Emmy-winning actor Martin Sheen has had plenty of media coverage about his family — and a lot of it has been unpleasant, due to the problems of his son Charlie Sheen. But on “Who Do You Think You Are?,” Martin Sheen decided to go on the show so that he, his family and people who watch the show could find out more information about his ancestors. “Who Do You Think You Are?” features a different celebrity per episode researching his or her family history.
Martin Sheen (whose real name Ramon Estevez) has Spanish and Irish heritage, so he traveled to Spain and Ireland as part of his journey. Sheen is featured in the Season 3 premiere episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?,” which airs on NBC on February 3, 2012, at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time. Some of the things that he found out about his ancestry was really shocking to him, he says. Martin Sheen opened up about his “Who Do You Think You Are” experience in this conference-call interview that he did with journalists.
After taking the journey to find out more about your ancestry, does it make you feel more like a whole individual as far as giving you perspective about who you really are?
Well, of course, the fundamental purpose is to try and identify personally to your foundation. I think anyone that goes on one of these journeys whether it is in front of a camera or on the Internet is really looking for a personal identification with the past. And what is amazing about that is that as you go back further and further into your lineage in generation and generation and you begin to look at the dates and you start to realize oh like for example, one of my great, great, great grandparents died just at the onset of the American Revolutionary War. So in that sense it gives you some perspective that you rarely think about in terms of historical value.
Has the journey given you new insight into the origin of your commitment to social justice from a genealogy standpoint?
Well I have to say that was one of the things that I thought could very much be the case because I had two uncles on both sides of my parents' families. My uncle Michael Fieland in Ireland, who was an Irish volunteer and fought in the War of Independence and then fought against the Free State in the Civil War from 1921 to '23.
And on my father's side my father's brother, Matias had fought against Franco at the onset of his coup and spent an awful lot of time in jail and in fact received a life sentence that we finally rescinded in 1996, pardon me 1969. And I had just met him that year. So the connections are just amazing in that they are so deeply personal.
And yes, both of them had risen up against oppression and in one case a dictatorship in Spain and had suffered mightily for it but stuck to his principles and as I say for me it was … maybe this is some unknown quality that I have possessed. Not the extent that these gentlemen did because they were absolutely heroic and risked their lives. But the message is clear that maybe this is part of my DNA.
Were there any "oh that makes sense" moments or "oh wow" moments during the research process for "Who Do You Think You Are?”
There were a great of deal "oh wow" moments. But one in particular, the first one that hit me between the eyes was about my mother, MaryAnn Fieland. It was her brother that was involved in the Rising in 1916 and also in the Civil War that started in 1921.
And she arrived at Ellis Island in New York City about a week before her 21st birthday in 1921. She was born in 1903, and we always suspected that she was sent away to protect her from any harm during the Civil War because it got very, very intense particularly in Northern Tipperary where she was from.
And the fact that her brother was deeply involved, the whole family had to brace for what was coming. And she spoke Gaelic and it was confirmed during my time in Ireland with the "Who Do You Think You Are?" people that yes indeed she was sent away for her own protection. And she was meant to come back when the fighting stopped and the Republic was established in 1923.
And so it was a very, very satisfying moment for me to know that she too was involved. And I learned while I was in Ireland that the British officers were very, very reluctant to search young girls under the age of 16, and so often they were used as couriers with information supporting the Rising. And so they also had to speak Gaelic because in that way they could speak right in front of the black and tan or any of the British soldiers there and not be understood and she spoke Gaelic.
Now Gaelic became a mandate when the Republic was finally established which really wasn't strong until the 1930s but Gaelic is still on the agenda as it is for English for here in our country in schools. It is mandatory that you have to take classes in Gaelic. And so to have learned it on her own was a very informative bit of information that confirmed that she was involved and that she was sent away for her own protection.
