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Before Gwyneth Paltow became a movie star, a wellness guru, and a household name, she was a New York City private school student, attending the prestigious Spence school from seventh grade on.
“Spence was more than an Ivy League funnel,” Amy Odell writes in her new Paltrow book Gwyneth: The Biography. “An old saying of these private schools went, ‘Chapin girls date doctors and lawyers, Spence girls marry doctors and lawyers, and Brearley girls become doctors and lawyers.’ Spence was, one Brearley student said, ‘like the thoroughbred horse of girls’ schools.’”
A follow-up to 2022’s Anna: The Biography, Odell’s new book charts the trajectory of Paltrow, including her time at the all-girls academy on the Upper East Side. The future Oscar winner, of course, would not go on to marry any doctors or lawyers (just a rock star and an entertainment heavyweight), but what were her years at Spence really like? What did they portend about her destiny? Here’s what we learned.
Her family relocated from Los Angeles so Gwyneth and her brother could get an East Coast education.
Gwyneth’s dad, TV and film director Bruce Paltrow, had scored a huge hit with St. Elsewhere, which premiered in 1982. But her mom, stage and screen actress Blythe Danner, decided to move the whole clan from L.A. to New York City to take advantage of better schooling for the kids. The Paltrows settled into a five-story brownstone on East 92nd Street between Fifth and Madison avenues, with Bruce commuting back to L.A. (they kept their Santa Monica home) during the week shoots when necessary.
Seventh grader Gwyneth immediately made an impression on everyone, including senior girls.
Arriving in fall 1984 to a class of about 50 girls—some of whom had been attending since kindergarten—Gwyneth was “a skinny 11-year-old with braces” but was “always considered pretty,” Odell writes. “She had strangely potent charisma, and other Spence girls—even seniors—wanted to invest in knowing this new middle schooler.” A Spence teacher at the time says in the book, “She established herself as an interesting person—someone people wanted to hang out with,'” and a classmate recalls, “Not one person doubted she was going to be famous.”
She was stylish from the jump, too.
On the first day of school, when students weren’t required to wear a uniform, tween Gwyneth wore penny loafers, a blue-and-white Breton shirt, and a white skirt. Sensing that this look “flopped,” she changed after school into pink Guess parachute pants and a matching pink top for a trip to the playground, where she was praised as “cool.” She would later accessorize the standard school uniform with cowboy boots or sneakers and a leather jacket, and swapped out her plain white blouse with an embroidered or off-the-shoulder top. A 2020 T&C story recalled, “Paltrow wore the Spence uniform with a certain swagger. Everyone wore tights, but hers were thigh-highs, and she took advantage of her height to go to nightclubs like Nell’s or MK while still underage. ‘What we figured out was that the more upscale places would let you in, but if you were trying to get into the Irish bar on Second Avenue, they wouldn’t,’ Paltrow says.”
The Spence School’s East 93rd Street building, home to the lower school.
A pair of Spence students in the 1930s enjoying some friendly fencing.
The Paltrow family’s wealth and status were nothing compared to some of her classmates.
Gwyneth’s peers “came from old money families with last names like Astor and Vanderbilt,” Odell writes, or had parents who were headline-making titans of Wall Street and corporate law, with weekend estates in the Hamptons and priceless works of art on the walls of their homes overlooking Central Park. A few were even royalty, like princesses Alexandra and Olga of Greece, or rock royalty, like Mick Jagger’s daughter Jade. According to the book, “Students who didn’t come from that exclusive world of the five-block radius around the school said they felt like they were different—even Gwyneth.” Another future Hollywood star was in the midst, too: actress Kerry Washington.
Academics weren’t her thing.
“She hadn’t been trained to study. And Spence was a rigorous, no-nonsense academic institution,” then-headmaster Edes Gilbert tells Odell. Even Gwyneth later admitted, “You cannot believe the classes—law and physics in the seventh grade! I was at sea.” Odell writes that “two former faculty members remembered her as either a C-plus or B-minus student…[teachers thought] she was smart, just disinterested in the obligation of attending school.”
She misbehaved — and didn’t always get away with it.
Gwyneth reportedly smoked, skipped classes, arrived late, ordered herself pizza during a midday detention, and drew a lewd anatomical sketch on a cubicle in the library. When confronted by a teacher about the X-rated graffiti, Paltrow retorted, “Come on, where’s your sense of humor,” and was “annoyed” when forced to clean it up. She sometimes snuck out of the family home to hang out on school nights at the popular bar Dorrian’s with what she called her core “posse” of four other Spence friends, and would throw parties in hotel rooms or at her house when her parents were away.
Gwyneth: The Biography
at amazon.com
She made it into the nine-girl a cappella group—and, yes, acted in school plays.
Gwyneth, who would later show off her legitimate vocal chops in Duets, Country Strong, and an episode of Glee, was accepted into the elite Triple Trio a cappella group in ninth grade. While not known as a full-on “drama nerd,” Gwyneth, who had been watching her mom perform on stage since infancy, participated in several school plays, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which she played Amazonian queen Hippolyta. “You could see she was very talented… charismatic, had a presence, spoke beautifully, and was very beautifully,” Spence drama teacher Fell Hayes says. “And all those things came out when she was performing.”
Her required senior project made the most of her family’s celebrity connections.
While Princess Olga of Greece interviewed her aunt Queen Elizabeth, Gwyneth recorded a cover of a Bonnie Raitt song with Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen.
Her average grades yielded rejections from reach schools—so her parents called in a favor.
While her advisor predicted Gwyneth would “win an Oscar,” Bruce and Blythe still wanted her to go to college. She was rejected from Vassar, and lashed out when another friend was accepted at Barnard, sniping, “That’s a backdoor way to a second-rate Ivy.” Finally, her parents asked friend Michael Douglas to put in a good word at his alma mater, the University of California, Santa Barbara. Gwyneth was accepted and set to start in January 1991. Spoiler: With much bigger things in store, she didn’t graduate.
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