Who are the most famous film, comic and animation characters- both
male and female - whose mothers died in their infancy or who were
orphaned?  List by character name and film or comicbook title.

Dear  j10, 

I disregard famous orphans who did not originate in film or animation
(for example, Snow White, Cinderella, Harry Potter, Oliver Twist, Anne
of Green Gables or Annie, to name just a few), and will deal only with
"original" characters.

Orphans who are revealed as saviours or exceptional people is a
repeating theme in fiction (see my reference at the end of this page,
to the "Hollywood Mythlink" newsletter). Already in the silent film
era, you had films such as "Audrey" (1916) and A Bachelor's Children
(1918).

Star Wars (Luke Skywalker grew up as an orphan): All films in the
series feature this orphan (raised by his uncle and aunt). Skywalker
probably the most famous cinematic orphan, who is not based on other
types of fiction.
Character: Luke Skywalker 
Movies: 
Star Wars (1977) 
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) 
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) 
Star Wars: Episode III (2005) 
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) 

Another famous cinematic orphan is Will Hunting (from "Good Will
Hunting"), who was orphaned (from both parents), and grew up in a
series of foster homes.
Character: Will Hunting
Movie: Good Will Hunting (1997) 

Babe the pig is not a human child, but he was, indeed, an orphan pig,
raised by sheepdogs.
Character: Babe
Movie: Babe (1995)  

Not sure if the next films are in the same league as the others, but
both "Bogus" (with Haley Joel Osment the orphaned child Albert
Franklin) and "Corrina Corrina" (with Tina Majorino as the recently
orphaned Molly Singer) feature a young, traumatised, orphaned child. I
don't know if it is the Jazz music, or the good acting and plot, but
the later is one of my personal favourites.

Billy Elliot, a character in a successful British film from 2000, is
an orphaned child, who grows up in a small, unemployment-ridden town
in Northern England, and dreams of becoming a Ballet dancer. In "Whale
Rider" (2002, now in the theatre near you), that was already tagged as
the "female answer to Billy Elliot", a young orphaned Maori girl,
Paikea "Pai" Apirana, (actress: Keisha Castle-Hughes), wants to become
a Whale Rider, clan leader, despite her gender.

A bit morbid, but in Psycho, one of the most famous movies ever,
Norman Bates is actually a motherless orphan.

Another morbid example is Léon ("The Professional"), in which Natalie
Portman plays Mathilde, a recently orphaned child, clinging to a hit
man, looking for her parents' killers. Similarly, Gloria (from a film
with the same title), who lives in the fringes of the society, cares
for the orphaned Phil Dawn (John Adames), in Cassavetes' 1980 film
(with his wife, Gena Rowlands). This film was remade with Sharon Stone
few years ago.

In Road to Perdition (2002), a son of a widowed hit man (both named
Michael Sullivan) gets orphaned at the beginning of the movie, and
follows his father.


Animated
--------
Finding Nemo, one of the most popular films this past year, features a
fish that loses his mother, after she was eaten by a barracuda. In
another recent animated film, Lilo (of Lilo & Stitch, 2002) is an
orphan who adopts a monster. And while we're at orphaned animated
pictures, and despite my promise not to include adaptations in the
list, Bambi deserves a place of honour. Dumbo, by the way, another
great animated character, is not exactly an orphan: his mother lost
her sanity and is locked in a cage.

Turanga Leela, from the animated series "Futurama" was also an orphan,
deserted and raised on earth, and constantly in a search for creatures
like her.

In the animated Evangelion (Neon Genesis Evangelion) series, there are
several orphans: Shinji (the main hero) and Auska. Chichi of
Dragonball is also an orphan, who was born after her mother died in
labour.

Titles mentioned here: 
Neon Genisis Evangelion
Drgonball
Futurama 
Bambi
Dumbo
Lilo & Stitch
Finding Nemo 


Comic Books
-----------

The ultimate realm of the orphan-superhero myth is animation.
Superman, Spider-man and Batman are all orphans. "Superman learned it
when his loving adoptive parents revealed it to him upon his basically
reaching the age of majority. Batman had his parents horrifically
ripped from him at a crushingly young age. Spiderman was raised by an
aunt & uncle; his parental loss was doubled when his self-absorbed
dismissal at a crucial point cost him his surrogate father. J'onn
J'onzz lost both his immediate, intimate family and his entire racial
family in one stroke of insane cruelty, the blow perhaps made heavier
because he was an adult at the time and thus, more able to grasp the
full weight of it." ("Colour-Separated Kingdom Come, Hallelujah!"
Yahoo! Groups <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/subgenius/message/7713>).

In Sailor Moon, Danielle Moonstar, is an orphan, after she lost her
parents to an evil bear.

She doesn't exactly fall in any of the categories, but Lara Croft
parents also died, in a plane crash, which leads her to her
adventures.



