Early Life
McKinney was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had an unsettled life as a child, moving twelve times. Once when his family moved from Tennessee to Georgia, he was beaten by a gang and thrown into a creek. At the age of 19, he joined the Navy during the Korean War. He served two years on a mine sweeper in Korean waters, as well as being stationed at Port Hueneme in Ventura County, California.
While on leave from this posting, he visited Los Angeles; during this time, he decided he wanted to be an actor. Upon his discharge in 1954, he settled in southern California, attending acting school at the famous Pasadena Playhouse in 1957. His classmates included Dustin Hoffman and Mako. During this time, McKinney supported himself by working as an arborist, trimming and taking down trees - he continued working in this field until the mid-1970s, by which time he was appearing in major films.
Read more about this topic: Bill McKinney
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)