Hollywood Mothers
Where does the drive to become famous begin? Ask Sigmund Freud, and he would categorically attribute all to the omnipotent Madonna figure - the mother. A theory only too wontedly reiterated by most mothers of movie stars, whether they are of the dearest mother or mommie dearest calibre.
The mommie dearest types are only too willing to take all the credit for their son's or daughter's fame by sheer virtue of the fact that they were desperately ambitious for their children, but who undoubtedly forced-fed them the 'stardom' message along with the daily vegetables.
On the other hand, some dearest mother's to the stars did their best to dissuade, oppress and suppress all notions and dreams their child had to pursue their inner calling to become famous.
Whether the potential star's breast-milk message was positive or negative, one thing's for sure, mothers' legacy has been permanently imprinted upon the child's impressionable mind.
For Streisand and many others mother's disapproving grain of sand was the very thing that irritate the oyster to create a pearl. It was the sheer lack of approval that propelled them out of their uncomfortable environment and onto the road to success.
Like their female counterparts and a generation before them, Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando and James Dean ran, not walked, out of their angst-ridden domicile situation to pursue their destiny.
Although Robert Redford recognised that his mother, Martha sacrificed herself for him, he felt anxious to escape his innocuous suburban home with romantic notions of becoming an artist. A college drop-out, Robert left for Paris in search of his dream.
When Redford won Best Director for his Oscar winning film ORDINARY PEOPLE he confessed, "I was drawn to the project because I saw it as a dramatized version of my own childhood scenario..."
"Throughout my childhood I camouflaged my feelings. I had good parents - they were perfectly fine - but I heard different sounds. I didn't feel I was being heard and that made me doubt my sanity."
Despite being raised in a normal environment some children carve to become special purely because they hate the ordinary-ness they see in themselves. They become actors or celebrities by virtue of their enormous drive to become extraordinary.
Still others believe that the Gods reached down and bestowed them with a special quality. Whatever the mysterious X or Y factor is that deem the pursuit of stardom at the core looms the larger than life mother figure.
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