'Gladiator' Russell Crowe has Italian roots, and ties with last man beheaded in England

Life may truly have imitated art in case of Hollywood megastar Russell Crowe as the actor, who played a Roman general in the mega-hit 'Gladiator', has said that he has Italian roots. This is not all, Crowe also said that he bears familial connections with the last man to get executed bybeheadingin England. The actor has a long list of mega-hit films but is most often associated with 'Gladiator', the Ridley Scott epic which started and contributed to the trend of historical movies at the start of the new millennium.

On Wednesday (January 3), Russell Crowe took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and wrote, “I’ve been on the hunt to track down my Italian forebears for quite some time. Folkloric family tales and misspelling had seen me travel on a number of wrong tracks."

“Turns out my great great great grandfather, on my mother’s side, who travelled to NZ in 1864, was Luigi Ghezzi. Born in 1829 in Ascoli Piceno, Marche, the son of Augestine and Annunziata born in Parma. Luigi had been working in Argentina, took a boat to India, was shipwrecked, and ended up in Cape Town. While there he met and married Mary Ann Curtain and they migrated to NZ. Fascinating," he further wrote.

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“Also something else that has recently come to light on my father’s mother’s side, via John (Jock) Fraser (arrived in NZ in 1841) we directly connect back to Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat. Look him up. He’s quite the character. The Old Fox they used to call him.

“Seems his machiavellian ways caught up to him at the age of 80, and he has a claim to infamy as the last man to have the head chopped off his living body in the Tower of London.

“His death even coined a phrase. Apparently, they set up temporary stands for the gentry to watch him die. One of these stands collapsed which resulted in the death of nine onlookers. Being told this just before he was put to death made him laugh. He was still laughing when the blade struck his neck, thereby ‘laughing his head off’. Fascinating," he added.

List of Crowe's fascinating family connections doesn't end here. His Maori heritage is well-established. He is also the cousin of late New Zealand cricketer Martin Crowe.

In his thread on X, he has also revealed his discovery that he is connected to another lineage of Crowes who have settled for many generations in Australia.

Besides 'Gladiator', Crowe's other most notable role was in 'The Beautiful Mind' in which he played Nobel-prize-winning Mathematician John Nash, a brilliant mind suffering from Schizophrenia.