♪ ♪ Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: I'm Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Welcome to "Finding Your Roots".

In this episode, we'll meet actors Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd, and John Turturro... Three Americans who's lives have been profoundly shaped by their immigrant ancestors... Paul Rudd: I certainly feel as if being Jewish is in the marrow of my bones.

John Turturro: You know, this is typical Italian stuff.

How they all like hate each other.

Scarlett Johansson: When I was little, my dad used to tell me that I was a viking princess.

So, that's what I want to know.

Is it true?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available... Genealogists help stitch together the past from the paper trail their ancestors left behind, while DNA experts utilized the latest advances in genetic analysis to reveal secrets hundreds of years old.

And we've compiled it all into a book of life... Scarlett Ingrid Johansson.

Not bad, huh?

A record of our discoveries... Paul Rudd: Wow, this is amazing.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Could you please turn the page?

John Turturro: I have a feeling I'm going to be surprised.

Wow!

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Scarlett, Paul, and John descend from recent immigrants... And many stories were lost as their families crossed the globe.

In this episode, we're going to restore those stories and reveal the daunting challenges their ancestors overcame to lay the foundation for their success.

(Theme music plays).

♪♪ ♪♪ For centuries, the United States has been a beacon to the world... a haven for those seeking religious and political freedom, economic opportunities... And most of all a better life for their children.

For Scarlett Johansson's parents, America was a place to dream big, even as they struggled financially.

Her father is a Danish immigrant.

Her mother's roots lie in eastern Europe.

When she was growing up, her family had to work hard just to make ends meet... Scarlett Johansson: And this is a new tap dancing step.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: But Scarlett dreamed of becoming a star and her parents weren't going to let their circumstances get in the way of her dreams.

Scarlett Johansson: We grew up with very little.

We were on welfare, for most of my childhood.

Um, you know, obviously, we received food stamps, and were part of the government assisted programs.

And then, when I was about seven, my mom got the name of this kids' talent agency, and took us all there.

I was, of course, pumped, you know?

And the only person that they wanted out of every, all of us, was my older brother Adrian.

Um, and I was just devastated.

I mean, I was... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: "You want him?"

Scarlett Johansson: Yeah, I know, I was like, "That guy, uh, what does he have that I don't have?"

And I think my mom just saw that I was crushed, and she said to me, you know, "Is this really something that you really want to do?"

And I'm like, "yes."

And I started auditioning, yeah, that's how it started.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Scarlett has been working almost continuously ever since.

Moving seamlessly through an array of roles... becoming an international success... one of the highest-grossing American film actors of all time.

It's been a phenomenal journey, yet Scarlett has never forgotten how it all began... Scarlett Johansson: We had our ups and downs... Just the kind of hopelessness, I guess, that can sometimes come with coming from a really poor family.

You know, you just feel like you're kind of never gonna get ahead.

But we all supported one another through some really hard times... Definitely I feel like, you know, my story's really a very American one, that you can come from nothing and turn yourself into a part of the American dream, I guess.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Like Scarlett, John Turturro was raised in a family chasing the American dream... His father was an Italian immigrant, his mother was a second- generation Italian-American and John spent his early years in queens, surrounded by people who were searching for a better life... John Turturro: I look like a happy child.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah, you do.

John Turturro: Yeah, I, I think I was.

I was really close to my mom.

We lived in a garden apartment, and we all slept in the same room, uh, my mother, my father, my brother Ralph, and me, you know... It was a very, uh, mixed neighborhood.

I think that kind of, uh, left a big, uh, mark on me, in a good way.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: But the Turturros didn't stay in the neighborhood... By the time John was in middle school, his family had moved to a suburb known as Rosedale where he didn't exactly fit in... John Turturro: When I moved to Rosedale, I remember, people thought, 'cause I was dark, they called me, like, you know, "He's a Puerto Rican," you know, all this, I didn't even know any Puerto Ricans at that time and I wound up actually getting bussed out, because of the bussing situation, for junior high school and uh, it was all black, and first day I went to school, I remember, I got that button pinned on me.

Somebody was putting buttons on us, "I'm black and I'm proud, say it loud," James Brown.

It was a yellow button, I remember, and I was like, "Okay, uh, uh."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Did they think you were black?

John Turturro: Some people did.

They, they didn't know.

They didn't know, though some of the girls were like, you know, my hair was, like, a little more silky than theirs and it started to change right then.

So, yeah, so... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: And you did not disabuse them of this... John Turturro: No, no, I was like, "I can't let you do it."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: John told me that his sense of being different also made him nervous about pursuing a career in acting... When he was growing up, there simply weren't that many people in Hollywood who resembled him in anyway.

But the world was about to change... John Turturro: Growing up, I didn't see a lot of people who looked like me until I saw Dustin Hoffman in a movie.

First time I saw Dustin Hoffman in "Midnight Cowboy" I was shocked.

I couldn't believe it, there was somebody, like, "This guy could be in our family, you know, and he's an actor."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: what, what about the way he looked?

