Early Years
Jones was born in West Lafayette, Indiana. Her maternal grandparents were Lebanese; her middle name means little friend in Arabic (rhyming with Lisa, rather than Melissa). Her parents were students at Purdue University at the time of her birth and they soon moved to Playa Del Rey, California. When she was two years old, her mother enrolled Jones in dance classes. In 1964, when she was six, Jones' mother took her to an open audition for a breakfast cereal commercial, which became her first television appearance. She attended Paseo Del Rey Grammar School (and, later, Orville Wright Junior High School).
Read more about this topic: Anissa Jones
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“It was common practice for me to take my children with me whenever I went shopping, out for a walk in a white neighborhood, or just felt like going about in a white world. The reason was simple enough: if a black man is alone or with other black men, he is a threat to whites. But if he is with children, then he is harmless, adorable.”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only twenty seconds of war to destroy him.”
—Baudouin I (b. 1930)