Celebri-sibs capitalize on their famous surnames

By Donna Freydkin
USA Today

Pop sensation Britney Spears, left, and her sis Jamie Lynn, who wants to be a "respected actor."	Jessica Simpson, reality-show star and pop singer, left, with her sister Ashlee, who stars on WB's "7th Heaven" and is recording a disc while shooting a reality series.	Actress Hilary Duff, right, with her older sister Haylie, an actress.
Associated Press photos

NEW YORK — Just call her Baby Britney. At age 12, starlet Jamie Lynn Spears is a leaner, lankier, warier replica of her outrageous older sister, whose quickie marriage to hometown pal Jason Allen Alexander was annulled last week.

They have the same brown eyes, flat nose, slightly pointy chin and streaked hair. They answer questions in an identically sticky Southern drawl. And just like her sis, Spears Junior is making her

own strides toward stardom with two Nickelodeon shows: the sketch comedy program "All That" (Saturdays, 7 p.m.) and is in talks with the kiddie channel to star in an as-yet-untitled series set at a coed boarding school.

"I want to be a respected actor," says Jamie Lynn, fully made up and dead serious. "Maybe one day I'll be a singer. I don't want this to be a part-time thing."

Neither do any of the other semi-famous sisters, all angling for their slice of the family fame pie. Welcome to Hollywood's sister acts, featuring the up-and-coming siblings of some of today's hottest stars:

• Jessica Simpson's sib Ashlee, 19, stars on the WB's "7th Heaven" and is recording a disc while shooting a reality series about the making of the album. "Jess and I are actually really close," says Ashlee. "She's my best friend."

• Kiddie star Dakota Fanning's sister Elle, 5, has starred in "I Am Sam" and "Daddy Day Care" and will appear in the Kim Basinger thriller "Door in the Floor" and the family comedy "Because of Winn-Dixie." "It's really, really fun," she says.

• Hilary Duff's older sister Haylie, 18, has filmed the series "Alexander the Great," which wasn't picked up by MTV but is being shopped around to other networks, and is recording a solo rock album. Being a Duff, she insists, doesn't make a showbiz career "easier or harder. I'm proud of our last name."

Beyoncé Knowles' 17-year-old sister Solange, right, is busy working on a musical follow-up to her debut album, "Solo Star." Associated Press

It's no wonder that fame has become a family business, as celebri-sibs are drawn to showbiz the way Carrie Bradshaw ("Sex and the City") is to Manolo Blahniks. With the right bloodlines and last names, doors once firmly shut swing open to wannabe actors and singers, who initially have little to offer aside from marquee monikers.

But while a famous name can catch the eye of a top casting director and get you the meeting, you still have to prove yourself to land the movie role, album deal or TV show, says Marcia Ross, Disney's head of casting.

"If they're not good, they won't get the parts," she says. "Their name recognizability helps, but at end of the day, it's the audition."

Still, Ross admits that a celebrated surname gets her attention.

"You have a little curiosity if the person is really famous and you think that if the older one has something going, maybe the other one does, too."

That seems to be true in Simpson's case. Just five years ago, Ashlee was merely one of Jessica's tour dancers — no great shakes in itself, since the elder Simpson never attained Britney Spears' or Christina Aguilera's level of fame. But today, Ashlee has at least as many singing and acting irons in the fire as her suddenly famous sister.

Like Jessica, 23, who went from a moderately known pop crooner to reality superstar thanks to her MTV show "Newlyweds," Ashlee too is in talks with MTV to star in her own series.

"It's about making an album and all the work that goes into it, about going to '7th Heaven' in the morning and doing my album at night and then waking up again the next morning," she says.

Jessica, says Ashlee, has been nothing but supportive. Sure, one might expect just a little sibling rivalry, but to hear her and all the other sibs tell it, the nasty green monster rarely rears its ugly head. "There's no point in that," says Ashlee Simpson, who will only cop to coveting some of Jessica's clothes. "I know that sounds weird, but we're such individuals, and we're both doing the same things — but not."

