On Nov. 21, her mother’s 80th birthday, actor Kate Hudson posted a carousel of special pictures from the life of award-winning actress Goldie Hawn to Instagram.
The carousel is filled with candid, joyful photos of a well-lived life. Goldie with Kate and family; Goldie in her youth, smiling, embracing her three children — Kate, Oliver and Wyatt — and running with her grandchildren and loving on her partner of over four decades, Kurt Russell. One picture shows Goldie and Kate hugging while biting down on lox bagels. And in the last picture we see Goldie grinning and hugging her Jewish mother, the late Laura Hawn (nee Steinhoff), who passed away in 1993.
“To distill half of her life that I’ve known into a single caption feels impossible. I have been the lucky recipient of novels of love and wisdom from her,” Hudson captioned the collection of photographs. “She is truly extraordinary and as I celebrate her everyday, today we all get to share in it! Please join me in wishing a huge Happy Birthday to this 80-year-old queen goddess!”
It certainly feels like Goldie Hawn has made all our lives richer with her films and her effervescent presence. And she’s also always been very proud to be Jewish, even if people don’t always clock her as such. Adam Sandler reminded us of her Jewish heritage in his famous first installment of “The Chanukah Song.”
“Paul Newman’s half Jewish, Goldie Hawn’s half, too/Put them together, what a fine lookin’ Jew,” he sang. I recently heard that part of the song quoted at an event for the premiere of season two of “Nobody Wants This,” where the cast fantasized about Hawn coming to guest star on the hit Hot Rabbi show.
But Goldie’s never identified as anything but Jewish. Her father, Edward Rutledge Hawn, the descendant of Edward Rutledge, one of the original signators of the Declaration of Indepence, was indeed Presbyterian, and while Hawn would sometimes go with him to church, she was raised firmly with her mother’s religion and tradition, traditions that she loves. Both Arthur and Laura are buried at Mount Lebanon Cemetary in Maryland and each have a Star of David on their grave.
Laura was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Hungary. She lost her parents early in life, and was raised by her aunt, Goldie, who Hawn is named after.
“When you have a Jewish mother who has a very strong Jewish family, it’s very ethnic in its practices,” Hawn shared with BeliefNet in 2005. “Eating brisket, the food and the family and the interconnectedness for better or worse. The intertwining of the family is a big part of the Jewish way of life.”
Hawn continued to raise her kids with Judaism in their lives.
Hudson has also been very open about her Jewish practices. “Of all the religions that I am made up of [Hudson’s father, singer Bill Hudson, was raised Roman Catholic, and her maternal grandfather was Presbyterian] Judaism was the one I knew the most because she lived with us and she was very religious. She lit candles every Friday and put a napkin on her head. I remember when we were little, she would put the napkin on her head, and we all thought it was funny, and she was like ‘it’s not funny!’” Hudson shared in a 2022 video.
“But gram was the best, so Judaism was everything that I ever knew,” Hudson said.
One of the actress’ most celebrated roles was famously of a Jewish woman. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Jewish American princess Judy Benjamin in “Private Benjamin” (the script to the movie was written by Nancy Meyers).
In 1986, six years after the movie came out, Hawn visited Israel. She was invited as a guest of Tel Aviv’s mayor, Shlomo Lahat, and the Tel Aviv Development Fund, to help get donations for Tel Aviv’s Cinematheque, a cause that was important to her late agent, Stan Kamen.
“When I went to Israel, I had a very, very strong epiphany. Every now and then, I will light a candle; I will light candles for my mother on the High Holidays and my father and my relatives. I haven’t been to the synagogue, at least not recently,” she said in that same 2005 interview for BeliefNet.
“And when I went to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, I started to look at their society, I started to look at their people, I started to look at the ways in which they lived and what mattered to them as a society, as a people, what is their natural inclination in building a good society,” she said. “Mothers and grandmothers took care of the preschoolers and created afterschool programs, where children can go after school to get them off the streets. These were incredible nurturing qualities, right down to making sure they had hot food. I looked at this and I finally realized, ‘Oh my God, now I see myself. Now I know why I sit and I watch my children eat and I’m sitting over them, watching them eat and wanting them to be happy because I’m feeding them.’ That’s when I realized that was my DNA.”
A hearty mazel tov to a true Jewish queen on her 80th birthday!
