Gary Sinise is famous for roles including Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump, but to his daughters, Sophie and Ella, and son, Mac, he’s always just been “Dad.”
Gary and his wife Moira Harris Sinise married in 1981, and they started growing their family seven years later when their oldest child, Sophie, was born in 1988. They added daughter Ella to the mix in 1992, and completed their family with the addition of son McCanna, known as Mac, in 1990.
Sophie was in kindergarten when Gary starred in Forrest Gump and in high school when he began starring as Detective Mac Taylor in CSI: NY, so he’s been famous for as long as his kids can remember.
“I always kind of experienced dad as the known actor,” Ella shared on the Gary Sinise Foundation podcast in July 2024.
“I remember going to my first football game in high school and he came straight out of the CSI set — he was wearing the suit with the glasses and all of that — and someone came up to me like, ‘Did you see Gary Sinise? He’s over there!’ and I was like ‘Haha, really?’ “ she added.
Sadly, Gary’s youngest child, son Mac, died from a rare cancer called chordoma in January 2024.
“Like any family experiencing such a loss, we are heartbroken and have been managing as best we can” the actor shared on Instagram shortly after Mac’s death. “As parents, it is so difficult losing a child.”
Still, Gary was grateful for the time he did get to spend with his son, who played drums for Gary’s Lt. Dan Band, and even worked for the Gary Sinise Foundation — something both of his daughters have also been involved with.
And, as well as being a father of three, Gary is also a grandfather, something he spoke about in 2017.
“I just said my daughter’s going to have a baby and I don’t want to miss that, I want to be there,” he shared with CBS Texas News in May 2017, though he didn’t share at the time which of his daughters, both of whom are now parents, had welcomed a baby.
Here’s everything to know about Gary Sinise’s children: Sophie, Ella and Mac.
Sophie Sinise
Gary and Moira became parents for the first time in 1988 when they welcomed their daughter Sophie.
Though Sophie grew up in Southern California with a famous dad, her parents worked hard to give her a regular childhood.
“Growing up in Hollywood… our parents did a very good job of trying to shield us from… the spotlight as much as possible and keep us as normal as possible,” Sophie shared with the Gary Sinise Foundation podcast in July 2024. “Our dad would leave, and that was his job, and our mom did a really good job holding down the fort.”
Still, she got a little taste of the spotlight at the occasional event, like in 2010 when she attended a special reading of “110 Stories” to benefit the Red Cross at Geffen Playhouse.
Beyond traveling for his job as an actor, Gary has performed for the military and their families all around the country with his Lt. Dan Band and held events to support the military and veterans — something Sophie has shared he’s extremely passionate about, and his family supports completely.
“Mom was an amazing support and advocate of our father,” she said on the podcast. “She always made a point to make sure we knew that everything he did was so important and that we were all doing this with him. This is our sacrifice and we can do this for our country.”
Gary and Moira’s second daughter, Ella, was born in 1992.
Though she leads a relatively private life, she did appear in the 2011 documentary, Lt. Dan Band: For the Common Good to support her dad. And despite his fame, she has said that she and her siblings experienced a “normal upbringing.”
“When I went off to college, everyone was like ‘Oh, what’s it like being in Hollywood? What’s it like being his daughter?’ But that wasn’t really our life,” she shared with the Gary Sinise Foundation podcast in July 2024.
Ella continued, “We just had a normal upbringing where mom took us to soccer practice and did all the normal things, and she didn’t want to go to all the Hollywood stuff. It just wasn’t what we did. If we did it, it was abnormal to us, we weren’t used to it.”
She has spent time supporting her dad and his mission to help the troops, though, something she remembers him becoming even more focused on after Sept. 11, 2001.
“[There was a] passionate uproar in dad, you could just tell there was something in him stirring and he wanted to do something,” she recalled on the podcast. “He was so concerned and so needing to help the military, and ever since he’s just been so involved. Right away, it was a huge shift.”
The duo also got to spend some special father-daughter time together while Ella was studying. “When I went off to college, I was in D.C. and dad was coming there a lot for different events and stuff, so I got to experience those things with him,” she said.
Now, Ella is a mother herself. “As moms, we have to pass this on,” she said. “My daughter is too little to really explain, like she sees dad on a book and she’s like, ‘huh?’ But, the really cool part is to be able to pass down to your little ones how important it is to support our military.”
She also enjoys stepping in to host a fundraiser or event for the Apollo 13 star’s foundation once and a while. “It’s fun to be a part and get out of your mom life for just a second,” she explained.
Ella gave some insight as to what Gary is like as a grandfather.
“Lots of ice cream and pancakes,” she shared. “They like to watch movies together. When we went on vacation recently, we all had a Frozen “Let It Go” party and the smile on Dad’s face was just massive. He loves it. He’s a silly guy, and it brings out the silliness in him which is fun, very playful. He loves his grandkids, he can’t say no to them.”
McCanna “Mac” Anthony Sinise
Gary and Moira’s youngest child, son McCanna “Mac” Anthony Sinise, was born in 1990.
Mac was named after his mom’s brother. “Our uncle Mac, who we never got the pleasure of meeting — he died at 39 — that’s who our brother is named after,” Sophie shared on the Gary Sinise Foundation podcast in July 2024. “He was in the army at West Point, he wrote the leadership manual.”
From 2017, he worked with the family foundation as assistant manager of education & outreach, including planning and working on their podcast, which was launched in 2024. Gary has described having Mac take on a role at the foundation as “a gift.”
Mac was also a musician who studied songwriting and composition while attending USC Thornton School of Music and eventually played drums for Gary’s Lt. Dan Band.
“He grew up around it,” Gary told Entertainment Tonight of his band in March 2024. “He’s an excellent drummer, started playing with my band, I would take him to military bases, he would play with us.”
The actor continued, “He admired what I was doing and cares about our veterans and all of that. Finally I roped him into coming to work for the foundation back in 2017. He started and he loved it.”
Mac died on Jan. 5, 2024, five years after being diagnosed with a rare spine cancer called chordoma, with Gary sharing the sad news in a statement posted on his Instagram page and the Gary Sinise Foundation‘s website on Feb. 27.
“He was a pure soul. He had a pure heart. He was a gentle, loving, kind, funny, talented guy,” Gary told Entertainment Tonight about his son, who was 33 when he died. “He loved his family. He loved his sisters. They were so close. He loved his mom. She was constantly with him throughout this cancer fight.”
“The last year of his life he started to create music again and it was beautiful,” the actor explained. “He created a bunch of pieces of music while he was at college. He just put them away and didn’t do anything with them. About January of 2023, he said, ‘Dad, I think I want to try to finish this music that I worked on all those years ago in college.'”
That led to the creation of Mac’s album Mac Sinise: Resurrection and Revival.
“He achieved it. He got it all recorded. That last week, he finished the record. They had a viewing party… It was a joyful day,” Gary told ET. “The following night, I went on television and talked about Mac. Then the next day, I had to call the ambulance and take him to the hospital.”
Despite his rapidly declining health, Mac was happy in the hospital because he accomplished completing the album, Gary told the outlet.
“That’s what I want people to know about… Mac never gave up. He kept fighting,” Gary added. “He was at peace. He was happy at the end of his life. He was joyful… He was smiling.”
In a heartfelt tribute on his foundation’s website after Mac’s death, where he wrote of his son’s life, work and passions, Gary said he was“ blessed, fortunate, and proud” to be Mac’s father.
Source: People
