Ed Wynn - Early Life

Early Life

Ed Wynn was a Jewish-American comedian who was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, who manufactured and sold women's hats, was born in Bohemia-Czechoslovakia. His mother, of Romanian and Turkish ancestry, came from Istanbul, Turkey. Wynn attended Central High School in Philadelphia until age 15. He ran away from home in his teens, worked as a hat salesman and as a utility boy, and eventually adapted his middle name "Edwin" into his new stage name, "Ed Wynn", to save his family the embarrassment of having a lowly comedian as a relative.

Read more about this topic:  Ed Wynn

Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or 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)

    Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
    Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)

    Curiosity is one of the lowest of the human faculties. You will have noticed in daily life that when people are inquisitive they nearly always have bad memories and are usually stupid at bottom.
    —E.M. (Edward Morgan)