Here in Portugal, almost all actors, artists, comedians and even musicians come from wealthy families.
One example is one of the biggest groups in Portugal, D.A.M.A., whose members were friends at a private school.
Another case is Eurovision winner Salvador Sobral, grandson of a duke and a member of the Braamcamp family.
Or Paula Rego, known for her museum, who came from a high bourgeois English background.
And finally, Sofia de Mello Breyner Andersen (writer), who came from a wealthy Danish family.
Are the artists in your country from upper-class families too?
22 comments
That’s a very difficult question to answer, because when you say “all actors”, do you really mean *all* actors, or do you mean *all A-listers whose face I can recall*?
Most artists are working-class people who either can’t or barely live off their artistic endeavour alone, so they also have side jobs either in teaching or in a random service industry role.
Many highly productive artists are probably financially secure either due to prior success or because of family wealth that allows them to not divide their attention, and those have a good chance to be recognisable A-listers, but they aren’t the majority of artists (because if everyone is special, no-one is).
I wouldn’t say that applies to musical artists as a whole. You have a lot that come from other types of backgrounds. And with comedians I think it’s a regional thing, with comedians from the north usually being from more working and middle-class backgrounds.
But I do think that acting is definitely dominatee by a certain group of people. I think that more well off families are more likely to support children that go into artistic fields.
No, not at all. There is one large family from which quite a few prominent actors have come from over the last decades, and obviously, they have accumulated some wealth over time, but they are wealthy from being artists.
Other than that, artists in Austria usually have a very diverse background. Most are from middle class, some have been brought up in poor households or are immigrants, and some do come from upper middle class of course. I am not aware of any artists who come from really wealthy families.
In the UK very much so. You only have to look at the wiki pages of many British actors and actresses to see that they went to private schools and either come from acting dynasties or historically wealthy families. It’s pretty much the same in many areas of the arts and the media in general. It’s down to the simple fact that you need to have wealth to support yourself while living in London and the connections that come from families and a private education.
I don’t think so. Private schools are not common here, we don’t have any nobilities, no billionaires.. maybe someone comes from a wealthier family, but overall there is not much difference between those who have more and those with less.
Unlike some other Western European countries, there isn’t really that much “old money” or families with intergenerational wealth in Ireland.
We also would’ve been classed as a middle income country (or a lower-end high income country) on a worldwide scale until the Celtic Tiger in the 1990s, when Ireland became a fully developed country, as it is today.
So, to answer your question, not really. However, there is a lot of nepotism inside the national broadcaster (RTÉ), which does mean some jobs in Irish TV do remain in the hands of a few well-connected families.
When it comes to things like music, films, and books, a lot of successful Irish people in these fields are from middle-class backgrounds, not particularly wealthy backgrounds.
An example would be the actor Cillian Murphy, who has been in a fair amount of films (with Oppenheimer being his most recent success) and the TV show Peaky Blinders. His parents were teachers, and teaching was seen as a good middle-class job in Ireland in the time when he was growing up.
There are some acting “dynasties” (so to speak) in Germany. But most of them aren’t really rich. But it certainly helps when ones parents already have the connections to producers or directors.
Matthias Schweighöfer would be one example.
Especially theatre actors and travelling actors have been known to be rather poor and acting wasn’t a profession children from “good” families would take. If they wanted to act, they became lawyers.
Are they all from wealthy families? No.
Are they all *related*? Yes. Very much so.
Obviously, there are outsiders who make it, but the amount of Windings, Koppels and Kaas’ in the Danish arts scene is… disproportionate to say the least. Even the ones who don’t share a surname often turn out to be related anyway (i.e. Jytte Abildstrøm and Peter Mygind, or Alberte Winding and Aske Bentzon).