John Turturro: Well, you just, you didn't see people who were really, you know, ethnic, uh, actors, play, like, a big part.

And that was an eye-opening thing for me, and then, of course, the other guys came in, Pacino and De Niro, and you were like, "Oh, you know, maybe there's room for, you know, someone else, you know," 'Cause you didn't grow up with that in your brain.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: As it turns out, John's timing was impeccable... In the 1980s he joined a surge of talent that might never have found a broad audience even a generation before.

John Turturro: I'm your brother, I might smack you around every once in a while, but I'm still your... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: His career quickly took off and it's been a spectacular career.

He's appeared in over 60 films and television shows... But John's never forgotten that feeling of being different because of his ancestry... John Turturro: One of the biggest problems I think in the world is that we don't see people as people.

You're a person first, and whatever you are comes, you know, with that, but first you're a person, and I think so many people they just don't have the experience.

So, anything that's other is frightening.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Like John, my third guest Paul Rudd also felt out of place as a child... His parents were Jewish immigrants from England who ended up in Kansas.

And that had a profound effect on Paul... Paul Rudd: I remember meeting kids my age and I would say where were you born?

And they'd say, "Kansas."

What about your parents, where were they from, what country were they from?

They're from here, from Kansas.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Where do you think, Paul?

Paul Rudd: That was mind blowing to me that somebody would be living in the place that they were born and that their parents might have been born there was... I remember that being a really kind of trippy thought.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Paul's sense of disorientation was compounded by the fact that his family frequently moved and he often found himself in places where there were very few Jewish people... Paul Rudd: I knew what it was like to be the new kid in school many times over, and I think it contributed to that feeling of being somewhat of a misfit.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Sid you ever suffer anti-Semitism, I mean, was there?

Paul Rudd: Yeah, I mean I was called "Jew boy" and stuff like that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: You were?

Paul Rudd: Yeah, I got teased about it, I kind of realized later on if I made a Jewish joke kids would laugh particularly hard.

It was a way of kind of being accepted.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Really?

Paul Rudd: Yeah, it was just protecting myself.

I didn't want to get beat up.

People wouldn't think I was so weird.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Telling jokes would become Paul's ticket to success... In 1990, he moved to California to embark upon a career in acting... Eventually he landed roles in a string of hit comedies... He's been a star ever since.

But he's never taken it for granted... And he's still grateful to his parents, who made him feel that he could fit in no matter where he went or what he did.

Paul Rudd: I am really lucky in that both my parents my whole life said you can be whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do and I naively believed them.

I never imagined having a regular job.

And my parents said, "Yeah, you can do it."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Mmmm.

Paul Rudd: I think they understood that I would be happier if I gave it a shot than if I never did.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: And you could always go to law school.

Paul Rudd: That's right.

My dad... I remember being in my early-20's having a conversation with him.

And he said there are two types of people in the world.

There are those that want to make the world a better place and contribute something, whatever that is while they're here and there are those that want to come and take whatever they can while they're here and that's it.

I think that he was probably happier about the career choice I made in that it was going to at least try and add something to the pot.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That's great, you were really lucky.

Paul Rudd: I was very lucky.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Paul, Scarlett, and John each grew up knowing that their families were new to America.

And each realizes how much their lives have been shaped by their immigrant roots.

But immigration is rarely easy.

When families move, stories and traditions can get lost.

We wanted to see if we could help find some of them... I started with Scarlett Johansson... Scarlett knew that her mother's roots traced back to Jewish communities in eastern Europe.

Scarlett Johansson: That's grandma's mom.

Vanessa Johannson: Grandma's mother.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: But that was all she knew.

Who's that?

Both: That's our grandma.

Her maternal grandparents, Dorothy and Meyer Schlamberg, divorced when her mother was a child and the family fractured... Who do you see there?

Scarlett Johansson: Ah, those are my grandparents.

Maybe in the three years they were ever happy.

That's my grandmother Dorothy and my grandfather, Michael, who was Meyer.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Did you have a relationship with Meyer?

Scarlett Johansson: Not really.

I mean, I know... He had a lot of tragedy in his life.

I think both of my grandparents did.

You know, they grew up very, very poor.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Hard to transcend those things.

Scarlett Johansson: Yeah, also I think a generation that didn't talk about that stuff a lot.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Right.

Scarlett Johansson: You know, they kind of buried things and didn't really want to acknowl-you know, they couldn't sort of acknowledge the pain, and then move forward from it.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Our search for Meyer's roots began in the national archives... Where we found a passenger manifest for a ship called the SS Nieuw Amsterdam, which arrived in New York City on May 28th, 1910.

On board was Meyer's father, Sol Schlamberg, traveling to America under his original Yiddish name... Scarlett Johansson: "Schlachne."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yes, "shlak-nuh."

Schlachne Schlamberg.

Scarlett Johansson: Schlamberg, whoo, that's a mouthful.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Schlachne... Scarlett Johansson: You can see why they changed it, because Sol is a lot easier to say.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: This represents the moment your family, the Schlambergs, first arrived in the United States.

