My Hollywood Family Story

What made you decide to get into the business? That's a question that a lot of actors are asked. What made you decide to get into the business? Well, for me, movies and film and television kind of a family business. When people hear my last name and they understand my lineage, my last name is Sturgis. They will always say, "You are Hollywood royalty." Now, you are 100% forgiven if you have no idea what the name Sturgis has to do with film and television, but my grandfather was not just my opinion, many people's opinion, one of the greatest writer directors of all time. His name was Preston Sergis. He's an Academy Award winner. He won the first best original screenplay for the movie The Great McGinty. and he was really one of the first to start directing what he wrote because he was tired of watching directors ruin his comedy. So he began one of the first writer directors. He had an amazing amazing career and it really was up and down as many Hollywood stories are. He had a career that was incredibly successful and incredibly tragic at times. I would definitely suggest that you go and watch some of his movies. My favorite is The Lady Eve, but I also love The Palm Beach Story and Sullivan's Travels. Just wonderful, wonderful, funny filmmaker to me. So, my my father, he was the first son of Preston. His name was Solomon. He also became an actor and I think it was very difficult for him being in the shadow of my grandfather. The Nepo baby thing hadn't really happened. He died when uh my dad was just a teen, so it didn't really help his career other than maybe some name recognition. One of my dad's big breaks was he was in a movie with Elvis called Charo. It was the one Elvis movie where Elvis didn't sing. Probably not a good idea, but I have vivid memories of watching that movie and being terrified watching my dad do bad things and uh ultimately get killed at the end of the movie. So, by Elvis, I believe. So, that's kind of cool. And then my mother was also an actress. My mother, she also played many bad girls. She in teenage doll and uh women in prison and she was oftentimes the bad person. She died when I was an infant, so I never knew her that I recall, but I got to watch some of her TV shows and movies. And that's not what you want to see when you're thinking about your mom. You want to see June Cleaver, not uh a trollup. Fun fact, I don't even know that I want to say it, but um she was in the movie called The Singing Nun. wonderful movie with Debbie Reynolds and she talks about my mother, the character of my mother talks about terminating a pregnancy in that movie. Who would have thought that that's in the singing nun? So anyway, it's a little disconcerting to get to learn who your parents are from watching them on film and television. So, I I understand that that's because of what I do, that that's not who she was, but it does give me some connection to my family. My grandfather died long before I was born. My mother died right after I was born. My father had a problem that has gone through some generations of surges of drinking and he was not able to be fully present to raise me. And so I was raised by my grandmother who was married to Preston when he won the Academy Award and during most of his success. It's a weird but kind of wonderful legacy to live with. People will who are who are fans of his will get so excited when they find out and will be mad at friends and family for never having told them. Why didn't you tell me? And I don't tell people because more often than not nowadays, people don't really know who he is. Unless you're a huge film fan, then you're going to know who he is. I listen, most of the memoirs that I read, podcasts that I listen to with certain directors will always talk about him. There was a movie that Stephen Spielberg made years ago called Always. And I remember seeing him on a press junket. And that movie is about people from the past coming back to sort of give you advice. And he always said, "I would wonder what Preston Sturgis would say if he could come back and tell me what to do." And I remember looking at the television and saying, "Hire Shannon. That's what he wants you to do." So when I meet people of that caliber, they are usually really impressed. But anybody else, they don't know. I actually had my first manager suggested that I change my name to something that was, I guess, sexier sounding than Sturgis. My story is full of Hollywood royalty and a list little discombobulated and you won't be surprised that I became an actor. So, my first stepmother after my mother died was a woman named Julia. And Julia's grandfather wrote was a huge composer. Harry Warren, Julia Warren. She wrote he wrote Jeepers Creepers. That's Amore. Chattanooga Chuchu. Wonderful composer. Fun. We lived in Beverly Hills then. That was a fun Hollywood legacy. I remember when I went to preschool, I think I went to preschool with Chastity Bono and other people that I probably had no idea who they were, celebrities, kids, and such. When my father and Julia separated and divorced, I stayed with Julia and she remarried a man named Michael Reva whose grandmother was Marina Dietrich. And I'm pretty sure I met her, but I can't really remember. I remember going to London. Maybe it was uh his mother who was Marena's daughter who I met. But that was a wonderful little family. We were three Hollywood legends, kids or grandkids, and oh, all grandkids. Interesting. And yet no real relationship to one another. So that's a little bit of my sort of kooky family thing. So if you have no connections at all, because I've got to say it felt like I had no connections at all. Raised by my grandmother, not in Hollywood. Everybody who had had any opportunity to help me was dead. And there was a name that even some people thought was too ugly to use. So don't worry. And if you happen to be somebody who has a legacy name, who has a relation, I don't I think Nepo baby is not a slur. I think it's a wonderful thing. There is nothing wrong with you being related to somebody who holds a place in our hearts and our collective consciousness and you don't need to apologize for it. I work with a lot of celebrities children and they all feel guilty about it. They don't want to use their connections. They don't want to of course I tell them everybody would use it if they could. You should go ahead and use it. You should be proud of that legacy. Don't be afraid of who they are. It's everybody's going to assume that they helped you anyways. So, if they want to help you, take that help. Most that I've worked with, celebrities that have children that want to be in the business are really good at navigating it. They will give their children, their connect help, but they will not enable them to be helpless. they will make them do it on their own because you're going to need to have that sense of work and having earned your career. But having some help, I think that's fine. Some people have help by being very handsome or beautiful. How is that not the same in some ways as having nepotism? That the way they look might get them in the door. Then the way they act is going to make sure to give them a career. So, a lot of times, especially people when people are big fans of Preston's, they will say, "What was he like? Was he funny? Was he?" And I say, I have to say, "He died 10 years before I was born, so I never got to know him." But I certainly do feel like there's some of him in me, some of his sense of humor. I think I'm pretty funny. uh some of his sense of humor, his way of approaching things. One of the things that my grandfather was very well known for, mostly the screw ball comedies in the late 1930s was having a very strong female lead. My grandmother, who raised me, was a very strong woman, but his sense of humor was fantastic. And I certainly hope and I feel like I've inherited some of that the dry wit and the way of looking at things with a slightly a skew or ironic point of view. So, whoever your ancestors are, whether they be celebrities or people who nobody's ever heard of, you're going to take things from them, and you are going to be able to channel those lessons and make your work that much better. You don't have to have had any Hollywood connections to make it as an actor. I promise you. And if you have them, wonderful. use them to the best of your ability. But as actors, you're going to be drawing on everything that you know and everything that you've experienced in life. And let that be your family as well. They influence you in so many ways, ways that we probably become more aware of as you study acting. So, I guess it was inevitable with a grandfather who was a writer, director, and two parents who were actors that I ended up doing this. But I've got to tell you, the acting coaching is really what I was meant to do. I am the best and you will love studying with me. So, when you're ready, when you are ready to do what you came here for, come and see me. I have classes in person and online. Like, comment, subscribe, and I will see you next week where I will talk less about myself, I hope. Did I include everything you said? - Okay.