That was the first one that hit me in the eyes and made me realize she was as committed as her brother, Michael and risked as much. And then on the other side, on my father's side, my Uncle Matias I didn't realize that he was in the very, very first level of opposition to Franco in Galatea, which was very pro-Franco at the time and that is where the coup actually began.
And Franco was a Gallego as well — and, of course, my father and of course my uncles. And that he stood up to him right in his backyard. So he suffered mightily and he went to a concentration camp offshore from Tui and then he was sent to Pamplona, a major prison in Pamplona for radicals and anyone that opposed the Franco regime. And there he suffered mightily.
And the only good thing that came out of that was he learned to read and write in that prison in Pamplona. So there are these fascinating details about these two guys and how closely they were aligned with the same kind of activism and commitment to social justice against oppression. And they never met each other. Neither my dad never visited Ireland and my mother never visited Spain and this same strain of commitment to social justice and standing up against oppression was very present in both of their families.
Have you decided maybe you want to own property maybe closer to where you found your family in Europe?
Well, in fact we did own a house in Ireland right in a very small community. My cousin was just 100 meters away in a little village Kilbourn in Northern Tipperary but we didn't spend enough time to keep it going. But we would come off and just stay with the relatives or in a nearby B&B or a local hotel. So that was the case in Ireland.
I went to school for a short time in Ireland after the West Wing ended. I had always had this kind of romantic image about going to school, and I thought if I went in Ireland I wouldn't kind of be a marked guy. You know, they would kind of let me have this fantasy which they did, and it was a wonderful experience in 2006.
But the Spanish side is my sister Carmen, who inherited my dad's property. Carmen has lived in Madrid for 40 years, married a teacher there way back when and the two of them just retired. And she as I say she goes up to Galatea quite a lot in the summer and they spend time in this property that my father willed to her.
So those are kind of the property connections. I don’t have a need to actually live there or own property. I feel I kind of am part of a community that is very satisfying and I feel quite at home in both countries.
Before your experience with "Who Do You Think You Are?," were you were aware that there were family history resources online?
In fact, I have watched the show. I am a big fan of the show and when I saw Lisa Kudrow in an episode and then learned that she is a producer of the show for the U.S., I was very much interested in doing the show. And so when they asked me, I said yes without hesitation because I don’t own a computer, and I'm way behind on these new methods of gaining information, but I was fascinated by it.
And they did about six months’ research on my family on both sides in Spain and Ireland and very thorough research. And so I felt very confident and I still intend to go online on the ancestry.com because my wife knows how to do that. And so then I'm still looking forward to doing that. But unfortunately, I'm not skilled electronically or with the Internet enough to do it on my own.
When you first started entertaining the idea of going on the show did you have any trepidation about doing it in a public forum and what might be found out? And because it is family history and you don't know what is going to come up, right?
It's true. Let me answer that first because yes that was a concern. Somebody once told me, “Look if they discovered that like your great, great grandfather was a slave trader we are not going to expose you to that if that embarrasses you. But it is part of your history that cannot be changed. It can only be learned of and then you deal with it but they said that they rarely embarrass people.”
And really, everyone they have asked to explore their past with, of all the people that they have invited no one has ever objected no matter what they find. But going in, as I say, I was a bit trepidatious because I didn't know.
May I tell you an example? I just wanted to share that still go a little further with that. When I was in Ireland and I was discovering the involvement of my uncle Michael Fieland in the Rising and in the Civil War because he took an opposing side to de Valera.
I was afraid that he might have been in on the plan to assassinate Mick Collins and that I was very frightened that that could be the case. As it turned out he was imprisoned when Mick Collins was assassinated. So I was deeply relieved and I found out of course that he was in four different prisons from 1916 to 1923. So he had a lot of involvement in the creation of an Irish state.
You mentioned that you went to school in Ireland. Where in Ireland? Did you go to college there or and how long were you there?
I did just one semester at the National University of Ireland, NUI, at Galway. I was credited with several courses, particularly with Shakespeare course but my main focus was on the environment. So I studied Earth and ocean science because I have a lot of concern about the environment and I am involved with several organizations here in California trying to protect the environment.