Since all the career-making art schools are free to attend and on paper equally accessible to everyone, its not so much about money as it is about opportunities. The Danish arts scene is *tiny*, so having grown up in that world gives you a significant advantage when it comes to networking, understanding social cues and, crucially, considering art a viable career in the first place. A lot of the nepo-babies are held up by something as simple as just having parents who encouraged them to focus on music or theater instead of pushing them into a “sensible” career. This is also important because while anyone can attend, say, the Royal Theater Academy, if you *didn’t* (because, say, your parents pressured you into doing an engineering degree) you are pretty much SooL ever geting into the acting scene. It’s small, insular and not very open to outsider.
(In the name of fairness, I should mention that the arguably most famous Danish artists internationally, Mads Mikkelsen and Lars von Trier, are afaik completely unrelated to any of the arts dynasties. They have non-artist parents and came up through the school system on their own merits)
I don’t think so, I think we have a mixed bag so to speak. Most kids and teenagers have an opportunity to learn how to play an instrument, sing or develop their acting skills and take lessons for a low sum every year.
It’s difficult to answer staristicslly, but just thr other day I was reading a tweet thread by a British actor saying things had got sppreciably more difficult in the UK since 2010 because of a number of factors.
The Austerity measures put in by the government after the financial crash were brutal across the board, but in particular the arts were seemingly regarded as an expensive luxury the country could do without.
Even after Austerity (officially) ended and the economy (shakily) recovered, the Conservatives continued to push STEM as the only “proper” subjects, while talking about arts & humanities as “useless” degrees.
Many universities have closed courses or even entire arts/humanities departments because they couldn’t afford them. In their last months, the Tories were even talking about banning courses that didn’t provably lead to students getting high-paying jobs within 2 years.
Funding for the BBC – one of the biggest employers of creative people in the UK – was cut over and over, with them having to close their dedicated “arts & documentaries” channel BBC4
Actors and other creatives were stopped from claiming Unemployment between jobs – and picking up casual work got a lot harder in the aftermath of the crash to boot.
COVID and lockdowns did a real number on regional theatres in particular.
And increasingly companies are using “AI” tools ro do the kind of bread and butter work – ad copy, artwork, voice acting, audiobook reading – that act as a way to pay the bills and get a foot in the door to start with.
All of which means that while there’s a rich tradition of working class creative talent in the UK, it has for over a decade been getting harder and harder to study (unless you’re wealthy and can afford to pay high fees at specialist Drama Schools), harder to get into the industry as jobs dry up (unless you’re well-connected and daddy’s friend can get you an in), harder to make ends meet as a jobbing actor (unless you’re independently wealthy).
Yes. I’m not sure about acting, but when it comes to art, it’s very much dominated by people from rich families. In the old days, like until the 50s or so, you had to have a rich parent or granddad or uncle to be able to attent art school. Nowadays, you have to have a rich parent or granddad or uncle to be able to fully focus on developing your skills and networking, instead of working your ass off in a supermarked just to be able to afford rent. The royal family has a weirdly high number of “artists”… Museum directors usually come from rich backgrounds. The Astrup Fearnley, one of the big museums in Oslo, of course is private and belongs to a rich family.
No, what is common is artists that have family relations to other artists, and because of that connection they have more opportunities.
Like actress Alba Flores that comes from a family of singers/actors. Javier Bardem that comes from a family of actors. Enrique Iglesias whose father was singer Julio Iglesias.
Regarding actors : I can’t say for sure , there’s some nepotism involved and some families .
But a lot of the old actors from the communist era were deeply involved with “the party ” and have been involved with it’s remnants ever since ’89 .
As for any other “artistic” job, like opera singers, violin performers etc , they generally are from wealthy families who could afford to pay for instruments and education….
It’s why I often doubt I could make it as an artist : the people who are artists in this country are either foreigners/from artistic parents or otherwise got wealth which I did not have growing up…
Let’s see…I’ll look up the backgrounds of some A list artists.
Lars Eidinger. Father: Engineer. Mother: Pediatric nurse.
Til Schweiger. Both parents: Teacher.
Daniel Brühl. Father: TV director. Mother: Teacher.
Heike Makatsch. Father: Ice hockey goalie. Mother: Elementary school teacher.
