Life, Love Pace Paltrow

For the past decade, Gwyneth Paltrow has been a red carpet regular, a glamorous first lady of film and fashion, which is why you might be surprised to hear that Paltrow thinks she may be too old to attend fashion shows.

Pay no attention to that. She's only 33, but a lot has changed for the actress over the past few years, namely a baby, CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Russ Mitchell reports.

"You know, I'm always, like, wiping boysenberries and hummus off. You know, she's very -- she's a messy eater. So I'm reticent to, you know, get too back into fashion," Paltrow explains.

After giving birth last year to a daughter named Apple -- more on that later -- the glamour girl began paring down more than her wardrobe.

"Ever since I had my daughter, my criteria's changed a lot," Paltrow says. "So much so that I haven't actually worked much since having her. I mean, she's changed everything about who I am and my life. You know, now my time away from home is time away from her. And it's very, very precious time to give away."

This, after years of landing leading roles apparently as effortlessly as she portrayed them. Before her Oscar-winning turn as a beguiling muse in "Shakespeare In Love," she was the meddlesome matchmaker in "Emma," the cruel, elusive beauty in "Great Expectations," fate's temptress in "Sliding Doors," the marked wife in "A Perfect Murder." And those films all came in the same year.

Asked if she envisioned herself returning to that hectic schedule, Paltrow said, "I'll never go back to that. I will never ever go back to that, like, four movies a year. No, never, no."

Perhaps nobody knows better than her mother. Paltrow's mom just happens to be Blythe Danner the Tony -- and as of last month, Emmy award-winning actress.

"I think Gwyneth is such an artist. You know I think that she will long for fulfilling some of that," Danner says.

First a fan, it wasn't long before Paltrow wanted to join her mom on stage.

"I think I always wanted to do it. My father -- I asked my father that question once and he said, 'I can, I, I can never remember a time when you did not want to be an actress. You always said you wanted to do it, even when you were really, really tiny.'"

As she grew up, she never lost that urge.

"At a certain point we were sort of deciding as a family whether I should go back to university or not," Paltrow says. "And I really didn't want to go. I wanted to try to act. And my parents, you know, were saying, 'Well, we think maybe you should stay in school.'"

But a performance of "Picnic" alongside her mother at the Williamstown Theater Festival put an end to that debate.

"You know, she stole the show," Danner recalls. "They were -- they were stomping on the seats for her. And I was just so proud. And I thought this is, this is meant to be."

It floored dad, too, television producer Bruce Paltrow.

"And after the play he said, 'You know, I don't think you should go back to college. I think, I think you should do this.'"

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."

Paltrow's father finally got the chance to work with his superstar daughter , directing her in the film "Duets." It was on that set that she learned of her Oscar nomination for "Shakespeare In Love." But there was another, greater distraction: diagnosed with throat cancer, her father was gravely ill throughout much of the shooting.

So when the awards started pouring in later that year she was on shaky ground.

"Bruce had been so ill, his father was very ill. And she had been, you know, she felt all of those awards being presented at that tremendous, tremendous acclaim, I think, was difficult for her to even digest," Danner explains. "And so every time that she'd won an award she, she would fall to pieces."

With proud parents at her side, Paltrow went on to win Best Actress gold at the Oscars.

But the joy was short-lived. In 2002 while celebrating Gwyneth's 30th birthday in Italy, Bruce Paltrow suddenly fell ill and died at a hospital in Rome. He was 58 years old. Gwyneth was devastated.

"I was so traumatized by the circumstances of his death," Paltrow says. Because we were celebrating my 30th birthday together and it was just really idyllic time.

"And he just died. So the trauma of it was really, I, I didn't sort through it for a while," Paltrow admits. "And, you know, in the throes of the grief and everything, I really, I, I, I sort of didn't know how I would come out the other side ever."

She did go back to work playing the mentally ill Sylvia Plath in "Sylvia." And then there was "Proof," her latest project based on the Tony-award winning play of the same name. Paltrow plays catherine, a promising math student who lapses into a deep deppresion as she watches her math genius father descend into madness.

Her character not only fears she too is going insane, but that she didn't do enough to care for her father while he was alive. The role resonated with Paltrow, who was still grieving the death of her own father at the time of shooting.

But unbeknownst to most during filming, Paltrow had reason to celebrate: she was pregnant. The father, musician Chris Martin, front man of the British rock band Coldplay, became her husband.

"He just said one day, 'I think if we have a girl, we should call her Apple.' And I just, I really loved the name. And you see her cheeks and you'll understand why," Paltrow says.

According to Star magazine, the couple is expecting another baby.

"And hopefully I'll have a bunch more and, you know, try and balance career and motherhood and, you know, do try and do it if I can," Paltrow says.

And why not? It seems clear marriage and motherhood look good on Gwyneth Paltrow.