Before he was famous, Paul Rudd was a Bar Mitzvah DJ! Rudd was born on April 6, 1969, in Passaic, New Jersey. The family name was originally Rudnitsky and changed to Rudd in response to the rise in antisemitism. His parents were Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from England, initially from Belarus, Poland and Russia. When Paul was 10 years old, his family moved to Kansas. At 13, he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah in Ontario, Canada, with extended family. Just a few years later, while in acting school, is when he worked as a Bar Mitzvah DJ. Fast forward to 2019, Rudd was on Forbes’ highest-paid actors list, and in 2021, he was named People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’. Here’s a photo from 2010 of Rudd and his mother, Gloria.
Photo: Matthew Peyton/Getty Images