Scarlett Johansson: I can't believe it.

You know, you kind of imagine your ancestors, "Oh, they came over on a ship or whatever, " but then to actually see the paper and know that they were journeying towards what would eventually result in me, it's, it's pretty surreal.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Sol Schlamberg is Scarlett's great-grandfather.

He was a young man when he arrived in America, Not yet 25 years old; traveling alone, with almost no money... He ended up settling on Ludlow Street, in New York's lower east side, where he worked in a grocery and reportedly sold bananas... Scarlett Johansson: I can only imagine that he was coming from a place where he could not continue to survive.

I mean, I think he must have come from some broken place, which would have caused him to go on a journey like this by himself, with no, no security on the other side.

Nothing.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Nothing, I mean, total... Scarlett Johansson: that's the real immigrant story.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: It is.

Scarlett Johansson: You know?

Just the promise of some opportunity, and the faith that you're gonna make it on the other side.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: As it turns out, Sol was indeed fleeing a desperate place... He was born around 1890 in a town called Grojec, now part of Poland.

When Sol was growing up, Jews in the region were barred from owning farmland and many struggled simply to feed their families... Would you please turn the page?

Guess what that is.

Scarlett Johansson: I guess this is the town.

This is Grojec?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That's Grojec, that's what it looked like about the time he left.

Scarlett Johansson: I would have left too.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: What's it like to see these photos of your ancestral hometown?

Scarlett Johansson: It's just strange.

I guess, knowing my grandfather, I guess I could kind have imagined that this was a part of his story.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Scarlett's family story was about to darken.

When Sol left Grojec in 1910, his brother Moshek stayed behind.

A decision that would end up having disastrous consequences... On September 1st, 1939, Hitler's armies invaded Poland.

By late February 1942, almost all of Grojec's Jewish residents had been killed or transported north, to the infamous Warsaw ghetto.

Moshek was about 60 years old at the time.

He and his wife had ten children... The youngest, Zlata, was about 14.

Scarlett Johansson: Wow, that's crazy.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: What do you think that must have been like for them, to be loaded onto trains like cattle, and not knowing where they were going... Scarlett Johansson: And losing each other, and everything.

I mean, you hear stories about men and women and children all being separated, and that was it, you know, never see the other person again.

I cannot imagine what you must be feeling, just hell, must have been hell.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: At its height, over 400,000 people were forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto, an area less than two square miles.

Dozens of people died each day of starvation and disease.

Those who endured faced deportation to extermination camps or murder at the hands of the German police and the SS.

We wondered what happened to Scarlett's family.

We found the answer in a testament submitted to Israel's holocaust museum by a woman named Miriam Margalith.

Miriam was one of Moshek's daughters.

Scarlett Johansson: "Family name: Szlamberg.

First name: Mosze.

Wartime location: Warsaw ghetto.

Circumstance, time, and place of death: unknown.

Children's names under the age of 18 that perished: Zlata, age: 15, time and place of death: Warsaw ghetto, Mandil, age: 17, time and place of death: Warsaw ghetto."

Wow, that's sad.

Sorry... And I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but it's hard not to.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: It's hard not to.

Scarlett Johansson: That is crazy.

I mean you really couldn't imagine the horror.

It's just so crazy to imagine, now I know why you put the tissues there... It's crazy to imagine that Sol would be on the other side selling bananas.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Oh, yeah.

Scarlett Johansson: On Ludlow Street.

And how different it would be, being in America at that time.

The fate of one brother versus the other.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Mmm, yeah, Scarlett Johansson: It makes me feel more deeply connected to that side of myself, that side of my family.

Um, I didn't expect that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Like Scarlett, Paul Rudd grew up far from his Jewish roots.

And while his parents were proud of their heritage, they did not make a concerted effort to pass it on to their children... Instead, Paul's father inspired him in a different way... Paul Rudd: When my son was born, he built a pub in his house for his grandson, my son; he could build anything.

He was a real renaissance man.

It wasn't as if somebody built a Irish pub in the basement of their house, it was like somebody built a house over this already existing Irish pub.

And I said if I ever get a house, I have to put a pub in the basement.

We were going to build it together and then he got sick and couldn't do it.

But I wound up doing it anyway and thinking alright, this will be another pub for my son, but really, it's for my dad and so, the hardest, I think one of the hardest things for me is, uh, that I can't have a, like a pint of Guinness with him.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Oh yeah, I'm sorry, man.

Paul Rudd: But it's so nice to be down there and feel his presence and I feel very close to him there, so it's pretty great.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That's a beautiful story.

Paul's father, Michael Rudd, died in 2008.

Paul told me one of the reasons he wanted to do this series was to learn more about his father's roots... Our journey started in a Jewish cemetery in London... Where Michael's grandparents are buried.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Paul, you're looking at your great-grandparents' graves.

Paul Rudd: Wow, I mean, what's crazy is I've been to London many times in my life but I've never seen these.