And so I thought I needed some factual scientific information on what's happening with the environment. And NUI at Galway has the Ryan Institute which is just extraordinary. And they also have the ship, the Celtic which is a very modern ship that tracks the waters around the island and gives information about the changes in not just the content of the water but the fish life and that was an extraordinary experience.
Other than that, I was basically what we call audited many classes, in fact many that I wasn't even signed up for. I would just attend because I liked what was being studied there. So it was a great experience and I did one semester from August in 2006 until almost Christmas. So those four months were deeply satisfying and brought me much closer to my Irish roots.
Was there any concern that you might discover that your family history really amounted to only 500 years' worth of sheep herders?
Discovering about my family's history both in Spain and in Ireland. If they had been sheep herders for 500 years that would have been absolutely fine because they were such good and decent people. They were Celtic both sides they were united by a peasant heritage in love with the land and a deep faith both of them shared the Catholic faith and family, loyalty to family, community, country was just overwhelming and deeply satisfying for me to learn on both sides.
They were very similar of culture and I've never favored one side or the other and this exploration on my heritage strengthened that feeling of that I am of equal measure to both sides. So I am just as proud of being Spanish as I am Irish. And I really can't separate the two after this exploration into my heritage. Both cultures confirmed my own sense of humanity and faith and not a small measure of pride I must say in both cultures.
So you have learned a lot about your ancestors and history by participating in this show and to kind of take the process further and look at it from the other side. What would you hope that your descendants would learn about you and your legacy in the future?
That is a very good question because I felt a sense that I was doing it for my grandchildren and their children. It was like I felt like I had a responsibility to go to this place at this time because I am 71 years old. I don't know how much longer I am going to be around.
And that if something could be uncovered that would be meaningful to future generations I would be a part of passing that on and that would be very, very satisfying. So, in a sense, I felt this responsibility to do this now and I am very happy that I did. And I have so many relatives both in Ireland and Spain that we are very close to over the last 30 years. We have grown very close to our first cousins and maintain relationships.
Many of them have come here since our first meeting in 1973. So it is an ongoing process. And we have a grandson who lives in Spain who met a young lady there in 2003, and they are married And they sparked our interest in the Camino Santiago de Compostela, which culminated in a film that [my son] Emilio wrote and directed called, "The Way" which opened this past year and has some terrific success across the country.
And so it is all connected, you know and the more information we get about the past, the more we can anticipate the future I think, you know. And so as I say, my involvement in this journey was a deeply personal one and at the same time I felt it was my responsibility for the future generations.
Having now been through the experience, if someone came up to you and they asked you what is the No. 1 reason that I should look into my family history? What would you tell them?
It would be hard to place one reason at the top. If I had to and that would be all I would be given I would say just natural-born curiosity should inspire one to look from whence we came in order to better prepare for where we are going. So I would say that the measure of curiosity that one naturally feels is the best instinct to go with, embrace and get set for an amazing journey.
How did your children react to the information that you discovered during your journey? And did you learn any of the Gaelic language while you were there?
To start with the last question. No I'm afraid I didn't. That is a very difficult language, and it is spoken in fewer and fewer spots in Ireland now, but particularly it is spoken in Connemara and that area in the West. But no I hadn't learned any of it.
For my children … they were equally astonished as I was. They found more humor in it than I did because I was giving them information that I had learned weeks, months earlier. And so they were fascinated with the irony, particularly on my Spanish side, when we discovered that wretched great, great, great, great grandfather Don Diego Francisco Suarez. That was a knuckleball that we weren't anticipating and I took it very personal.
But my children and grandchildren were less affected by it. They got a big kick out of the irony. They thought it was it was a delicious bit of gossip kind of. But they were more delighted with it for its irony.
What was the standout moment of the experience and what was your favorite one to share with your children and grandchildren?
