I had what you could call a chaotic childhood. My parents divorced when I was 2; I went back and forth between my mom's and dad's houses for years.
My parents had a difficult divorce. My dad had to take a backseat for a few years, and my grandfather came in. He was also my inspiration for becoming an actor. I really respected him.
In 1953, Mom and Dad, living in Toronto, discovered, to their shock, that Mom was expecting. I was born in June 1954. My parents, thrilled, showered me with love.
An overzealous parent is just one example of the kind of Problem Mom or Dad who pops up at track meets, threatening to put a damper on the day.
I've never had to rebel against my parents; I never had that sort of teen-angst thing where you didn't get along with them. My dad's always been my buddy.
When I was small, my parents came back from Tijuana, and my dad bought me a very small acoustic guitar. I loved it. I started making up my own songs right away.
The only day I remember of my parents' marriage was the day my dad walked out. As I stood there at five years old, with my older sister and younger brother, I knew that he was gone.
Obviously, losing a parent is very difficult. I miss my dad every day, but I know he would be proud to see me continuing to swim and going for another shot at the Olympics.
My parents never discouraged me. There were a couple times when my dad criticized a couple things that I did, but it was nothing. So through the bad shows, I never wanted to quit.
I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents are really right wingers. My dad watches, like, five or six hours of 'Fox News' every day and stuff like that.
I was just a kid and I didn't have a dad. That's hard, because when you're a kid, you blame yourself for everything. And I blamed myself for him not being around, for my parents not being together.
My dad went to jail for a long time. We lost everything, and the situation never resolved itself. My parents had this sort of passionate, disastrous desire for each other - not ideal to grow up in.
My dad has worked so hard his whole life. He doesn't deserve to see his daughters going out embarrassing themselves and flashing their knickers. I want to make my parents proud.
My parents' marriage was already shaky when I came along. They split up when I was five, and I didn't see Dad all that often after that - four or five times a year.
We were always around my dad, so he wasn't absentee at all. I don't think it was normal, but it was exciting. You always had lots of creative people around, and my parents took us everywhere.
My dad was an absentee dad, so it was always important to me that I was part of my daughter's life, and she deserved two parents, which is part of the rationale behind us staying married for 30 years.
Following Michael Brown's death, I went to Ferguson and met with his parents. I stood with them as they tried to hold their heads high and deal with both their immense loss and the larger issues of police-community relations.
They say the death of a parent puts you in time because that means there's now no generation standing between you and ordinary death: you're next. I don't buy it.
I have always been terrified of the death of my parents. I never knew if I could count on myself. I never knew if that would send me over the edge.
Becoming a parent gives you access to a whole world of feeling. It gives you a much stronger sense of life and death: becoming a father made me realise my own mortality.
My parents always told me to be myself. I was always funny and silly as a kid. And I would always make them laugh. And they always told me to dream big and follow those dreams.
