As a kid, I always went to therapists; the first time was when my parents were separated on my sixth birthday, then on and off since then.

I had the worst birthday party ever when I was a child because my parents hired a pony to give rides. And these ponies are never in good health. But this one dropped dead. It just wasn't much fun after that. One kid would sit on him and the rest of us would drag him around.

My parents were dishonest people. If it was my birthday, I knew my mother took me to the K-Mart and she stole my toy. She'd put it in the shopping cart and we'd walk out. I was raised with that.

My parents screened 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' for my 6th birthday, and I became fascinated by the idea of living in a candy land with chocolate rivers and lollipop trees.

Yes, I grew up with guns. For my 16th birthday, in fact, I received a .357 instead of a car. But there was nothing playful about them; they were tools. My parents went through a back-to-the-land phase. Most of our vegetables and fruits came from our own garden.

One I built when I was a kid, and it was a real miniature of Disneyland. I fell in love with the park when I went there with my parents on my 12th birthday.

I grew up doing all that stuff because I was obsessed with the '50s. I had sock hops for birthday parties. So I've always done The Twist and stuff. It was pretty natural and, with my parents doing it all the time, I'd just copy them. Not very pretty.

I had a happy childhood in the suburbs of L.A. My parents instilled in us an appreciation of history, art and, most important, Motown. Jarron and I weren't allowed to listen to rap until we were 12. After our birthday I dashed to Target and bought DJ Quik's album 'Quik Is the Name.' I memorized every line.

My earliest memory is my parents forgetting my fourth birthday. My dad looked up from reading the paper and went, 'Oh my God!' So we went out, and I chose a red scooter.

Even when I was in Dubai, I used to host small birthday parties, events, and lots more to make money of my own to fulfil my wish to become an actor. I didn't take any money from my parents to fulfil my dream.

For my seventh birthday, my parents gave me a plain, unfinished wooden dollhouse. It had six empty rooms, two floors, a staircase, and a door that swung out onto a little front stoop. The windows opened, and the roof retracted on one side, revealing an attic.

You think back and you ask yourself why you became so interested in wolves. I think it was because when I was very small, growing up in a little hamlet near Shap, we would go to Lowther Wildlife Park for birthday parties. Now closed, it was only three miles from my parents' house.

It's odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will stick in your mind forever. You'll have a nice time, then two years later you'll be like, 'There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?'

The beauty of 'spacing' children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones - which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones.

'Handsome' means many things to many people. If people consider me handsome, I feel flattered - and have my parents to thank for it. Realistically, it doesn't hurt to be good-looking, especially in this business.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

From a certain age, I sort of accepted myself for what I was. And although to other people it was like nothing ever goes right, I had a really nice attitude that I'd inherited from my parents, and especially from my dad.

My parents have a strong work ethic, but their attitude to life, their philosophy, is: 'whatever makes you happy.'

No, we don't control who our parents are. We don't control what color we are. We don't control what home we are born into. But we control our attitude. We control our work ethic. We control our drive and our commitment.

Look, everything that you experience as a kid is the foundation of how you are today. I was brought up in a working class family in Leeds and when it comes to money both my parents worked hard and instilled the same attitude into me.

I feel so lucky to have both my parents and we all get together at Mum and Dad's at least every fortnight and try to go away on holiday together once a year. When it was Mum and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary, we all went to Devon, which was fabulous.

David Letterman was my guy growing up. My parents recorded the tenth anniversary special for me, and I watched it 40 times.

In 1966, I bought my parents a carriage clock for their silver wedding anniversary. It was last wound 30 years later, in December 1996, the month my father died.

I believe the wedding vows are sacred and precious, and it's been one of my goals as a writer to portray the kind of marriages I've seen modeled in my family - my parents and grandparents, who all celebrated fifty-year anniversaries and well-beyond.