"Esther daughter of Itzhak.

May her soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Isn't that beautiful?

Paul Rudd: It's amazing, yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: These gravestones contained a critical detail: the Hebrew name of Paul's great-grandfather... that led us to a remarkable discovery.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Now, Paul, this is an amazing document that were going to introduce you to.

Paul Rudd: Summons for military service: Shmuel-Ar'ye Nokhimov Rudnitsky, 20 years old... Accepted for duty on November 1, 1895.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Isn't that amazing, do you know what this is?

Paul Rudd: Wow.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Your great-grandfather's draft certificate.

Paul Rudd: Unbelievable.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: He was drafted into the Russian army on November 1, 1895.

Paul Rudd: "Petty bourgeois from Kholmich, Jew, unmarried, illiterate."

Wow, what a catch.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That's funny.

Have you ever heard of this place Kholmich?

Paul Rudd: No.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That is where your father's family hails from.

Paul Rudd: Kholmich!

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Paul's great-grandparents, Shmuel and Ester, were both born in Kholmich; a town that is now part of Belarus, but once was a shtetl in the Russian empire.

We know nothing about their lives in Kholmich, but the region was impoverished and it's Jewish population suffered greatly... So sometime in the early 1900's, Shmuel Rudnitsky and his young wife Ester immigrated to England, taking a chance that their fortunes might improve... What do you think it must have been like for your great-grandparents to start a new life in a foreign country?

Paul Rudd: I'm already thinking back to when I was going to new schools in Kansas and being the new kid but here they are, probably didn't speak the language.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah.

Paul Rudd: Probably working class and poor and it must have been tough and scary.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Oh, yeah, can you imagine?

The Rudnitskys ultimately found work in butcher shops in London's East End... And slowly their family's fortunes began to improve.

Their son Davis, Paul's grandfather, settled in the London suburb of Edgware... And here, in 1937, he made a decision that many children of immigrants make... He changed his family name.

Paul Rudd: "I do hereby absolutely renounce and abandon the use of my said Christian and surnames of Davis Rudnitski and in lieu thereof assume the Christian name and surname of David Rudd."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Your grandfather changed his name from "Rudnitsky" to "Rudd."

Paul Rudd: I think the way I heard it was, yeah, they changed, they all decided to change the name to Rudd.

They couldn't get work because no one was hiring Jews in London and then he got a job at a kosher butcher shop after he did.

But then again that might have just been a funny story, so um... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Did you ever hear any stories about what life was like for Jews in London at that time?

Paul Rudd: Just in a general sense, which was not great.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: "Not great" is an understatement... Newscaster: "So the fascists, who may be identified by their extended palms, organized a counter demonstration..." Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: In the 1930's, fascist ideas were gaining traction in England... Mosely: Fascism above all... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Led by a man named Oswald Mosely, a former member of parliament, who called for the deportation of Jewish people from Great Britain... The photo was taken in 1936 at a fascist rally in the East End, the section of London where your grandfather worked.

Paul Rudd: Wow, it's strange, you know, I thought this was Nazi Germany and to think that this was in England.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Can you imagine what it was like to have fascists marching through the streets past your butcher shop, perhaps?

Paul Rudd: I imagine he had to deal with a lot more than I did in school.

I mean he probably wasn't just called Jew boy, so yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: We don't know what kind of taunts Paul's grandfather may have suffered nevertheless; he remained a loyal Englishman... In March 1940 , just months after Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, David Rudd volunteered to fight.

He ended up in Sicily, stationed at a supply depot during the allied invasion of Italy... All told, he spent more than five years in uniform, serving his country courageously.

But soon after his return, his fellow countrymen turned against him yet again as a post-war recession brought a new wave of anti-Semitism to England... By January 1947, British fascists were holding rallies in David's town, even threatening to bomb local synagogues.

Paul Rudd: "The Hempstead, Edgware, Catford, and new west end synagogues received telephonic threats this week warning that the structures would be either blown up or burnt down."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Now think about your grandfather: he had served in World War II to fight fascism and he comes home to fascism.

Can you imagine?

Paul Rudd: I mean it must have been awful.

You know, at a certain point say what can we do?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah.

In the end, David Rudd seems to have decided that the best thing to do was to leave.

On May 6th, 1949, he and his family set sail from the port of Southampton... bound for New York City.

There's the ship.

There are your grandparents, your uncle Barry, and your dad.

This is the moment that the Rudd family came to the United States.

Paul Rudd: This is the kind of thing that my father, were he alive right now... his mind would be blown to see this.

It's amazing, yeah, amazing.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: We'd now learned about the hardships that Paul and Scarlett's families had been forced to endure before they immigrated to America... Turning to John Turturro, we found a story about the challenges immigrants could face after they arrived, struggling to build new lives in a strange land... We began with John's mother, Katherine Incerello, the daughter of Sicilian immigrants.

