Oscar-winning director and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Steven Spielberg, is a proud dad of seven talented children. On top of that, he’s also a granddad to six grandchildren!
The Tale Of Two Wives And Seven Children
Spielberg first became a father with the arrival of Max, whom he welcomed with his first wife, Amy Irving. The two met in 1976 at the “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” audition.
Spielberg was a co-producer (along with Julia Phillips), and Irving was an actress trying to get her shot. They dated for three years and broke up. But their story wasn’t finished just yet.
In 1984, the two reconnected and married a year later – the same year Max was born. Sadly, they didn’t last long and divorced by 1989, and they recorded one of the most expensive settlements in history. For the sake of their son, they decided to live near each other and share custody.
The director found love once again with another actress, but this time, it was for life. He met Kate Capshaw when he cast her in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”
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Before marrying in 1991, she already had a child, 15-year-old Jessica Brooke, with her ex Robert Capshaw and an adopted son named Theo. After getting married, they had three children: Sasha Rebecca, Sawyer Avery, and Destry Allyn. They also adopted one more, Mikaela George.
While Spielberg has such a big family, he initially didn’t want to have children. He just warmed up to the idea while working into E.T.
That is because he realized halfway into the film that he was a protective parent to the characters and the cast and wondered if that could be his life someday.
Now, he is! Let’s get to know his children individually, from the oldest to the youngest.
Jessica Brooke Capshaw
Jessica Brooke, Spielberg’s stepdaughter and oldest of all his kids, was born in Columbia, Missouri, on August 9, 1976, to parents Kate Capshaw and Robert “Bob” Capshaw. When she was 3, she and her parents moved to New York City.
After her parents divorced, she moved to Los Angeles with her mom. She attended Harvard-Westlake High School, and after graduating in 1994, she went and studied Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at Brown University.
During college, she also pursued acting like her mom, appearing in several plays (including Arcadia and the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and attending classes at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts during her summer breaks. She even starred as Puck in the A Midsummer Night’s Dream production. She finally earned her degree in 1998 and did acting full-time.
She had a few minor roles – “Denial” (1988), “Valentine” (2001), and “Minority Report” (2006) – before she bagged her first lead role in the 2006 Edward Burns’ movie “The Groomsmen.”
Three years later, she got her breakthrough role as pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins in ABC’s medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. Her character was set for a multi-episode arc in season five, but she was promoted to a series regular in the next season as Callie Torres’ (Sara Ramirez) love interest.
Jessica played the role for ten more years until season 14. After exiting the show, she extended her appreciation to the network for the LGBTQ+ representation.
She also expressed her gratefulness for the opportunity to give life to the character, and even though she was sad to see Arizona go, she was consoled by the idea that her impact would continue to live on.
She’s also popularly known for her role as Jamie Stringer on The Practice.
Jessica has been married since 2004 to Honest Company co-founder and Prima founder Christopher Gavigan. They have four children together – a son, Luke Hudson, and three daughters, Eve Augusta, Poppy James, and Josephine Kate.
Max Spielberg
Max was born in Santa Monica, California, on June 13, 1985, and he is Spielberg’s only child with ex-wife Irving. According to his mom, Max has always been curious about why his dad had to work, and it was hard for him to understand. However, he did finally get what Spielberg’s job (making movies) was, and it changed his “why” to “Somebody’s gotta do it.”
His parents divorced when he was four and have since shared custody of him.
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The oldest Spielberg followed in his dad’s footsteps and entered the film industry. Unlike his dad, a film director, and his mom, an actress, he decided to explore and take on different creative roles such as graphic designer for video games such as Jurassic Park: Trespasser, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, and Battlefield 1, and producer for “Bandit” and “Snap Shot.”
Max has been married to makeup artist (@thevalberg) and beauty vlogger (@BlossomInBlush) Valerie LaChance since 2014.
Theo Spielberg
Theo was born on August 21, 1988, and Capshaw adopted him before she married Spielberg. When they officially became Mr. and Mrs. Spielberg, the director also adopted Theo.
During his childhood, Theo shared a bedroom with his younger sister, Sasha, and that was when they started to bond through their love for music.
In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2016, he shared how they would sneak out and reenact “The Lion King” with their stuffed animals after their parents put them to bed. When they got older, that love for music turned into a career.
Theo was in Yale while Sasha was still in high school when they started their indie folk band, Wardell, named after his middle name and their mom’s nickname. Theo was responsible for all the instruments, and Sasha provided the vocals. The brother and sister duo had their first release in 2011, an EP they called “The Accidental Zoo.”
Then, they reportedly signed with Jay-Z’s record label, Roc Nation, in 2013 and have opened for numerous acts, including the Vampire Weekend, Grimes, and Haim.
