Russell Crowe is a little Italian, and now he can officially and proudly announce it. The 59-year-old New Zealand-born actor has published the results of his research into his family origins in X. And Italian DNA also appears in the Gladiator's family tree.
"I've been trying to trace my Italian ancestry for a long time. Folkloric family tales and spelling mistakes had led me down the wrong path. It turns out that my great-great-grandfather on my mother's side, who traveled to New Zealand in 1864, was named Luigi Ghezzi.
Born in 1829 in Ascoli Piceno, Marche, the son of Augustine and Annunziata, born in Parma. Luigi had worked in Argentina, taken a ship to India, was shipwrecked, and ended up in Cape Town, South Africa. "While there, he met and married Mary Ann Curtain, and they emigrated to New Zealand," he explains.
It might interest you
Loris Giuliano reported for setting fire to the Eiffel Tower over a documentary about Naples.
Qatargate: Brussels' anti-corruption chief arrested
"I want to see my first body": Europol dismantles network of child killers hired via chat rooms.
Tragedy in Houston: Father hit by car in front of his children's school. Cilento mourns Nino Ruocco.
The research, overall, paints a very mixed picture, to say the least. "So now we have information on Norwegian and Italian ancestry, various Scottish and Maori connections. But something strange comes to light: a DNA test of close relatives shows a predominance of Irish, but we don't know how/who," he reveals. Is there more? Of course.
"In my mother's family, three generations back, there have been women married to men named Crowe. I've had people come up to me and say we're related, and I was a little skeptical, thinking I knew every member of the Crowe family, but I'm also related to another line of Crowes who appear to have lived in Australia early on."
EDITORIAL TEAM
Choose the social channel you want to subscribe to