Life, Love Pace Paltrow

Actor Gwyneth Paltrow Lives Life At Her Own Speed

(CBS) 
Despite his show business connections, Bruce Paltrow, who produced such hits as "St. Elsewhere" and "White Shadow," told his daughter she had to make it on her own.

Danner says her daughter worked as a restaurant hostess to pay the bills.

Paltrow did get a little help from family friend Steven Spielberg, "Uncle Morty" as Paltrow knows him. In 1991, he offered her a small role in the film "Hook," but it was her 1993 portrayal of a cold-blooded drifter in "Flesh and Blood" that first made people take notice.

"Everybody was over the moon, you know, we were just flying from that performance. It was chilling. You know, sort of blood chilling performance. I couldn't believe she was my daughter," Danner remembers.

Paltrow remained a relative unknown until she played opposite Brad Pitt in the thriller "Seven." But, it was her role as Pitt's leading lady off screen that first made her a household name.

Dubbed "Hollywood's golden couple," the relationship didn't last, but the attention did.

Soon, Danner and Bruce Paltrow became well, we'll let them tell you as they told Lesley Stahl in this 2001 Sunday Morning interview:

Stahl: So, here you are, two incredibly accomplished people, both with just sparkling résumés of all the things you've done, and here, you end up in the year 2001 and what are you known for? You're Gwyneth Paltrow's parents.

Danner: Our daughter.

Bruce Paltrow: Yeah. How wonderful.

Danner: Which we're very proud of.

But though Gwyneth followed in her mother's footsteps, she was always daddy's little girl.

"When she was born I was working. Bruce was a struggling young writer and a producer and had gotten some things done in New York. He was still, still at it. And I was already on Broadway," Danner says.

"So he was there making, you know, food and bringing her to nurse on sets where I was working. And he'd change the diapers. So I think the two of them bonded in a pretty fantastic way very early on. Breast feeding, didn't even know it," Danner says.

Mitchell asks Paltrow, "What kind of guy was your dad? How would you describe him to someone who didn't know him?"

"He is so hard to describe," Paltrow says. "Because he, I would sort of say he was somewhere -- a cross between Woody Allen and Larry David. Very, very funny.

"He had that real, sort of, Brooklyn Jewish sense of humor," Paltrow says of her father. "And, you know, sometimes I'll watch a Woody Allen film or I'll watch 'Curb your Enthusiasm' and they'll, there's something about them that reminds me so much of my father."