Hayden Panettiere was 11 months old when she appeared in her first commercial.
Her father, Alan Lee ‘Skip’ Panettiere, spent years putting out fires as a captain in the New York City Fire Department. Her mother, Lesley R. Vogel, had been a soap opera actress before becoming her manager. Together, they raised two children who would end up in front of the cameras: Hayden, who at 17 was already starring in ‘Heroes,’ and Jansen, her younger brother, also an actor.
The family remained close even when life put them through its toughest trials. In 2023, Jansen died at 28 from cardiac complications, a blow Hayden faced publicly alongside her parents. She herself had previously spoken about her struggle with alcoholism and postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter Kaya, from her relationship with former boxer Wladimir Klitschko. Behind the actress Hollywood came to know, there was always a New York family that first put out real fires before facing their own.
