Who Is Blake Lively's Mom? Meet Actress' Mother Elaine Lively

Blake Lively‘s mom made a rare public appearance with her A-list daughter on the red carpet of the 2025 Time 100 gala. Life & Style rounds up facts about Elaine Lively, including her job, upbringing and children.

Who Is Blake Lively’s Mother, Elaine Lively?

Elaine Lively was born Willie Elian McAlpin on June 11, 1947. She is a former actress best known for her role in the 1993 video game Return to Zork.

Elaine Lively Comes From a Modest Southern Upbringing

Elaine was raised in the tiny town of Tallapoosa, Georgia, near the Alabama state line.

“My mother had very humble beginnings — to put it mildly,” Blake told Vogue in July 2014.

“Her dad built their home out of timber that he cut down on their land. No heat, no air-conditioning — no foolishness, as he would call it. She worked in the fields from sunup to sundown, from the time she could walk. She’s strong as an ox. She learned how to break a chicken’s neck and pluck the feathers when she was a little girl,” the Gossip Girl alum said about her mother’s childhood.

Elaine also became quite a cook and passed down her love of food to Blake.

“Food to me is love. When the whole family comes together, my mom makes a big meal, usually a family dish that was passed down,” the Age of Adaline actress added.

What Does Elaine Lively Do for a Living?

Elaine works in talent management with child actors.

“I’ve grown up on sets,” Blake said about going to work with her mom as a child during a 2006 interview with Radio Free Entertainment.

“My mom is a manager and always has kids come in for coaching, my family’s always going over lines for an audition, I’m always stealing craft service. So, it was so much a part of my life that I never felt a desire for it. And it seemed like such a nightmare,” she confessed about not initially wanting to go into acting after the craft was such an integral part of family life.

Elaine Lively Is a Mother of 5 Children

Elaine married actor Ernie Lively in 1979. She was previously married to a man named Ron Lively, with whom she shared three children. Ernie ended up taking on the Lively surname following his marriage to his wife.

Elaine and Ernie welcomed a son, Eric Lively, in 1981 and Blake in 1987. Ernie was also a loving stepfather to Elaine’s daughter Lori Lively, born in 1966, son Jason Lively, who came along in 1986, and daughter Robyn Lively, born in 1972.

All five of the Lively children pursued careers in acting, just like their father. Ernie passed away in June 2021 at the age of 74 following cardiac complications.

Blake Lively Revealed Her Mom Elaine Lively Survived an Assault Before Her Birth

“My life was influenced most by my mother, Willie Elain McAlpin, who’s here with me tonight, an eternal optimist who’s always leaving me messages, hoopin’ and hollerin’ sayin’, ‘Life’s just a bowl of cherries,’” Blake told the audience at the Time 100 gala on April 24, 2025, gesturing to her mother in the audience before launching into a harrowing story.

“My mom never got justice from her work acquaintance who attempted to take her life when she was the mother of three young kids — years before I was born. She has always credited her beating heart today with the story she heard from another woman in a similar circumstance, speaking on the radio as my mom drove home one day,” the Another Simple Favor star explained.

“The woman painfully and graphically shared how she escaped, and because of hearing that woman speak to her experience instead of shutting down in fear and unfair shame, my mom is alive today,” Blake continued. “She was saved by a woman whose name she’ll never know. I am alive, and standing with you all here today, being honored, because of a woman whose name I’ll never know. I am here, my mom is here, because that woman not only survived, but she told others how.”