There is no perfect age to become a parent and it can happen at any age. A few celebrities became dads after they turned 50. According to the National Centre for Family and Marriage Research, the average age for a man to become a father is between 27 and 30.
In reality, some notable fathers have outlived the norm, becoming fathers after the age of 50. Keeping up with a child in your 30s is difficult enough but here are some elder fathers who had children later in life.
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Celebrities who became dads after turning 50
1. James Earl Jones
Jones became a father to his son, Flynn at the age of 51. He gave Luke Skywalker the famous phrase "I am your father" in 'The Empire Strikes Back' — and his second wife, Cecilia Hart, who died of ovarian cancer in 2016, welcomed their son Flynn in 1982.
2. Hugh Grant
In 2011, Grant was 51 years old when he became a dad. He has five children in all, two with his ex-wife, Tinglan Hong, and three with his wife, Anna Elisabet Eberstein.
3. Jonathan Silverman
Jonathan Silverman became a father at the age of 51 with his wife, Jennifer Finnigan. He announced the birth of his daughter Ella Jack on Instagram. "First we had each other. Then we had you. Now we have everything. Welcome to the world my sweet daughter," he wrote.
4. Chris Noth
Noth and his wife, Tara Wilson, had their first child, Orion, in 2008, when he was 53 years old. Keats, the couple's second son, was born in 2020 when Noth was 65 years old.
5. Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell and his fiancee Lauren Silverman welcomed their son, Eric, when Cowell was 54 years old. Eric was born on February 14, 2014. "When you become a dad, something clicks in you. It's all about them ... You become very protective and importantly, part of the reason I changed everything in my life," Daily Mail reported.
6. David Letterman
Letterman became a father at the age of 56. In 2003, Letterman's then-girlfriend Regina Lasko gave birth to their son, Harry. Letterman and Lasko married in 2009. He told Willie Geist, host of the 'Today' show that he feels "most secure" when he's with his son, INSIDER reported.
7. Michael Douglas
Actor Douglas and his long-term wife, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, welcomed their second child, Carys Zeta Douglas, at the age of 58. They also have a son, Dylan Michael, who was two and a half years old when Carys was born, and Douglas has a 24-year-old son from a previous marriage, Cameron.
8. Sir Elton John
At the age of 63, John and his husband, David Furnish, became parents through surrogacy. Zachary Jackson Levon, born in 2010, and Elijah Joseph Daniel, born in 2013, are the couple's two children.
9. Steve Martin
Martin became a father for the first time at the age of 67, when his wife, Anne Stringfield, gave birth to their daughter. "If I'd had a child earlier, I would have been a lousy father, because I would have misplaced my attention on my career," he told AARP in an interview.
11. Hugh Hefner
Cooper, Hefner's last child with then-Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad, was born at the age of 66. It's been reported that Hefner is teaching Cooper how to run the Playboy empire.
10. George Lucas
Lucas was 69 when he and his wife Mellody Hobson welcomed their daughter, Everest. She was born via surrogate and is Lucas and Hobson's first biological child, however, Lucas has three adopted children: Amanda, Katie, and Jett.