John credits her not only for providing him with a stable childhood, but also, for inspiring his creativity... John Turturro: She was a very supportive person, and very free, I mean, when we moved from Hollis to Rosedale, she wanted me to participate in a mother's day contest where you had to draw your mother, and I could only draw, like, gladiators.

I couldn't draw women.

She said, "Try, you know, just," and I was struggling, and it came out, it looked like a monster or something.

She's got red hair, I didn't think of my mother that way at all, and I was crying when I showed it to her, and she thought it was, like, an interesting, like, kind of Picasso-esque, she said, "You know what?

Let's submit it."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That's great.

John Turturro: And they called me up on mother's day, and they said I won the contest.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: No, really?

John Turturro: And I won this huge box of candy to give to my mom, but it was because she didn't inhibit me in any way.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Katherine's spirit is all the more impressive considering the challenges she faced during her own childhood... Her parents, John's grandparents, were both born in Sicily and had to struggle to get by in Brooklyn.

As their family grew, they made a decision that had tragic consequences... John Turturro: My grandmother died and from what I heard from my mother, uh, it was in very unfortunate way, that her, she had had a lot of kids, they couldn't afford another kid.

Her sister made some kind of concoction that was gonna help abort the baby, and uh, it poisoned her.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Katherine was just six years old when she lost her mother.

Unfortunately, her troubles were only beginning.

Her father soon found himself unable to support a family on his own... As a result, Katherine and two of her brothers, were sent to orphanages... John was aware of what had happened to his mother, but he'd never seen the actual documents detailing it... John, this is from the archives of what is known as the Roman Catholic orphan asylum society.

John Turturro: "Katherine, Kate Incerello.

Date of admission: 6/2/27.

Age when admitted: 6.

"Cause of admission: destitution."

I could always see that in my mother.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: See what?

John Turturro: I think so much of my mother's life was, you know, affected by losing her mother.

She didn't want to lose her family.

And she was very protective of all three of us, even when things were really rough with my father or whatever, she never threw in the towel.

You know, I, like, uh, she had a lot of chances to do that, a lot.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Tell me about your grandfather.

Do you remember anything about him?

John Turturro: Yes, I do.

I remember he was very sweet to me.

I think he didn't have enough funds, you know?

He could, couldn't be able to work and take care of her.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: John's grandfather seems to have done his best to keep his family together... In 1931, he remarried and brought Katherine and her brother Fred back home... But his second wife passed away just five years later and the family dissolved yet again.

Katherine went to live with step-siblings... John had no idea what happened to her father, his own grandfather.

The answer shocked both of us... John Turturro: "Mr.

Incerello is married for the third time to a negro woman, elder Deborah.

Mr.

Incerello goes to church with her and has 'Turned protestant.'

She could see nothing wrong in the way of her marriage to a white man."

This is very good news.

Uh, wow.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Did you have any idea?

John Turturro: I had no idea.

None, none at all.

I mean, my mother never said anything to me, ever.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: He had to take an enormous amount of flak for doing this.

John Turturro: I'm sure.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: I mean, you would take flak in 1968, 1998, in some places.

This is 1938.

John Turturro: It's interesting because he's really from the other country.

He's not Americanized.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Right.

John Turturro: You know what I'm saying?

So, maybe he sees things in a different way.

You know what I mean?

A much more, you know... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Open.

John Turturro: Yeah, maybe.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: John's grandfather may have found happiness, but his family's struggles were not over.

In the fall of 1938, his son Fred was sent back to the orphanage this time for delinquency... And his new wife attempted to get him out... John, this is another section of the report we were just looking at.

It describes how your grandfather's third wife, elder Deborah, felt about helping to raise your uncle Fred.

Would you please read the transcribed section?

John Turturro: "She feels confident that she will be a good mother to Fred.

She is sure the department of welfare will discharge him to her and Mr.

Incerello... Visitors spoke with the neighbors who are all colored.

They think very little of the Incerellos because of the fact that the man is white.

He goes by the name of his wife, Mr.

Deborah."

Mr.

Deborah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: How, what do you make of that?

John Turturro: Well, I'll tell you.

In my family, nothing surprises me.

You could keep going, and I'm like, "I was just waiting to hear stuff."

I really, honestly, 'Cause I just know, like, there was all, there was a million mysteries there.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That is a big secret, man.

John Turturro: Mr.

Deborah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Mr.

Deborah.

John Turturro: Wow, don't forget, he did that with an Italian accent.

It wasn't like he was, he's saying it like you would say it or I would say it.

He would say, "I'mma Mr.

Deborah," you know what I mean?

So, uh, wow, she was gonna take care of Fred now... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: She wanted to take care of Fred.

John Turturro: Right.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: And she said, "I'd be a good mother to Fred."

John Turturro: Right.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: What do you think the city did?

Lets turn the page.

Would you please read the excerpted... John Turturro: Wow, whew.

"Miss Schwartz, worker on the case stated that due to the racial and religious differences of Mr.

Incerello and his new wife, the application has been refused."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: The application was refused.

