In honor of Kurt Russell’s milestone 75th birthday on Tuesday, March 17, Us Weekly is breaking down some interesting facts about the legendary actor.
For starters, Russell was the pilot who reported the Phoenix Lights, a famous 1997 mass UFO sighting.
“I was flying [his son Oliver Hudson] to go see his girlfriend, and we were on approach,” the actor revealed in a 2017 BBC interview. “I saw six lights over the airport in absolute uniform in a V shape. Oliver said to me — I was just looking at him, I was coming in, we’re maybe a half a mile out — and Oliver said, ‘Pa, what are those lights?’
He continued, “Then I kind of came out of my reverie and I said, ‘I don’t know what they are.’ He said, ‘Are we okay here?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna call in,’ and I reported it.”
It wasn’t until two years later when his partner, Goldie Hawn, was watching a TV show on UFOs, that he connected the dots between his own experience and the Phoenix Lights sightings.
“I’m feeling like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” he joked of the realization.
For more fun facts about Russell — including his connection to Princess Diana — keep scrolling for his 25 Things feature from the latest issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now:
1. Russell was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 17, 1951, though his family relocated to California when he was a child.
2. His dad, Bing Russell, was also an actor (with over 170 credits in his nearly 40-year career) and his mom, Louise Julia Russell, was a dancer.
3. Kurt made his film debut at just 12 years old with an uncredited part in It Happened at the World’s Fair, in which he kicks Elvis Presley’s pilot character in the leg.
4. Like his father before him, Kurt played two seasons of minor league baseball before a career-ending shoulder injury in 1973.
5. The actor has three sisters: Jill, Jamie and Jody.
6. He served with the 146th Tactical Airlift Wing in the California Air National Guard from 1969 to 1975.
7. Walt Disney predicted a “great acting future” for Kurt when he was just 15 years old.
8. In fact, the last words Disney is said to have ever written down before his death were “Kirt Russell,” slightly misspelling the actor’s first name in a note about future projects.
9. Kurt turned down Star Wars to do the television western The Quest.
10. Kurt first met Hawn on the set of a Disney musical in 1966, though they didn’t start dating until they collaborated on 1983’s Swing Shift.
11. Before they got together, Kurt was married to Season Hubley, with whom he shares son Boston Russell, and Hawn was married to Gus Trinkonis and then to Bill Hudson, with whom she shares children Oliver and Kate Hudson.
12. Kurt raised Hawn’s eldest kids, Oliver and Kate, for most of their lives. They call him “Pa.”
13. Kate named her son Ryder Russell Robinson after her stepdad’s surname.
14. Kurt and Hawn welcomed their first child together, Wyatt Russell, in 1986.
15. Despite a decades-long romantic partnership, Hawn and Kurt have no desire to tie the knot. “A lasting relationship isn’t about marriage,” Hawn said of their love in 2015.
16. After his debut role opposite Presley, Kurt played The King in the 1979 TV movie Elvis, which marked the start of his working relationship with filmmaker John Carpenter.
17. Their collaborations include Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and Escape from L.A. (1996).
18. In 2001’s 3000 Miles to Graceland, Kurt played an Elvis impersonator. He also dubbed over an actor playing Presley in 1994’s Forrest Gump.
19. Russell earned an Emmy nod for 1979’s Elvis. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe in 1983 for the drama Silkwood.
20. Kevin Costner’s role in Bull Durham, a 1988 baseball rom-com, was originally written for Kurt.
21. Kurt has been a licensed pilot since 1988, and he received the Aviation Mentor Award from fellow actor-pilot John Travolta in 2010.
22. In a 2017 interview, Kurt revealed he was the pilot who first reported the 1997 Phoenix Lights, one of the best-known UFO mass sightings, which he spotted while flying with son Oliver.
23. Kurt sat between the late Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles at the London premiere of his film Backdraft in 1991.
24. He later opened his Colorado ranch to Princess Diana and her sons, Harry and William, for a 10-day vacation away from paparazzi.
25. Kurt received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017.
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