15 Little-Known Celebrity Parents As Amazing As Their Kids
![15 Little-Known Celebrity Parents As Amazing As Their Kids](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/6/793496_320x180.jpg)
Celebrities draw a ton of attention, essentially by definition. The relentless and overwhelming focus on them often means other interesting details can get lost, such as things they do that aren't related to their careers or odd bits of their back story.
One of the first things that tends to get obscured or forgotten in the life of celebrities are their parents. The fact is, no celebrity simple appears out of thin air--they were all raised by someone. Often times, these people are just as amazing as their famous offspring.
Fore example, Sally Field's mom was actually an incredibly prolific movie and TV actress in her hey day. Margaret O'Mahoney (Sally's mom) was in around 90 movies and shows in her career, including some lead roles in big movies!
Tupac’s mom, a Black Panther, went on trial for conspiring to bomb NYC landmarks – and she got acquitted one month before she gave birth to him.
Here’s the full story, plus 14 others:
![Sally Field's mom was a really prolific movie and TV actress in her day. Margaret O'Mahoney showed up in about 90 movies TV shows during a 30-year span, and she had a lead role in 1951's The Man From Planet X. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/1/793511.jpg)
Source: Entertainment Weekly
![Olivia Newton-John's dad was a WWII spy who helped defeat the Nazis. He translated the Nazi battle plans for El Alamein, a key battle, and his work also helped Britain capture high-ranking Nazi officer Rudolf Hess. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/0/793510.jpg)
![Blake Lively's dad was a Hollywood actor with over 100 credits to his name. Ernest Lively appeared in The West Wing, Baywatch, Mulholland Falls, and the 1993 Beverly Hillbillies movie, among lots of others. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/9/793509.jpg)
Source: Entertainment Weekly
![Kiefer Sutherland's mom was an actress and dedicated activist. She was in the Civil Rights Movement, founded the fundraising group Friends of the Black Panthers and was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/5/793505.jpg)
Source: Deadline
![Tupac's mom was an activist and former member of the Black Panther Party. @OOOO She was accused of conspiring to bomb NYC landmarks, but she represented herself in the trial and was acquitted a month before Tupac's birth. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/6/793506.jpg)
Source: Vulture
![Tom Selleck's dad was a major real estate developer in the LA area. He also served on many, many LA committees and commissions, and was director of the Los Angeles Olympic Organization Committee. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/7/793507.jpg)
Source: LA Times
![Ed Harris' father Bob was a television star back in the 1950s and 1960s. He co-starred in CBS' Calamity Jane in 1963, and also in the 1964 show The Entertainers plus, he'd been on various TV shows since 1950. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/8/793508.jpg)
Source: Variety
![Arnold Spielberg, Steven's dad, was an early, influential electronics engineer. He had a hand in designing 1950s GE mainframes, and won the Computer Pioneer Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/3/793503.jpg)
Source: Variety
![Ron Howard's dad Rance was an Emmy-nominated television actor. He was on Seinfeld, The X-Files, Gray's Anatomy, Murder, She Wrote, and Happy Days, and got an Emmy nom for kids' show Through the Magic Pyramid. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/4/793504.jpg)
Source: Deadline
![Joss Whedon's father and grandfather were both also screenwriters. His dad Tom worked on shows like The Golden Girls and Captain Kangaroo, and his granddad John worked on The Dick Van Dyke Show among others. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/2/793502.jpg)
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
![Kim Kardashian's father Robert wasn't just OJ's lawyer, but also kind of a celeb. He was basically OJ's confidant and even sheltered OJ at his house, so he became a household name in the '90s just like OJ was. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/1/793501.jpg)
Source: The Daily Beast
![Molly Ringwald's father was The Emperor of Jazz in Sacramento, CA. Bob Ringwald played jazz and promoted it in CA for more than 60 years, and the Sacramento Jazz Festival gave him that title in 2012. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/0/0/793500.jpg)
Source: ET Online, The Sacramento Bee
![Sean Astin's mom Patty Duke was an Oscar-winning Hollywood actress She got the oscar for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, and appeared in movies like Valley of the Dolls, By Design, and Amazing Love. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/9/793499.jpg)
Source: Vanity Fair
![Sly Stallone's mom helped promote the real-life GLOW wrestling company. Jackie Stallone also promoted women's fitness, helped create women-only gyms, and advocated for TV coverage of women's athletics. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/8/793498.jpg)
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
![Jack Black's mom was a NASA engineer who helped save the Apollo 13 mission. Judith Love Cohen had a hand in creating Abort-Guidance System, and that's the system that saved the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/9/7/793497.jpg)
Source: USA Today