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Who Do You Think You Are? USA

Episode 1: Vanessa Williams

Who Do You Think You Are? provides a unique glimpse into the personal lives of celebrities while taking viewers on a quantum leap through history.

This engaging series exposes the real person behind the celebrity as they come to understand who they truly are, the lives their ancestors lived, their identity and their place in the country's history.

Episodes

Episode One: Model, Actress, Singer and Producer Vanessa Williams

Vanessa Lynn Williams (born March 18, 1963) is an American recording artist, producer, dancer, model and actress. In 1983, she became the first woman of African-American descent to be crowned Miss America but a scandal caused her to relinquish her title early. She currently plays Renee Perry in Desperate Housewives

Episode Two: American Comedian and Talk Show Host, Rosie O'Donnell

Emmy award-winning talk show host Rosie O'Donnell is also an accomplished actor, author and philanthropist. Rosie grew up Irish Catholic on Long Island, the middle child of five. Life changed forever when her mother died of cancer when Rosie was 10. Now that she's a mom, Rosie wants to find out more about the history of her mother's family, and learn more about them as fully fleshed individuals. She's guessing that with family names like McKenna and Murtha, her journey will take her to Ireland.

Episode Three: Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow

Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow comes from a family with deep roots in the entertainment business. Her mom is actress Blythe Danner, and her father, the self-proclaimed love of her life until his death in 2002, was producer/director Bruce Paltrow. The two sides of the Paltrow family couldn't be more different: Blythe is a half-German WASP with some kind of Pennsylvania Dutch roots, and Bruce is of Eastern European Jewish lineage. Gwyneth thinks it's a classic American story of different backgrounds coming together. Still, it's hard to know which of the family stories are fact and which are fiction - and how the two combine.

Episode Four: Sex in The City actress Kim Cattrall

Actress Kim Cattrall was born in Liverpool, grew up in Canada, and currently lives in New York City. She won her first film role at age 19, but international fame didn't come until she was almost 40, when she landed the role of Samantha Jones in the Emmy Award-winning HBO series "Sex in the City." Although Kim has lived in New York for many years, she hails from a stock of very strong-minded British women, all born in Liverpool since way back when.

The biggest mystery in Kim's family is what happened to her grandfather George Baugh, who disappeared when Kim's mother was eight years old, and was never seen nor heard from again. Kim starts her journey in Liverpool, where she meets up with her mother Shane and her two aunts, Marjorie Haseldon and Dorothy "Dottie" Stockton.

Episode Five: Lionel Richie

Singer/songwriter Lionel Richie sets out to unlock the mystery of the man his beloved grandmother never spoke about - her father, John Louis Brown.

Who Do You Think You Are? USA
  • RTÉ One, Monday, 10.40pm