To her credit, Ashlee freely admits that her last name made it "easier" for her to get work. Certainly, to date, it hasn't hurt, especially while Jessica's show is red-hot. "Having my sister be incredibly successful has opened doors for me. People know I'm her sister, and I'm proud of that," she says.

Ashlee isn't worried about being the victim of a Jessica backlash. Nor is she concerned with just being the "other" Simpson, the one who isn't married to Nick Lachey. "My show is different," she says, "and I'm not on her show. Obviously, I could be worried, but I would prefer to do my thing."

It would seem that the only downside to family fame is how precious little time is left for normal, quiet downtime with your nearest and dearest.

Just ask Elle Fanning, who loves frolicking with sister Dakota, 9, when their work schedules permit. But given that both are busy actresses, do they get tons of joint play time? "Not really," says Elle. "But sometimes we do, when we're at home."

On this day, Elle stops by her manager's Hollywood office en route to piano lessons. While bubbly and friendly, she at times sounds more than a tad rehearsed. Her sister has never offered up acting advice. Nothing about her job annoys her. She never gets tired. She always has fun. "I love it. I just love how you get to be different people and have different names and stuff," Elle says.

But ask Elle if she gets to see a lot of Dakota, and there's a pause. "Yeah, yeah," she finally says. "We love playing, like she's the mom, and I'm the daughter."

In fact, it was because of her sister that the younger Fanning ended up in films. She went to the set of "I Am Sam" with Dakota, saw how much fun she was having and wanted to do it, too. In her movie debut, she played the younger Dakota in a flashback scene in the 2001 drama. And she hasn't stopped working since. But the sisters don't consider each other competition. They go out for different gigs and are driven by their mom and grandmother to their movie sets.

Like most child stars, the Fannings are home-schooled. Elle, who can't read yet, learns her lines with the help of her grandmother, who reads them to her. "I just remember them," she says. "We do all the scenes that I'm in, and then we're done."

Haylie Duff has it easier. She and teen queen Hilary live together in Los Angeles, with Haylie in the guest house while Hilary lives in the main one with their mom. They enjoyed their time together during the holidays, because this month each goes to work on a new movie — but working opposite hours. That means they'll rarely get to see each other.

Ironically, although the younger Duff is by far the most famous of the two, it was Haylie who started acting first. "I was shyer when I was little so my dance teacher told me to take acting classes," she says. "Hilary thought it was dumb at first, but I was excited, and then she wanted to do it."

After she appeared in Goldie Hawn's 1997 directorial debut "Hope," Haylie and her sister moved from Houston to Los Angeles with their mother to break into Hollywood while their dad remained in Texas. The rejections were tough, but their mother, says Haylie, told them they could quit any time if the work no longer became fun.

To hear Duff tell it, she's having a blast recording her solo rock

album and shopping the series "Alexander the Great" around to the major networks. She guest-starred on Hilary's Disney show "Lizzie McGuire" and even wrote two tunes for her album "Metamorphosis."

But it's not all roses being the sister of a famous celebrity, as Jamie Lynn Spears says of getting compared to Britney.

"I'm me, she's her, let's get over it," says Jamie Lynn , "but it doesn't bother me, because I'm not here to be a huge person. It's not about proving to people how famous I am."

Of course, she admits, sharing Britney's moniker isn't exactly a drawback "because people know who you are, they know your name." It helped her land at "All That" two years ago as the then-youngest cast member. But unlike her older sister, who spent little time in regular schools, Jamie Lynn still lives at home with mom Lynne in Kentwood, La., and attends the private Park Lane Academy, where she's a cheerleader and plays basketball.

Britney's antics have made for juicy tabloid fodder. And Lynne Spears has some advice for her youngest: "I tell her to really know who she is and come to know herself and be true to herself."

Jamie Lynn shoots "All That" during her summer break but lives an ordinary life the rest of the year. It remains to be seen just when and how she'll squeeze in her new gig. "I go home, and I'm a normal person," she says.

Of course, her self-described average adolescence doesn't hinder the junior Spears from harboring super-sized ambitions. At the time of this interview, she had yet to take a single acting class but had made her big-screen debut in her sister's 2002 teen buddy flick "Crossroads." Appropriately enough, she played the young Britney.