes in many stripes. Here are just a few of them. Let’s salute their efforts.
OLD HOLLYWOOD DADS
Perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of these kinds of dads are actors. Warren Beatty has four children with Annette Bening, two of whom were born in his 60s. Steve Martin became a dad for the first time at 67; he talked to AARP magazine about it. Jeff Goldblum welcomed his first child, Charlie Ocean, when he was 62, and then he had another one, River Joe, when he was 64. Richard Gere became a dad for the first time at 69 and did it again at 70. Nick Nolte had a daughter, Helen, when he was 66, and he recently said that she calls him “grandpa.”
Clint Eastwood is a father of eight, and he had his youngest child, Morgan, when he was 66. (Who remembers her star turn on the one-season E! reality show Mrs. Eastwood & Company?) Robert De Niro has six kids, and one of them was born when he was 68.
Alec Baldwin has had a rough go of it lately, but luckily he can focus on his family in his advanced age. He currently has seven children, two of whom were born in his 60s. And, of course, his wife Hilaria (née Hillary) Baldwin has one more on the way.
OLD ROCKER DADS
What’s more rock n’ roll than having babies in your 70s? Ask Mick Jagger, who had his son Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger when he was 72. Jagger’s bandmate Ronnie Wood welcomed twin girls, Alice Rose and Gracie Jane, the same year when he was 69. David Foster, songwriter and former mean husband on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, had his son Rennie, with his fifth wife Katharine McPhee, when he was 71.
Rod Stewart, meanwhile, is a dad of eight, and two of his children were born when he was in his 60s. Billy Joel, 73, has three daughters: Alexa Ray, 36, Della Rose, 6, and Remy Anne, 4. Paul McCartney has five kids, one of whom was born when he was 61.
OLD RUPERT MURDOCH
Rupert Murdoch, 91, is a father of six. He had his youngest two children with ex-wife Wendy Deng when he was in his early 70s.
OLD CELEBRITY DAD FROM THE PAST
Charlie Chaplin had 11 children, the last of whom was born when he was 73. He died 15 years later.
HONORABLE MENTION
Hugh Grant, 61, has not had any children in his 60s. But he made quite a run of it in his 50s, having five children with two different women in the span of six years. Maybe he’s not done yet!
Happy Father’s Day, gramps.