John Turturro: I, this is really news, this is, wow.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Can you imagine how cold that is?

They would rather keep the kid in the orphanage than let his own father take care of him, because he's married to a black woman.

Why do you think your mother never told you about it?

You have to be asking yourself this.

John Turturro: Well, it seems pretty obvious.

I mean, why she never told me, she was like, "Well, my father," you know?

I mean, she had a lot of problems with him because he didn't take care of her.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Right.

John Turturro: But then, you know, she, and she told me everything.

I mean, she's told me everything, but this is really, I guess she was like, "Well, I'm not gonna talk about that."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah.

John Turturro: I do think she was a product of her generation, and there were certain things probably, you know, that she wouldn't have been as open to, you know, maybe, uh, her father marrying this other woman.

Maybe that was a little... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: She was, "that's too far."

John Turturro: For her at the, I don't know.

I don't know what the, what she really thought about it or not, if she was on the outs with him at that time... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: How do you think this shaped the kind of parent your mother was to you?

A lot of trauma here.

John Turturro: I just know she was a really, really nurturing parent, you know?

She was a, you know, a really terrific mother.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Each of my guests had now learned something of the journeys their families had taken to become Americans and the enormous sacrifices they had made.

But there were many branches of their trees left to explore, and many stories still to tell.

Turning back to Scarlett Johansson, we began to research her father Karsten's ancestry.

Karsten was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1943.

It's a place Scarlett knows well... Scarlett Johansson: I went to Copenhagen for the first time when I was about 13... And my dad was showing me where he went to school, and you know, where he grew up, and stuff like that.

So I am more familiar with that side.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: You hold Danish citizenship.

Scarlett Johansson: I do, yes.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah, dual citizenship, what prompted that?

Scarlett Johansson: I feel very connected to that side, because my dad is so Danish, and I wanted to have a part of that, I guess.

I thought it would be cool to, to be represented that way because I'm not just American, but I'm, I'm Danish too.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Right, I think it's cool.

Scarlett Johansson: Yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Even though Scarlett feels connected to her father's heritage, she actually knows very little about her Danish ancestry, because his family was broken apart by tragedy... Karsten's mother died when he was just 14, when his father remarried, a rupture developed between father and son that would only deepen over time.

Indeed, Scarlett never met her own grandfather, Ejner Johansson and knows almost nothing about his life... Scarlett Johansson: My father never talked about him, sad.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Ejner graduated in 1956 with a PhD in art history.

Did you know that?

Scarlett Johansson: No, I didn't know that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: He then went on to become a famous art critic, a film director, and a television personality in Denmark.

Scarlett Johansson: I had no idea he was a film director.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: And he's buried in Assistens cemetery in Copenhagen, along with other Danes like Hans Christian Andersen.

He's an iconic figure in Denmark.

Scarlett Johansson: Gramps, who knew?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah, gramps was happenin'.

We wanted to trace Ejner's roots, but almost immediately we hit a wall.

We were able to identify his father, a man named Axel Johansson, through a 1922 marriage record found in the archives of Copenhagen.

But we could find no other records of the Johansson family in Denmark... We were stumped.

Then one of our researchers uncovered an intriguing detail... In a most unexpected place.

You're looking at the birth record for your great-grandfather, Axel Robert Johansson.

Can you read where it came from?

Scarlett Johansson: Ooh, the Swedish church records archive.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: The Swedish church records archive.

Scarlett Johansson: Yes.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Your Johansson line comes from Sweden, not from Denmark.

Scarlett Johansson: No way, that is crazy, wow!

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Records show that Axel had settled in Denmark by 1918... And like many immigrants, Axel found himself near the bottom of the social ladder... Working odd jobs in shipyards and in a factory... Scarlett Johansson: It's interesting, actually, to think about my grandfather's father being an immigrant laborer.

I never would've expected that.

I don't know, for some reason, I thought that my grandfather came from more of a something kind of, like, upper-crust-feeling about him.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Really, upper-crust, like an aristocrat?

Scarlett Johansson: Something like that.

I don't know, I always thought maybe he came from a place like that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: We didn't find any aristocrats among Axel's immediate ancestors... His father, in fact, was a farm worker, but learning that Axel's roots lay in Sweden was a great boon to our research... This is a breakout tree Scarlett, of all your Swedish ancestors.

Scarlett Johansson: Holy moly.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Just your Swedish ancestors.

Scarlett Johansson: I am so Swedish.

I mean, every single one of these people are all born in Sweden.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: So much for that Danish passport, kiddo.

Scarlett Johansson: I know, wait a minute, I'm, I'm going to Stockholm.

Yeah, wow, that is crazy.

I had no idea.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: As we moved up the branches of Scarlett's Swedish family, we discovered that they weren't all farmers and laborers... In fact one branch had been quite prominent, beginning with Scarlett's 9th great-grandfather, a man named Johann Hogg.

Hogg was born in the mid-1600s and during his lifetime, he obtained something rare, something Scarlett did not even recognize at first... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Any idea what this is?

