Early Life
Cody was born as Espera Oscar de Corti in Kaplan, Louisiana, a second son of Antonio de Corti and his wife, Francesca Salpietra, immigrants from Sicily. He had two brothers, Joseph and Frank, and a sister, Victoria. His parents had a local grocery store in Gueydan, Louisiana, where he was raised. His father left the family and moved to Texas, where he took the name Tony Corti. His mother married Alton Abshire and had five more children with him.
When the three De Corti brothers were teenagers, they joined their father in Texas and also shortened their last name to Corti. They moved on to California, where they started acting in movies, and each changed their surname to Cody. Joseph William and Frank Henry Cody worked as extras, but moved on to other work. Frank was killed tragically by a hit-and-run driver in 1949. The boys' father Tony Corti died in Texas in 1924.
Read more about this topic: Iron Eyes Cody
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)