General Leia Organa is a celestial grandmother. Somewhere in Heaven, Carrie Fisher is kvelling that her daughter, 28 year old daughter, actress Billie Lourd, has had a baby today. The father is Austen Rydell, an actor. Billie and Austen are engaged.
But I can tell you EXCLUSIVELY that this a Hollywood dynasty story. As Billie’s grandmother was Debbie Reynolds and her grandfather was Eddie Fisher, Austen also comes from a starry family.
(You won’t read this anywhere else.) Mark Rydell, Austen’s grandfather, now 91 years young, directed several big hits including “On Golden Pond” (for which he had an Oscar nomination as Best Director), “The River,” and “The Rose.” Mark Rydell was an actor before that, one half of soap opera’s first super couples with Rosemary Prinz on “As the World Turns” in the 1950s. In 2000, Mark Rydell also directed the James Dean TV biopic that launched the (now ignominious) career of James Franco. How do you like that?
Rydell divorced Austen’s grandmother in 1973. She was Joanna Linville, now 92. Linville co-founded the Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles in 1985. The little lad, named Kingston Fisher Lourd Rydell, is almost assured of becoming an actor one day. He’s got the genes!
Kingston’s grandfather, by the way, is Bryan Lourd, one of the senior partners in the Creative Artists Agency. So the baby will always have representation.