Scarlett Johansson: Looks like a vase of some kind.

A crest, I don't know, what is it?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: It's your coat of arms.

Scarlett Johansson: No way, that is crazy.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: In 1689, your family became nobility, and that is your family's coat of arms.

Scarlett Johansson: See, I was from some sort of nobility!

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: I almost fell off this piano stool when you said that.

You were right all along.

Scarlett Johansson: Wow.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: You come from the aristocracy.

Scarlett Johansson: Could not be further from the other part of my family, my gosh.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Look at that.

Isn't that amazing?

I really am an aristocrat.

Scarlett Johansson: Yeah, right?

That is news to me completely!

I had no idea... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: We had traced Paul Rudd's paternal ancestors from England back to a Jewish community in 19th century Russia.

Now we wanted to explore a story that hit closer to home, a story that began with Paul's own parents... How did they meet and fall in love?

Paul Rudd: Well, I think that they knew each other as they were kids because somewhere in the family tree, as you will probably tell me, they were related.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: They were indeed.

Paul Rudd: Which of course explains why I have six nipples.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Rudd: That is a weird thing.

I think they were something like third cousins or second cousins.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Second cousins.

Paul Rudd: Uh, second cousins.

That's, is that, it's illegal now right?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: It's legal, but it's unusual.

To show Paul exactly how his parents were related would require a bit of genealogical globe-trotting... We started by following Paul's father's roots back to the town of Wlodawa, in modern day Poland.

Here, we found the birth record of a woman named Ethel Geyer, Ethel was Paul's great-grandmother... We had seen that name before... Because back in London, we'd encountered it while researching Paul's mother's family... Indeed: Paul's mother was the granddaughter of a man named Isaac Gayer... We've seen the surname Gayer before, haven't we?

Paul Rudd: Yeah, not too long ago!

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah, that is where both sides of your family tree intersect.

So both your mother and father can trace their ancestry back to the Gayers.

Paul Rudd: Does this make my son also my uncle?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Now that we had untangled the branches of his family tree, I wanted to tell Paul something about the man at the center of the knot: Isaac Gayer... Isaac is Paul's great-grandfather on his mother's side.

And his great-granduncle on his father's side.

His story embodies the struggles that mark Paul's family history.

Isaac was a tailor, who emigrated to England from Russia in the early 20th century... He came seeking a new life, but he encountered a very old and stubborn hatred... In 1917, amidst the tensions of World War I, anti-Semitism was growing in England... Paul, this is a London police report, dated September 25, 1917, Paul Rudd: A dispute, during which blows were exchanged, between several Englishmen and Russian Jews.

A crowd, numbering some 5,000 persons quickly assembled and took sides with the disputants.

The Jewish element were outnumbered.

Stones were thrown and several panes of glass were broken.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: This is your families' neighborhood where this happened.

Paul Rudd: I'm just picturing my grandparents as kids experiencing these things.

Scary.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: 5,000 people were drawn into that riot.

Paul Rudd: 5,000.

When you read a report from the town at the time it makes it real.

It makes it tangible and it makes me feel closer to them, but it also makes me feel closer to my religion.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: One of the streams under the floorboards of western culture is anti-Semitism.

When people need it, they just dig it up.

Paul Rudd: We can learn everything from history and we don't want to repeat it.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: And we do, over and over again.

Paul Rudd: Over and over again.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: We had already uncovered the story of John Turturro's maternal family and witness how they struggled after immigrating to America from Sicily.

Turning to John's paternal side, we found another family struggling under similar circumstances... John's father, Nichola Turturro, was born in Giovinazzo, Italy... Months before his birth, his father left for America, seeking work that he couldn't find at home.

The separation left an indelible mark on young Nichola... John Turturro: My father never met his father until he was six years old, 'cause his father left when his mother was pregnant.

So, his first, so he was always hungering for his father's, like, uh, uh, approval, and his father was pretty, I think, hard on him in lots of ways, uh, like a lot of old-timers were, and you know, put him down, he did all kinds of things.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Nichola Turturro would eventually join his father in America and grow up to a raise a family and run a successful construction business.

But he was never able to exercise his childhood demons... John Turturro: My father was emotional.

I mean, I'm an emotional person, but he had more rage, he had a lot of rage in him and stuff, and sometimes got himself into big trouble that way.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Short fuse?

John Turturro: Yeah, at times, yes.

He had a, he had a wild temper when he was, when he was younger.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: I wanted to help John learn more about his father's family, so that he might better understand what made his father the way he was... We started with John's grandfather, Raffaele Turturro, the man who brought the Turturro's to America.

John never met Raffaele, but he knew that he came from Giovinazzo.

And that is where our search began... John Turturro: "Atti di nascita."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: "Nah-shee-tah" you know what that means?

Take a guess.

John Turturro: Uh, uh, birth?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Birth.

John Turturro: Birth, yeah, the date of birth.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: You are looking at your grandfather's birth certificate.

