Macaulay Culkin

Macaulay Culkin is an American actor whose four-decade career has produced multiple defining American film roles — particularly his 1990 lead role as Kevin McCallister in Chris Columbus's Home Alone (which made him the highest-paid child actor of the early 1990s). He was born Macaulay Carson Culkin on August 26, 1980, in Manhattan, New York City, into a working-class Manhattan-Irish-Catholic family. His father Christopher "Kit" Culkin was a former American Broadway actor (who appeared as a child performer in the 1959 Broadway production of The Sound of Music) and his mother Patricia Brentrup was a homemaker.

His 1985 first feature-film appearance in Rocket Gibraltar (1988, opposite Burt Lancaster) launched his late-1980s American film career. His 1989 first major role in John Hughes's Uncle Buck (opposite John Candy) launched his 1990 American film breakthrough.

His November 16, 1990 release of Chris Columbus's Home Alone — in which he played 8-year-old Kevin McCallister, who is accidentally left home alone over Christmas while his family vacations in Paris and must defend his Chicago suburban home from two robber characters Harry and Marv (played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) — launched his early-1990s American film public profile. The John Hughes-screenplay-derived film grossed $476 million worldwide on a $18 million budget — making it the third-highest-grossing film of 1990 and the highest-grossing American family-comedy film at its 1990 release.

The 1992 sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York grossed $359 million worldwide and produced his 1992 American $8 million salary (which was the highest American child-actor salary at its 1992 disclosure). His subsequent early-1990s American film career produced multiple defining American films — particularly My Girl (1991, opposite Anna Chlumsky), The Good Son (1993), Getting Even with Dad (1994), and Richie Rich (1994). His 1994 voluntary career suspension at age 14 — produced by his parents' 1995 divorce and the subsequent legal-and-financial-control battle over his estimated $17 million career-earnings trust — shaped his later 1990s and 2000s biographical narrative. His subsequent 2010s and 2020s career has produced multiple American TV-and-film supporting roles — particularly the 2018 Hulu TV series The Righteous Gemstones. He has been with American actress Brenda Song since 2017, and the couple has two sons.

His name Macaulay derives from the Scottish-Gaelic surname meaning "son of Amalgaid." Macaulay has been a rare but enduring American boys' name across the late 20th century.