Bonus: Famous TV Orphans
------------------------
There are so many TV orphans that this list would probably be *very*
partial, but here are several selections:

Samantha Micelli - "Who's the Boss" (played by Alyssa Milano): An
orphaned girl moved with her father to a rich neighbourhood.

[Multiple orphans] - In "Rags to Riches" - A millionaire adopts five
orphaned girls.

Willis and Arnold in Different Strokes (played by Todd Bridges and
Gary Coleman, respectively) - A white millionaire adopts two black
orphans.

Sabrina, the teenage witch, is also an orphan, growing up at her
aunts.

These are all comedies, but the Salinger children in the drama series
"Party of Five" also try to survive after their parents were killed by
a drunk driver.
 

Methodology: 
-----------
To find what to define as "famous" movies, I decided to follow lists
of "best films" (and "most popular movies") and see which ones feature
an orphan. Such lists could be found at:

IMDB <http://us.imdb.com/top_250_films> 

So you'd like to... See the 50 best films ever
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/20JRHWOIFW09X/ref%3Dcm%5Fbg%5Fguides/104-7214113-4331106>

Google Directory
<http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Movies/Reviews/Top_Lists/Good_Films/?il=1>

I also searched the Internet for sources, as in the example of my
search for comics’ characters:
[Comics "his OR her parents died"]
<://www.google.com/search?q=comics+%22his+OR+her+parents+died%22&num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8>
And by searching (sometimes, to make sure) specific titles with the
words "mother" and "orphan".


Further Sources
---------------
"Dysfunctional Families - Doomed or Divine?" , in the Hollywood
Mythlink
Mythworks Newsletter (Editor: Pamela Jaye Smith),
<http://www.hollywoodnet.com/Mythworks/families.html>.

I hope this answered your (very interesting) question. Please contact
me if you need any clarifications on this answer before you rate/tip
it.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by j10-ga on 03 Sep 2003 12:47 PDT

Thanks for the really great information.  Did you also search older
films and foreign films.  One foreign film I know of is Ponette, are
their others.
The comic book stuff is Great.
Thanks for you generous attention. J-10

---

Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 04 Sep 2003 02:01 PDT

Dear  j10,  

I searched  foreign films, and although I am pretty sure there are
many more out there, my choice was based on how "famous" the movie is.

However, here are several more, from the foreign department: 

Walter Salles' "Central Station" (1998) tells the story of a
letter-writer, in a bus station in Brazil, who takes in a recently
orphaned street boy (Josué, played by Vinícius de Oliveira), a son of
a "client".

Jeux interdits (1952) [Forbidden Games] Paulette (Brigitte Fossey), "A
small girl fleeing the Nazi conquest of Paris in 1940 with her family
loses both of her parents and her dog to a strafing attack. She is
taken in by a nearby peasant family and quickly develops a close
friendship with their son. When she buries the dog, the two of them
decide to create an entire animal cemetery and then go to great
lengths to obtain crosses for the graves." (IMDB description,
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043686/plotsummary>).

Besides these, I also remember now "My Girl", a 1991 American film
about Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky), an orphan since birth, who
befriends a boy (the unbearable Macaulay Culkin. However, I heard he
done good job in this film), and sets on a campaign to separate
between her undertaker father, and a corpse make-up artist. There's
even a sequel (1994) with Vada going to LA to learn more about her
mother's life.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by j10-ga on 04 Sep 2003 11:35 PDT

I would like your name if possible so I can credit you appropriately
in my work.  Does google allow you direct contact?  I hesitate to
leave my email address on this public format.  Let me know how to work
with google to properly acknowledge your work.  thanks again.

---

Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 05 Sep 2003 01:03 PDT

Dear J10, 

As far as I know, Google Answers does not permit direct contact.
However, in order to get accurate response on policies and the
possibility to credit me (either by my real name, or as
"politicalguru, Google Answers Researcher", you could contact
mailto:answers-editors@google.com

inventive searches and sources, more than I asked for and very
responsive to my additional probing.  I'll be back for more info as I
am only beginning to work on a writing project.  J-10, psychoanalyst

Dear J10, 

And of course, how rude of me, I forgot to thank you for the tip and rating!

Two more noteworthy popular examples of orphans: from television,
there was Jodie, Buffy & Sissy from "Family Affair", and from the
movies there was definitely Shirley Temple. Although she technically
played different characters in her various movies, in all of her early
features she did, for all practical purposes, portray the same
orphaned little girl. (Representing metaphorically, of course, the
whole of the United States during the great depression.)

-Mark Martin

Thanks Mark, I did have Shirley Temple on my List, but the tv family
is a wonderful addition.  This year's movies seem also to be a
potential bumper-crop of films dealing with loss of the parent or
orphans.  I appreciate your time for the question and welcome all
comers.

Oh, I forgot, another favorite motherless character is Scout in To
Kill a Mockingbird - actually both children, altho I don't recall the
boy's name at the moment.