Speak of the devil. I was just mentioning the discovery of my fourth removed grandfather, Don Diego Francisco Suarez who is born in like 1713. And he was a bit of a dandy. He was a judge in Tui and in a large area of the Galatean Province, and he prosecuted a young lady for a moral crime, if you will. And she had to flee and she came back and she questioned his judgment and stayed in the community and built a life for herself
And that young lady turned out to be my great, great, great, great grandmother, who was prosecuted by the other side of the family. So my great, great, great grandfather prosecuted my great, great, great grandmother. And that was the biggest surprise and the most intriguing part of the whole journey. And that was the one that really grabbed the attention around here in the family and caused quite a bit of eyebrow raising. And it came about from the two different branches on my grandfather's tree.
In other words, my grandfather, my dad's father and my dad's mother went in two different directions and they came together at the top of this tree. So that was an astonishing revelation. And as I think I said in the show that if you were to write a novel with all of these intriguing relationships so long ago, your editor would be remiss if they didn't say, “No, no this is too far-fetched. No one is ever going to believe this.” But in fact it was true.
For your stage last name, you took the Irish moniker Sheen versus your Spanish last name Estevez. So did your son Charlie. But Emilio kept the Estevez name. Why? And culturally where does your family fall? Do you feel that they are more Spanish or Irish or a full blend?
My real name is Ramon Estevez, and in fact I have never changed it. It is my official name. It is on all contracts and my driver's license and our marriage license. And all the children were baptized under that name Emilio, Ramon, Carlos (which is Charlie's real name) and my daughter Renee.
When I went to New York in 1959, frankly, I had a great deal of difficulty projecting a Spanish heritage because there was so much prejudice against the Puerto Rican community, never mind that they were Americans but they were newly considered immigrants in New York City and there was a great of difficulty with that community. Now, of course, they are very much an integral part of the city. But at the time I started, they were prejudiced against and I was feeling a lot of pressure for an assumed part of that community.
Mind you, I was no less proud but I was equally concerned about how that would affect me trying to pursue a life in New York City and so I decided to kind of invent a new character, Martin Sheen. I took the Martin from the only guy that I knew in the industry at that time, Robert Dale Martin, who was very encouraging to me. He was a casting director at CBS and I had auditioned for him when I first came to New York and he was very encouraging. So to honor him and our friendship I took his last name as my first name.
And I took Sheen from Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who was at that time the Auxiliary Bishop of New York and he was a very famous televangelist if you will. He was the first successful televangelist. He had this popular television show in the 50s at primetime called, "A Life is Worth Living," and he was an astonishing character. He was like a Shakespearean actor, very handsome man with riveting delivery and fierce eyes. And I thought of him as more of an actor than a clergyman and so I took his name and put them together, and it sounded Irish and people said I looked Irish. OK fine.
But I didn't change my name officially and frankly I never will. Now when the kids started to come into the business I advised them to keep their name because so much had changed since I was a boy. And one of the big regrets that my father had was that I had changed my name professionally. And so I tried to encourage them and Emilio got that message and he kept his name and is very happy that he did.
And Charlie decided to go with Sheen, and his motivation was to keep my name going because he didn't want to be separated in the profession from me. And so I was honored equally by him choosing to do that. So sometimes it gets a little confusing, but as I was saying earlier, I feel an equal measure of cultural nourishment if you will both from the Spanish and my Irish ancestry because I am first generation from immigrants in America.
So I am very close to European roots of Spain and Ireland and very proud, equally proud of both sides. And I can't separate myself from them and that's I think is as it should be. I am equally comfortable in both cultures. And I am equally proud to be an American and happy about the way I was brought into the world and nourished in it.
How did learning about your genealogy strengthen you today as a person?
Reflecting on so many important aspects of my families in Ireland and Spain made me appreciate what they brought us to. You know, both of my parents lived in a time of civil war in both their countries. In Ireland from 1921 to 1923 and in Spain from 1936 to 1939. So they were away from their countries. They never visited each other's countries so they didn't know any of their in-laws or relatives on either side.
