Parents to the stars

They may lead charmed lives today. But many celebrities in both Hollywood and Bollywood have been through traumatic childhoods. They haven't let that affect them. Instead, they've made it work for them in different ways.

Angelina Jolie

Motherhood is her mission; Dad, step aside please. Angelina Jolie never forgave her father, actor Jon Voight, for leaving the family when she was just four years old. She grew up into a wild teenager after a troubled childhood (she has talked openly about her experiments with drugs and sex). "I went through heavy darker times and I survived them. I didn't die young, so I'm very lucky…. I think people can imagine that I did the most dangerous and I did the worst…" she said on the TV show 60 Minutes last year.

Jolie had cut off all ties with her father and dropped the Voight from her surname in 2002. She made up with him only after her mother's death in 2007.

She has managed, rather spectacularly, to claw her way out of her turmoil to get to the very top. Once there, she cast herself as World Mother and modelled herself on her own mother, Marcheline Bertrand, whom she adored. With top-rung movies, an Oscar on her mantelpiece, a UN goodwill ambassadorship, a sexy superstar partner she is all set to marry, and six children, Jolie is in a happy place now. She has used her dark side to brilliant advantage in her reinvention and some might say she's obsessed with having children. But she's blissful being mother goddess.

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise's indulgent ways with his designer wear-loving daughter, Suri, and wife, Katie Holmes, keep gossip columnists amused. But there's a telling backstory to that indulgence. As a child, Cruise was regularly abused by his father, who he has described as a coward and "a merchant of chaos". He was also constantly bullied in the 15 different schools he studied in. He suffered from dyslexia, which affected his studies. And the family's poverty made it all worse.

Cruise's parents divorced when he was 11. Things were so bad that he even enrolled in a seminary at 14. He dropped out soon, though, and used his emotions to fuel his ambition. He did all kinds of jobs — he delivered newspapers and worked as a busboy as well as a porter in an apartment block — that helped pay for his evening drama classes. But it was a hand-to-mouth existence.

Now that he is the world's most successful star and is living the dream, do you wonder that he spoils his daughter and wife silly?

Katrina Kaif

Katrina Kaif rarely talks about her father except to say he was not around for her and her six siblings. The family had a tough time with limited finances, so Kaif started working early as a model. She never whines about it though; but that has brought her to Bollywood, introducing her to the kind of fame and wealth she may not ever have dreamt of. Kaif takes her hard-earned success very seriously; anyone who works with her is amazed at how hard-working she is. Less known is her involvement with Mercy Home, a charity for girls near Madurai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, for which her mother works. Both women know how tough life can be on your own.

Aamir Khan

Mr Perfectionist didn't exactly have a perfect childhood. He has not had the best relationship with his father, Tahir Hussain, or his brother Faisal. In 2000, Khan publicly disassociated himself professionally from his father. And Faisal disowned him though it has to be said that he was under treatment for schizophrenia.

However, Khan was extremely close to his uncle, Nasir Hussain (who launched him in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak) and his cousins Mansoor and Nuzhat. They have been his constant support through his elopement with first wife Reena, their divorce and rumours of a love child with British journalist Jessica Hines.

There's one big lesson he learnt from his father, though. Tahir Hussain was ruined when some of his films bombed badly. His son's determination to make every film of his a money-spinner is now legendary.

Rekha

Her father, legendary south Indian actor, Gemini Ganesan, left her mother to fend for herself when he married his third wife, actress Savitri. The sense of abandonment was acute; Rekha says she has not had a single conversation with her father. As the oldest child she was forced to earn for the family and joined Bollywood at 13. She was mocked, humiliated and exploited. There was a string of entanglements and a failed suicide. Her marriage to Mukesh Aggarwal ended with his suicide. The man she worships, Amitabh Bachchan, doesn't acknowledge her in public today.

She survived it all — she threw herself into her work to forget the pain, became an acting legend and an enduring sex symbol. And learnt, she says, to love herself.

Shah Rukh Khan

Nothing brings a bigger smile to Shah Rukh Khan's face than the mention of his children. And nothing can get him more emotional than talking about his parents. The joy and the pain are inextricably linked. Losing his parents very early has made him determined to derive all the happiness he can from his children, Aryan and Suhana.

The regret that his parents are not around to see his mega success is a loss the superstar simply cannot reconcile to. But it's from that regret that he derives his fiery ambition: to be "so big that my parents can see my success from above". After the super success of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, he wrote to his director, Aditya Chopra: "I'm sure even in heaven they are playing our film, so my parents would have seen it too. Thanks for taking me to them."

Why is Salman Khan still unmarried at 46? His father says it's because he wants his partner to be a younger version of his mother, Salma, whom he worships.

It could not have been easy for the hot-headed teenager to see his mother cope as his father conducted a very public relationship with dancing star Helen and later married her. But when his mother welcomed Helen into the family, the dutiful son did so too. However, his reluctance to take the plunge in spite of a series of stunning girlfriends speaks for itself.

The one payoff: the image of the eternal bachelor helps at the box office. And the macho star is a mushy softie when it comes to his family or charities.

Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet's story is a fairy tale. The young girl who was brought up "on a shoestring" and for whom a lipstick was a luxury to be shared with her two sisters is now an Oscar winner who has the world at her designer-clad feet. But there is tremendous guilt, too, because her parents still live very modestly, and her sisters, Anna and Beth, are talented but struggling actors with not a fraction of her wealth. "It's like, why me and not them?' she told The Daily Mail. And added that when she buys a designer dress, she thinks: "This would buy my sister a car." The star has never forgotten her roots; she sets aside a portion of her earnings for charities, because she says she knows what it is like to live on handouts.