The Bad Dads Hall of Fame

The Bad Dads Hall of Fame

Jim Pierce: Tennis Terror
You know you're a bad sports dad when the rule banning parents for abusive behavior at tennis tournaments is informally named after you. Jim traumatized the stuffy sport by verbally assaulting both his daughter Mary and her opponents — he told a player who beat his child she was "never gonna amount to anything," which seemed uncalled for since her rival was twelve — and smacking other parents and fans. He was worse in private, as Mary alleged he regularly hit her. Mary dumped her coach/parent when she turned eighteen, using restraining orders and bodyguards to make certain he took the hint.


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Ryan O'Neal: Daddy Dearest
The Oscar nominee made headlines in 2007 when he fought his son, Griffin, injuring Griffin's pregnant fiancée and drawing police attention when Ryan tried to calm things down by firing his gun. Ryan has an even worse relationship with daughter Tatum, whose autobiography A Paper Life recounts how dad created a child-friendly environment by constantly bedding potential mommies ("There was never any privacy. You could always hear him.") and ruining her triumphs, like when he allegedly hit her after she was nominated for an Oscar in 1973 and he wasn't.


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Agamemnon: Not So Great Greek
Parenting involves tough decisions, like whether or not you should murder your kids when God tells you to off them. Abraham was spared slaughtering Isaac, but the commander of Greek forces wasn't so fortunate. Facing a lack of wind and eager to attack Troy, he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. Predictably, his wife Clytemnestra wasn't pleased that he murdered their child to change weather patterns (and further irritated when he returned from war with Cassandra, a captured mistress), leading her to murder him and in turn be butchered by their son Orestes, who promptly went mad. Top that, Jon and Kate Plus 8.


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The Hangover Father: Stage Parent Supreme
Before this Vegas comedy even hit theaters, there was talk about a scene involving a baby being, shall we say, pleasured. Incredibly, this sequence was filmed not with a doll or a robot or a midget, but an actual infant. How did this happen? Here's Hangover star Bradley Cooper's memory: director Todd Philips was going to ask the baby's mother for permission, only he decided to wait for the "mother to go away and then asked the father. And then it's in the movie." Costar Zach Galifianakis has imagined meeting someone fifteen years from now who'll tell him, "I'm that kid you jerked off. You ruined my life." And none of it would have been possible without daddy.


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Ivan the Terrible: Lived Up to the Name
Russia's first tsar reigned in a time marked by warfare and general paranoia, so some wanton violence was to be expected. Yet even he felt he'd gone too far when he beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for dressing provocatively until she miscarried and, when confronted by his heir apparent, struck him in the head and killed him, meaning he'd wiped out two generations of his family in an afternoon. Wracked by guilt, Ivan still found it in himself to rule for three more brutal years before passing, but took solace knowing Russian peasants would always remember him (after all, he'd enslaved them).


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Joseph Stalin: Learning from Ivan's Mistakes (Sort of)
Stalin killed millions of countrymen, so it's not surprising he was rough on his own kids, too. Upon learning son Yakov had unsuccessfully attempted suicide with a gun, Stalin quipped, "He can't even shoot straight." (Yakov later died in a German prison during WWII after his father declined a prisoner exchange. His other son, Vasily, drank himself to death.) Stalin got along best with daughter Svetlana, but even their relationship was tempestuous, with Stalin irritated by her romantic entanglements with Jews. (One Chosen Beau was sent to a labor camp.)


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Marvin Gay, Sr.: Pissed-Off Pastor
Motown's crown prince often distanced himself from his father, and not just by adding an "e" to his last name. Marvin Sr. was a fundamentalist preacher but expressed his faith in non-devout ways, such as drinking huge amounts of vodka and cross-dressing. While he beat the entire family, he resented his son in particular. (Marvin's mother said dad simply "didn't love Marvin.") Indeed, Marvin Sr.'s killing of his boy was less shocking than his punishment for the crime: for firing two shots into the man who gave us "What's Going On" and "Sexual Healing" at virtually pointblank range, he received a six-year suspended sentence.


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John List: The Do-Over
Debt takes a toll on a man, particularly when he has a family. Few have handled the pressure so poorly as New Jersey's John List, who dealt with economic woes by abandoning his life and starting over... after murdering his three children (he also offed his wife and mother). Caught eighteen years later, he explained he killed them and spared himself because suicide is a sin and he wanted to join them in heaven. He also noted once his scheme began — he killed them over a day, taking a break to rake leaves while waiting for the kids to come home — he had no choice but to move ahead: "It's just like D-Day, you go in, there's no stopping after you start."


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