So their life was really forged in America but both cultures were of equal measure for us growing up particularly with our being raised with a Catholic education and encouraged in the Catholic faith to live honest lives, you know. We came from a very large family and were strengthened with a work ethic. My father worked in a factory for 47 years.
My mother died when we were all very young. I was almost 11 at the time, and he carried on and infused in us this great sense of responsibility which I found to be very Old World in both cultures Spain and Ireland. And so they were a great source of inspiration to me. And learning about them firsthand up close and personal, if you will, made me extremely proud of where my parents came from, what they stood for, who they were and as a result I am understanding a whole lot more about how they nourished all of us and how much they had to do with my choices in life.
What place gave you the strongest feeling of connection with your family's past?
If I had to pick one, it would be the ancient village of Tui, which is on the Portuguese border along the Minho River which separates Spain from Portugal in Galatea, in Northern Spain. It is an ancient village and it is like 1,200 years old and there is a cathedral there that is a place that I have visited many times since 1969, when I made my first trip to Spain and to visit my father's community.
And I only learned during this last trip with "Who Do You Think You Are?" that my great, great, great, great grandfather is buried in that cathedral and that there was a very strong connection to my heritage from that man's life and family. And never knew that. In fact, I used to walk over his grave and his burial spot in the cathedral. Everybody did. You are just walking along. And when I got to the show, I don't think it is include in the show, but they showed me where it was and I was made to be more aware of that and that was an astonishing thing.
But that village held such an important part in my Spanish heritage and I knew that from as I say first visits in 1969, but I was not aware until we did the show of how intricately connected my heritage was with that town and specifically that cathedral. So that would have to rank as the most memorable and I dare say the most important place of visitation on the show.
Before you were on “Who Do You Think You Are?,” how much did you know about your family and whether anyone has ever tried to research it before?
No one had really researched it specifically or dare I say professionally. You know we had stories from our first cousins in Ireland as well as Spain but they were so detached, so Old World that it was hard to embrace a reality of our heritage. The only connection was through the mail, and I remember specifically how often we would receive letters from both sides of the family from Spain and Ireland.
And when the letter would come with a black border it meant that someone in the family had passed away and the news would finally reach us and sometimes it would have been months or at best weeks beforehand. And it was always a very, very difficult thing to accept. I remember my dad and mom both receiving letters from their immediate family, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers so forth in the Old World announcing the death of someone very close to them.
And so this is long before telephone service was opened and we could talk to relatives overseas and certainly long before the Internet, which has opened up the whole world and all of our pasts can be examined now. Thank heaven. So this has been a wonderful confirmation, if you will, of this energy that all of us have available to us to explore our heritage and to come to know ourselves. It doesn't seem like it on the surface but it is a deeply personal way.
And I can say that now from my experience that I just had this past year and I have been going to Europe, particularly Spain and Ireland to visit these wonderful family members since 1969. And so I'm very close to a lot of these relatives, cousins, first cousins particularly, second and third cousins and this past experience with "Who Do You Think You Are?" was the most gratifying of all the journeys I made there because it was specifically done to unearth my heritage.
And I took it very, very personal and embraced it wholeheartedly. No matter what came down I was going to accept it. I wasn't always prepared for what I learned but the journey itself was deeply satisfying. And I've seen the final show and it is a very clear reflection of my journey. The incidents that they chose to show along the way happened, there were so many on-camera moments of “oops” or “wow” and that was just so unexpected. I didn't know what I was in for and yet it is like going on a rollercoaster ride.
You know, if you love adventure, strap your seat belt and if you think you know where you are going or what you are going to see, you better get ready to be surprised and in most cases to be very surprised and very gratified. So I would recommend it to anybody.
For more info: "Who Do You Think You Are?" website
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Interview with Lisa Kudrow and Vanessa Williams for "Who Do You Think You Are?" (2011)
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Interview with Lisa Kudrow for "Who Do You Think You Are?" (2012)
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