Hollywood heartthrob Cole Hauser won the hearts of fans around America for his charismatic turn as the rough-hewn Rip Wheeler on Yellowstone.
But many of his admirers are unlikely to know that in real life, Cole’s roots stretch back to one of Hollywood’s most illustrious families.
In a showbiz climate riven with arguments about ‘nepo babies,’ Cole himself has not trumpeted the fact he is an entertainment legacy.
On his father’s side alone, he can claim descent from a screenwriter who penned an Oscar-winning movie for Disney.
However, it is on his mother’s side that Cole has roots in one of the founding families of Hollywood, with a surname known around the world.
So which family is it?
Hollywood heartthrob Cole Hauser won the hearts of fans around America for his charismatic turn as the rough-hewn Rip Wheeler on Yellowstone
But many of his admirers are unlikely to know that in real life, Cole’s roots stretch back to one of Hollywood’s most illustrious families
One of Cole’s great-grandfathers on his mother’s side is none other than Harry Warner, one of the Warner Brothers who founded the studio of the same name.
Harry, a Polish Jew born in the late 19th century in what was then the Russian Empire, arrived in Baltimore as a child with his family.
He and his younger brothers Albert, Sam and Jack Warner ultimately went west and in 1923 launched the motion picture house that bears their name to this day.
Harry’s daughter Betty married a jobbing screenwriter and producer called Milton Sperling and welcomed a daughter called Cass Warner – who became Cole’s mother.
As Harry’s son-in-law, Milton returned to Warner Bros, where he had worked years earlier as a personal secretary during the early days of his career.
During his run as a writer and producer at Warner Bros, Milton worked with such entertainment heavyweights as Metropolis director Fritz Lang.
He earned an Oscar nomination for helping write the screenplay for Otto Preminger’s 1955 picture The Court-Martial Of Billy Mitchell.
Meanwhile, Cole Hauser’s paternal grandfather was Dwight Hauser, a screenwriter who worked on the Oscar-winning 1958 Disney documentary short Ama Girls about female pearl drivers off the Japanese coastline.
Dwight’s son — and Cole’s father — is the actor Wings Hauser, whose work includes an acclaimed supporting turn in Norman Mailer’s 1987 film Tough Guys Don’t Dance.
About a year ago, a social media furor erupted over ‘nepo babies’ who are said to have gotten showbiz careers because of family connections.
Critics pointed to a massive glut of rising starlets with famous parents, from Johnny Depp’s daughter Lily-Rose Depp to Andie MacDowell’s daughter Margaret Qualley.
Maude Apatow, whose father is Judd Apatow, and Maya Hawke, whose parents are Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, have shot to fame in recent years as well.
One of Cole’s great-grandfathers on his mother’s side is none other than Harry Warner, one of the Warner Brothers who founded the studio of the same name
(from left) Harry and his younger brothers Jack, Sam a nd Albert Warner ultimately went west and in 1923 launched the motion picture house that bears their name to this day
Cole’s maternal grandfather Milton Sterling earned an Oscar nomination for helping write the screenplay for Otto Preminger’s 1955 picture The Court-Martial Of Billy Mitchell (pictured)
Cole’s father is actor Wings Hauser, whose work includes a supporting turn in Norman Mailer’s 1987 film Tough Guys Don’t Dance, in which Ryan O’Neal and Isabella Rossellini are pictured
Madonna’s daughter Lourdes Leon, Heidi Klum’s daughter Leni Klum and Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough are also coming up, among others.
The online chatter around ‘nepo babies’ reached a fever pitch in December 2022 after New York magazine ran a viral cover story about the phenomenon.
Dakota Johnson, whose parents are Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and whose grandmother is Hitchcock blonde Tippi Hedren, was one of the faces on the cover.
Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of Psycho actress Janet Leigh and Some Like It Hot dreamboat Tony Curtis, then waded into the debate. Calling herself the ‘OG Nepo Baby,’ she complained: ‘The current conversation about nepo babies is just designed to try to diminish and denigrate and hurt.’