Seamus Hudson McDowell was born on January 7, 2009, in Los Angeles. His father, Malcolm McDowell, was sixty-five years old at the time. Seventeen years later, Seamus is still at his father’s side at film premieres, most recently at the Ojai Film Festival in November 2025. He is the youngest of Malcolm’s five children and one of three sons Malcolm shares with his wife, Kelley Kuhr McDowell.
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Seamus McDowell: At a Glance
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Full name | Seamus Hudson McDowell |
| Date of birth | January 7, 2009 |
| Age | 17 |
| Birthplace | Los Angeles, California |
| Father | Malcolm McDowell |
| Mother | Kelley Kuhr McDowell |
| Full brothers | Beckett Taylor McDowell, Finnian Anderson McDowell |
| Half-siblings | Charlie McDowell, Lilly McDowell |
Born When His Father Was Sixty-Five
Malcolm McDowell married Kelley Kuhr in 1991. Seamus arrived eighteen years into that marriage, in January 2009, as the youngest of their three sons. Malcolm was sixty-five years old.
Kelley is an artist whose work spans painting, photography, and home renovation. Malcolm has spoken about those early years of raising three young sons while continuing to act. He told Parade in September 2009:
“I’ve got three young children, one’s a baby, that my wife and I drag around to film locations. It’s not easy to travel with them, something of a logistical nightmare actually, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Malcolm is best known for playing Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), a role he took at twenty-seven. In Anthony Burgess’s original novel, Alex is fifteen years old. Seamus is seventeen now.
Malcolm McDowell’s Five Children
Malcolm has children from two of his three marriages. His first, to actress and publicist Margot Bennett from 1975 to 1980, produced none.
With Mary Steenburgen (married September 1980, divorced 1990):
- Lilly McDowell, born January 22, 1981. She has worked as an actress and has three daughters: Clementine, Goldie, and Vera.
- Charlie McDowell, born July 10, 1983. A film director whose credits include The One I Love (2014), The Discovery (2017), Windfall (2022), and The Summer Book (2024). He married actress Lily Collins in 2021. Their daughter is named Tove.
With Kelley Kuhr McDowell (married 1991, still together):
- Beckett Taylor McDowell, born January 29, 2004 (age 22)
- Finnian Anderson McDowell, born December 23, 2006 (age 19)
- Seamus Hudson McDowell, born January 7, 2009 (age 17)
Three Sons, Three Different Paths
Of Malcolm and Kelley’s three sons, Beckett has been the most public-facing so far. In 2023 he competed on American Idol, reached the Top 26, and chose to leave the competition. His statement at the time:
“I’m not going to say why I didn’t decide to continue in the competition but what I will say is that it was my choice. I am forever grateful to my American Idol family and I will always look back at the experience with the utmost gratitude and fondness.”
He has been releasing independent music since.
Finnian, the middle brother, has more recently started exploring entertainment. Malcolm spoke about watching those first steps, telling People:
“He’s just starting, and to see the longing, and also the nervousness of doing it, and getting out for one of the first times, it was really fantastic for me to see it. He doesn’t hear anything from me.”
Seamus has no confirmed social media presence, no acting credits on IMDB, and no published interviews.
Seamus McDowell’s Public Appearances
Four appearances are on record, each connected to Malcolm’s career.
August 2009 | Halloween II Premiere, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles
Seamus was eight months old when Malcolm carried him onto the red carpet. Malcolm told People:
“He’s going to see his first movie tonight, poor thing. You think it’ll affect him for his whole life? Oh well.”
May 13, 2010 | Suing the Devil Premiere, Fox Studios Hollywood
Malcolm arrived with Kelley and Seamus, then sixteen months old.
October 27, 2024 | AFI FEST, TCL Chinese 6 Theatres, Hollywood
Seamus, fifteen at the time, attended the AFI FEST 2024 screening and Q&A of The Summer Book, directed by his half-brother Charlie McDowell. The full extended McDowell family attended the same event.
November 8, 2025 | Ojai Film Festival, Ojai, California
Seamus, sixteen, attended the world premiere of Last Train to Fortune alongside Malcolm. He was also photographed separately at the event with Gabriela Westbury.
The AFI FEST 2024 Red Carpet
The October 2024 gathering at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres brought together a family that does not often appear collectively in public.
The Summer Book is Charlie McDowell’s adaptation of Finnish author Tove Jansson’s 1972 novel. It stars Glenn Close and newcomer Emily Matthews and follows a grandmother and her granddaughter through a summer on a small island in the Gulf of Finland. That evening, the people on the same red carpet included Malcolm, Seamus, Beckett, Lilly McDowell, Charlie McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, and Ted Danson.
Steenburgen was Malcolm’s second wife. They divorced in 1990 and have stayed close in the years since. Lily Collins, Charlie’s wife, was not there; she had recently made her stage debut in Barcelona at London’s West End.
Malcolm described how this extended family works in a conversation with People at a Los Angeles premiere in March 2023:
“I was sitting at my granddaughter’s 10th birthday party with Mary, Ted, and we were sitting there with the three granddaughters and my two children with Mary. And I was sitting there and I looked at her and I went, ‘This is all because of Time After Time.'”
Last Train to Fortune and the Ojai Film Festival
The Western that Seamus attended in Ojai had been waiting thirty-seven years to get made.
Last Train to Fortune was written by Michele Rifkin, mother of director Adam Rifkin, long before a production was viable. The original plan had Bill Paxton playing the outlaw Jedidiah Dooley opposite Malcolm, with director Lindsay Anderson, a longtime Malcolm collaborator, behind the camera. Anderson died before production started. In 2017, the group tried again with Rifkin directing. Then Bill Paxton died unexpectedly.
James Paxton, Bill’s son, eventually stepped into the role his father had been attached to for decades. Mary Steenburgen also appears in the film. The rest of the cast includes Bernadette Peters and Laura Marano.
The film is a western. It was Malcolm’s first in six decades of acting. He said of the role:
“Peachtree is one of the most fun and satisfying characters I’ve ever played. I’ve waited 60 years to do a Western so I’m thrilled my first one gets to be Last Train to Fortune.”
The premiere was November 8, 2025, in Ojai. Seamus was on the red carpet.
Malcolm was twenty-seven when Kubrick filmed him as Alex DeLarge, a role the world has not stopped asking him about for fifty-three years. The character was written as a teenager. Seamus is seventeen now, the same age Alex DeLarge was always written to be. Malcolm brought this boy to his first film premiere when Seamus was eight months old, made a joke to People about whether a Rob Zombie horror film was a suitable introduction to cinema, and has kept bringing him to these things ever since.
