Sean Astin — whose long career began with star turns in The Goonies and Rudy, grew with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and continues today with his role as Tyler on The Conners, which airs its series finale on April 23 — was born on February 25, 1971. But exactly who he was born to was, for many years, a question to both Sean and his mother, actress Patty Duke.
When Duke became pregnant with Sean in 1970, she wasn’t certain who the father was — she had been seeing actor and musician Desi Arnaz Jr., as well as Addams Family star John Astin, who was married to someone else at the time. Duke had also impulsively married concert promoter Michael Tell, a stranger who was subletting her apartment, that same year, in a union that lasted only two weeks.
