Actor Claire Danes grew up rollerblading to auditions as a child actor living with her artist parents in Manhattan.
Her family tree, however, has firm roots in New Jersey.
The acclaimed TV and film actor, who rose to fame as a teen on “My So-Called Life” and moved to California in 1994, starred for years as CIA officer Carrie Mathison on “Homeland.”
She explores her ancestry and family history in an upcoming episode of the PBS celebrity genealogy series “Finding Your Roots.” The show, which just started its ninth season, has more than one Jersey-linked celebrity in the mix this time around.
Danes, 43, a three-time Emmy winner (for “Homeland” and the HBO movie “Temple Grandin”), has starred in films including “Romeo + Juliet” (1996), “Little Women” (1994) and “Brokedown Palace” (1999) and TV series like “The Essex Serpent” on Apple TV+ and “Fleishman Is in Trouble” on FX/Hulu, for which she is nominated for best supporting actress in a limited series at Tuesday’s Golden Globes.
On “Finding Your Roots,” host Henry Louis Gates Jr. delivers the show’s findings, which a team of researchers glean from historical records and DNA analysis.
Revelations that bring Danes to tears include the fact that her paternal grandmother, Claire Tomowske (Danes is her namesake), studied theater in graduate school, directing and working in stage production. But there’s also military history in her family, and great loss that came with it — another emotional discovery for the actor.
In 1918, Danes’ maternal great-grandfather, Peter Ebbert, became the first man from Glen Rock to die in World War I.
Claire Danes in a scene from "Finding Your Roots" with host Henry Louis Gates Jr. PBS
Danes’ grandmother Catherine, who was born after her father died, is seen in a newspaper photo taken in Glen Rock for the unveiling of a war memorial plaque called the Glen Rock Honor Roll. She was 3 years old.
“It’s particularly striking to see her as such a little girl wrapped in an American flag,” Danes tells Gates. “That’s a powerful image. ... I’m struck by the complexity of that, how layered that is. There’s a lot going on there.”
Peter Ebbert, a captain, died fighting on the front lines in France. Gates presents Danes with a letter from a fellow soldier that recounts the heroic circumstances of his death. In 1932, Catherine, then 13, visited her father’s grave in France on a trip with her grandmother sponsored by the federal government.
Danes is happy to learn that her grandmother was also a performer as a student at the New Jersey College for Women (later renamed Douglass College).
Each episode of the show usually features at least two different celebrities. The one with Danes, titled “Salem’s Lot,” premiering Tuesday, Jan. 10, also examines the ancestry of actor Jeff Daniels.
Family ties link both actors to the Salem witch trials. Daniels’ relatives were among the accusers, and Danes’ were among the accused.
Richard Kind with Henry Louis Gates Jr. The actor, a Trenton native, appears in an episode of the show premiering in February. PBS
Her ninth great-grandmother, Margaret Scott, then an elderly widow, was accused of witchcraft when a man expressed his belief that she had killed his cows as some kind of retaliation for not giving her firewood. Danes says she traces a straight line from the hysteria and mob mentality that fueled the witch hunt to today’s current events.
“I wish it felt more alien, I have to say,” she tells Gates. “Sure, this is all very colorful, but I think that we’re still vulnerable to this magical thinking.”
After 11 people testified against Scott, she was found guilty and hanged.
Actor Richard Kind, a Trenton native who grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, also appears in an upcoming episode of “Finding Your Roots” where he talks about his Jersey upbringing — namely, his New York routine.
As a theater-loving kid, he’d get his mom to drop him off at the train station in Trenton at about 11 a.m. He’d take the train to Penn Station, then buy a half-price ticket from TKTS to see a Broadway matinee. After the show, he’d go to Nathan’s for hot dogs and french fries and would peruse a bookstore and records at Sam Goody’s before catching a play and going home.
“I lived for it,” Kind, 66, tells Gates. “It was fantastic.”
The veteran actor and Tony nominee’s credits include the Cohen brothers movie “A Serious Man” (2009), “Tick, Tick... Boom!” (2021), “Bombshell” (2019), “Inside Out” (2015) and TV’s “Mad About You,” “Spin City,” “Big Mouth” and the Jersey-set “Red Oaks.”
Growing up in Jersey, Kind was expected to become a jeweler, like his father and grandfather. But playing Fagin in a fifth-grade production of “Oliver!” changed his path.
Kind is featured alongside actor David Duchovny in the “Finding Your Roots” episode titled “Chosen,” premiering Feb. 14, which showcases their Jewish ancestry. Both actors have roots in Eastern Europe’s Pale of Settlement, a region of the Russian Empire where Jews were permitted to live.
In New York, Kind’s great-grandfather Chaim “Hyman” Berson rose from a street peddler to one of three founders of the lucrative crayon-manufacturing business Star Crayons, which had a factory in Brooklyn.
Berson’s 1933 death reveals a surprise for Kind — he was murdered.
“Well ain’t there a skeleton in my closet,” the actor tells Gates. “Wow, I can hear them jingling.”
Berson and his nephew Charles, a company foreman, were shot, according to news reports from the time, and one of his business partners, Simon Stern, was accused of killing him to cash in on life insurance money. Charles also later died from the attack.
Stern, who Charles had identified as the shooter before his death, claimed the men had instead been killed by an organized crime “trust” with ties to Berson. He was acquitted of murdering the two men.
The Jan. 3 season premiere of “Finding Your Roots” presented the family histories of Julia Roberts and Edward Norton. At episode’s end, the actors learn they are distant cousins.
“How come I didn’t get the teeth and the smile?” Norton asks Gates.
Past New Jersey-rooted guests on “Finding Your Roots” have included Paul Rudd and Queen Latifah. The 21 celebrities to come this season include Viola Davis, Carol Burnett, Brian Cox, Tamera Mowry, Danny Trejo, Niecy Nash, Billy Crudup, Cyndi Lauper and Joe Manganiello.
“Finding Your Roots” airs on different dates on local PBS stations: 8 p.m. ET Tuesdays on Thirteen and 8 p.m. ET Thursdays on NJ PBS.
The Claire Danes episode will premiere 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10 on Thirteen and 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19 on NJ PBS. The Richard Kind episode will premiere 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14 on Thirteen.
Episodes of “Finding Your Roots” can also be streamed/watched at thirteen.org/programs/finding-your-roots and njtvonline.org/programs/finding-your-roots.
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup on Twitter.