Paul Rudd — actor with roots in the Russian Empire
Paul Stephen Rudd was born on 6 April 1969 in Passaic, New Jersey, to English-born Jewish parents. His connection to the Russian Empire runs through both sides of his family, several generations back.
His father, Michael Rudd (1943-2008), came from Edgware and became a historical tour guide and a vice-president of TWA; his mother, Gloria Irene Granville, from Surbiton, was a sales manager at a Kansas City television station. Both were born in London, and both descended from Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who had moved to England from Belarus, Poland and Russia, lands then largely within the Russian Empire. Rudd's grandfather changed the paternal surname from Rudnitsky to Rudd; the maternal family's surname had been Goldstein. His parents were second cousins. Published sources do not record the towns the families came from or when they reached England.
The family moved with his father's work, living in Lenexa, Kansas, and for three years in Anaheim, California, and Rudd had his bar mitzvah in Ontario, Canada. As a boy he read the British comics The Beano and The Dandy, which an uncle in England sent him. He graduated from Shawnee Mission West High School in 1987, studied theatre at the University of Kansas and trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
He made his screen debut in 1991. His breakthrough came as Josh in Clueless (1995), followed by William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996). On television he played Mike Hannigan in the last seasons of Friends. He became closely associated with the comedies of Judd Apatow and Adam McKay, among them Anchorman (2004), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007) and This Is 40 (2012), and starred in I Love You, Man (2009). In 2001 he appeared in Wet Hot American Summer with David Wain and Michael Showalter, with whom he worked again in The Ten (2007).
From 2015 he played Scott Lang in Marvel's Ant-Man and its sequels, and in the Avengers films. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 1 July 2015.
"His parents' Jewish ancestors moved from Russia, Belarus and Poland to England; his parents, both born in London, emigrated to the United States, where he was born in 1969."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Russian Empire - Russia, Belarus and Poland (towns not documented)
Both his parents were born in London to families descended from Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who had moved to England from Belarus, Poland and Russia, then largely within the Russian Empire. The paternal surname, Rudnitsky, was changed to Rudd by his grandfather. No town or emigration date is documented.
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Russian Empire - Russia, Belarus and Poland (towns not documented). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.