Early Life
Born William Blake Crump in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His grandfather was J. Gordon Edwards, a director of silent movies, and his stepfather, Jack McEdwards, became a film production manager after moving his family to Los Angeles in 1925. In an interview with Village Voice in 1971, he said that he had "always felt alienated, estranged from my own father." After attending grammar and high school in Los Angeles, he began taking jobs as an actor during World War II. Edwards describes this period:
I worked with the best directors – Ford, Wyler, Preminger – and learned a lot from them. But I wasn't a very cooperative actor. I was a spunky, smart-assed kid. Maybe even then I was indicating that I wanted to give, not take, direction.
Edwards served in the United States Coast Guard where he experienced a severe back injury, which left him in pain for years afterward.
Read more about this topic: Blake Edwards
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