John Turturro: I see it, very nice handwriting.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That's from the year 1896, man.

John Turturro: Wow, Raffaele Turturro.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: What's it like to see that?

John Turturro: Yeah, it's kind of great, man.

It's just kind of great, it's lovely.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: We were able to show John much more than his grandfather's birth certificate.

We found records revealing that Raffaele served in the Italian navy as a young man and that he made his living by transporting goods... And then we found something that was especially meaningful... John Turturro: Ah, is that their boat?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah, it left from Naples and arrived in New York on February 8, 1925.

Can you read the entry that we've excerpted at the bottom?

John Turturro: oh wow, "Raffaele Turturro, age 29, occupation, Carter."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That's your grandfather arriving in America.

John Turturro: That's something.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That's something.

That's three months before your father was born.

So, your grandfather left Italy when his wife's six months' pregnant.

John Turturro: Right.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: can you imagine doing that, and sailing all the way across the ocean?

And what it was like for your grandmother and your father back in Italy?

John Turturro: Well, I know my father said, you know, he really wanted to be with his father really badly, you know?

He said he was lonely.

He wanted to see his father... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: So, let's see how he fared.

Could you please turn the page?

Take a look at this document.

Any idea what that is?

John Turturro: That's his, uh, certificate of citizenship.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: That is when your grandfather became an American citizen.

Would you please read the highlighted section?

John Turturro: Wow, "be it known that Ralph Turturro... having petitioned to be admitted as citizen of the United States... us hereunto affirmed this tenth day of November in the year of our lord 1930" that's his certificate of citizenship, wow... "Complexion: dark."

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Dark, there you go.

John Turturro: "Brown, eyes: brown.

Five-nine."

It's, uh, you know, it's very moving for me.

It's a big journey.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Big-time.

John Turturro: Look, and they have, like, Raffaele, and then they put "Ralph" on top of it.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah.

John Turturro: It's funny, the, Americanizing him, you know?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah, he became an American citizen November of 1930, and a little more than a year later, his wife and child arrived.

Did your father talk about what it was like to get here, what America was like?

John Turturro: Yeah, he told me that, uh, you know, he had never seen different kinds of people, you know, from where he grew up.

He had never been to a movie theater... He saw "Dr.

Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde" very early on, which I'm, I'm surprised they took him to that.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Something to help you sleep at night.

John Turturro: Yeah, they put him in front of the class.

They made him sit in the front, because he, he couldn't speak English, and he said he was really kind of terrified.

You know, he didn't know any, you know?

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: But it had to be traumatic, man.

John Turturro: Yeah, yeah.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Oh, God.

They all made huge sacrifices to come to the United States, and more especially, to become Americans.

John Turturro: Well, I think that, uh, you know, people were looking for a life, you know?

There wasn't, there wasn't a lot of work.

There was a lot of poverty, there was a lot of starvation where they were from.

So, they came, like a lot of other people have come, to, to, uh, to make a living, and to work, you know, and maybe make a better life.

That's a big journey, to leave your language, your culture, everything you know, your family, and you know, to go it alone.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Yeah.

John Turturro: And so, someone like him, I look at him and I say, "You know, that's, that's the reason why I'm, that I'm doing well," and that I'm talking to you, is because of him.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: We had now reached the end of the journey for all three of our guests... Looking back, each now more fully understood how their ancestors' sacrifices had given them the chance to succeed and how they and so many people like them had helped make America the great nation that it is today... Scarlett Johansson: We are all, you know, a product of this big melting pot.

That these two sides couldn't be more different, um, and came together through really people, taking risks, not being afraid of losing something and... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Solo, solo risks, you know?

Scarlett Johansson: yeah... Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: The outlier, I mean, the guy, I'm gonna roll the dice.

Scarlett Johansson: Yeah, and take a chance, it's very much an American story.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: It is.

Scarlett Johansson: Yeah.

John Turturro: I've always been, you know, serious when I've gotten the opportunity to do anything, and I think that's 'cause I know where I come from.

And you know, I don't take that, uh, lightly.

Paul Rudd: Well, it makes me feel part of a lineage.

It makes me feel a part of something that is, much bigger.

It makes me feel like I know myself a little more because I know where I came from a little bit more.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Like links in a chain going back thousands of years.

Paul Rudd: that's right.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: Please join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests, on another episode of "Finding Your Roots".

Narrator: next time on "Finding Your Roots".

Family history, more complicated than black or white.

Journalist Bryant Gumbel.

Bryant Gumbel: He's a Confederate soldier?

He was a rebel?

Narrator: Television producer, Tanya Lewis Lee.

Tanya Lewis Lee: It's really astounding, but for him I probably wouldn't be here.

Narrator: And journalist, Suzanne Malveaux.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

: You're fourth great grandfather was a slave owner, a black slave owner.

Suzanne Malveaux: That's really tough.

Narrator: Ancestry that challenges assumptions.

Bryant Gumbel: Shows you how stupid people are about race.

Narrator: on the next, "Finding Your Roots".