Veronika Ferres. Father: Coal and potato salesman. Mother: Homemaker.
Elyas M’Barek. Father: Programmer. Mother: Nurse.
Bjarne Mädel. Father: Engineer. Mother: Wikipedia doesn’t say.
Sandra Hüller. Both parents: Educators.
Corinna Harfouch. Father: Teacher. Mother: Kindergarten teacher.
Nena. Both parents: Teacher.
Till Lindemann. Father: Children’s book author. Mother: Journalist.
Apache 207. Grew up in a simple home with his single mother.
Till Brönner. Both parents: Teacher.
Christoph Waltz. Both parents: Stage and costume makers.
Matthias Schweighöfer. Both parents: Actors.
Jessica Schwarz. Both parents own a brewery-restaurant.
Klaas Heufer-Umlauf. No mention of his parents, but he was a hair dresser before he became 1/2 of the biggest TV host duo in Germany.
Palina Rojinski. She came to Germany with her parents as refugees.
Stefan Raab. Father: Butcher. Mother: Worked in the family butcher shop.
I could go on, but I’d say, no, you don’t have to come from a rich household to become an A-lister in Germany.
No I don’t think this is the case in The Netherlands. It depends a bit which kind of art, it is common to see son or daughter following mom or dad in their footsteps. But I think you find singers, actors and comedians from all backgrounds.
We do have some dynasties in Dutch entertainment industry. For example the richest media tycoon here is John de Mol. His sister is a famous tv host and his son is a tv host and actor as well. His sister daughter is know pushed to become a tv host as well.
Another thing is you will find the same actors and directors in Dutch movie industry. So once in a while they release more or less the same romcom movie with the usual suspects in the cast.
The same goes for musicals. There are a few directors and the cast is all the same. When someone is done with acting they start hosting a tv show or the starting a career as a singer. Once you are in this circle you can either be an actor, singer, tv show or whatever.
depends I feel in Poland that would apply to eurovision-type forced stars, mayby actors and to some degree architects
i got no idea about artsy painters/sculptors
As far as music goes it’s mostly normal people.
they’re always dominated by upper middle class and upper class. No one frome lower classes has means to support themselves during years when you learn the skills and make connections. Also connections that their parents have are necessary to thrive in those professions.
Yes.
Willy Barcenas is the son of Luis Barcenas, an extremely corrupt local politician that was caught.
He started a band and his demos were on sports newscasts because some of them related to sports and it was Barcenas’s son he was famous you had to play them
All of their first gigs were full of reporters asking questions about his dad.
3 CDs in he’s complaining he’s more than Barcenas’s son.
That’s how you marketed yourself early on dingbat.
Like that there’s many similar cases.
In Lithuania they come from all walks of life. We don’t really have multigenerational wealth here. Pretty much all biggest celebrities, comedians, singers are just random normal people who went to public schools, lived in rural villages or depressing commie block neighbourhoods.
I’d say it’s a fair assumption that a lot of famous artists come from the kind of socially secure background that allows for their child to persue an artistic career full-time for at least a few years to see if it pans out.
Mind you, that’s not necessarily upper class, but solid middle class will do. Also, I can think about a good number of exceptions from a thoroughly blue collar or even extremely low income background.
There was a conductor with disabilities some years ago who said that he needed to fight more because the conservatory and later classical music maestros tend to come from more well off families, but otherwise I wouldn’t say there are such exclusive jobs in the arts.
There are some artistic dynasties that live off the fame of the first to make a break in the industry, like the Gassmann (now in their 3rd generation) or the De Sica, but each generation is markedly worse than the previous, so I don’t think it’ll last.
In Poland if I meed arts student it’s either of two:
* a rich spoiled kid that is living hippie art happy activist lifestyle
* a person that is barely holding it together and pushing through school with every atom in their body.
Depending on the layer of culture you will meet different people. There are art circles where people definitely came from lower class families. They understand each other and hang out together. But there are also circles of people who came from wealth. As I’ve noticed, they don’t vibe with each other and kinda form different “zones” of art world.