Jon Appleton - Early Life

Early Life

Appleton was born in Los Angeles, California on January 4, 1939 to Jewish parents: Helen Jacobs Appleton (born Philadelphia, 1908) and Charles Leonard Appleton (born Haim Eppel Boim in Kishenov, Moldavia, 1900). His mother was employed by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer and his father by Twentieth Century Fox film studios. His father left his family the year Appleton was born and he spent his first years in Mrs. Bell's (an orphanage) and with his brother (Michael Charles Appleton, born 1932) at Palomar Military Academy. When he was six years old his mother married Alexander "Sasha" Walden (born in Ufa, Russia in 1897), a double-bass player in the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra. He was the greatest musical influence in Appleton's young life seeing that he studied piano, encouraging him to compose music and taking him to multiple concerts. Appleton's parents were true believers in the Soviet Union and active members of the multiple left-wing organizations including the Communist party. In the 1950s both his parents were blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee and lost their jobs. As a child Appleton studied piano with Jacob Gimpel and Theodore Saidenberg but preferred composing his own music rather than playing the works assigned to him (e.g. Chopin, Scarlatti, Prokofiev). However, he developed a deep, lifelong affection for Russian music.