In 2015, they released their debut album, “Love/Idleness.” Their sophomore album. “Impossible Falcon,” recorded mostly on iPhone’s Voice Notes due to their long-distance set-up (Theo in New York and Sasha in Los Angeles), was released four years later.
According to Sasha, she didn’t know if it was a sibling thing, but they worked better when they were in different rooms.
Sasha Rebecca Spielberg
Sasha, Theo’s other musical half and the first biological kid of Capshaw and Spielberg was born on May 14, 1990, in Los Angeles.
She dabbled in acting with tiny roles when she was younger, mostly in her dad’s movies. According to her, her dad often found little parts for her to play, and she would take a day off school to shoot. It was a cool experience and a very memorable bonding moment.
For the few ones that weren’t her dad’s, she shared with Rolling Stone in 2018 that she got the parts after auditioning for the bigger role. Directors usually told her she wasn’t right for the role, but they still wanted her in the movie.
As she grew up, she found her passion in music and pursued it full-time. Aside from her band work with her brother Theo, she also has her own solo music under the name Buzzy Lee, which she described as a closer representation of herself than her acting.
She said that while she loved acting when she was doing it, her heart would always be with music. She hasn’t done any acting work or auditions as she’s neck-deep in her music.
She released her debut solo five-track EP “Facepaint” in April 2018. Before that, she also collaborated with fellow Brown University alumnus Nicolas Jaar.
They called themselves Just Friends and put out two tracks: an original song, “Don’t Tell Me,” and a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Avalanche.” Sasha also had collaboration credits with rapper and producer JPEGMafia and rapper Denzel Curry.
In May 2022, Sasha married artist and designer Harry McNally, the son of the famed restaurateur Keith McNally.
Sawyer Avery Spielberg
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Spielberg’s second born with Capshaw, Sawyer, arrived in Los Angeles on March 10, 1992. Like his older sisters Jessica and Sasha, he also got into acting, and the story of how he ended up in that career was definitely amusing and interesting.
Apparently, Spielberg used to discipline him by pretending they were on a film set. He was the director, while teenage Sawyer was the actor. He’d barge into Sawyer’s room, say “Action!” and follow the sequence they had discussed earlier, such as getting up, brushing his teeth, and finally going downstairs to eat breakfast.
In 2021, Sawyer became a full-fledged actor with his big-screen debut in the horror film “Honeydew.” However, it wasn’t actually his first choice despite the influence.
He shared with Tatler that he originally wanted to take up engineering or open a restaurant before finally deciding on theatre at 17. In a later interview, he said he went into acting because of his mom. “She’s the reason for everything,” Sawyer said.
That said, it wasn’t until a few years ago that he chose to do more film work.
That turned out really well for him because it was also where he found his wife since 2018, Ray Levine. The two first met in an acting class, and there was just an immediate connection between them. They’ve been inseparable ever since, and now, they share a daughter together!
Mikaela George Spielberg
Mikaela, born on February 28, 1996, was adopted by the couple at birth.
As a young girl, Mikaela said that she was exposed to “predators,” who groomed and abused other people. However, she quickly clarified that these alleged perpetrators were not in her family or her circle.
Then, growing up, she struggled with a lot of self-confidence and body image issues, as well as borderline personality disorder. Those things worsened when she attended boarding school for troubled teens.
She developed more mental health issues on top of an eating disorder, but she emphasized that it wasn’t her parents’ fault. “They couldn’t have known,” she said. Then, in her early 20s, she almost died once from drinking too much. Since then, she has become sober.
In 2020, she revealed that she decided to do adult entertainment as a dancer. Since it was a career path that was very different from the rest of her family, she was nervous to tell her parents. However, they ultimately supported what she wanted to do in life, and their number one priority was her safety.
More importantly, she’s really enjoying her work, giving her a “whole new life-affirming” way to be.
Destry Allyn Spielberg
Destry, the youngest of Spielberg’s children, was born in Los Angeles on December 1, 1996. And she’s as talented as the rest of the Spielbergs.
She’s an accomplished equestrian in her younger years. Then, at 19, she signed a contract with DT Model Management, representing the likes of Ireland Baldwin and Dylan Penn.
A few years later, she ventured into her dad’s line of work: film directing. In fact, according to her dad, she was given the opportunity to make her directorial debut with the action-comedy film “Four Assassins (And A Funeral)”.
Spielberg shared on an episode of the SmartLess podcast that his daughter was hired by the producers of “John Wick” after seeing her short film.
With Destry’s success came comments about her privilege and the nepotism in the industry. She simply responded that people can argue about nepotism, but the important thing is she knows she did the hard work.
As for her privilege, she has embraced it but always makes sure that she gives people the same chance she had.
There you have it! That’s the lowdown on all seven of Steven Spielberg’s children!
