Early Life
Jeff Wayne was born on 1 July 1943 in Forest Hills, Queens. His father, Jerry Wayne, was an actor, singer and theatre producer who had a profound influence on Jeff's life, inspiring his love of music and tennis, and introducing him to H. G. Wells' book The War of the Worlds. Wayne studied classical piano from the age of five, learnt jazz piano and was taught tennis by his father. He spent four years of his childhood in the UK when his father played romantic gambler Sky Masterson in the original West End musical production of Guys and Dolls.
Four years later they returned to New York. Wayne graduated from Stephen Halsey Jr. High and attended Forest Hills High School for one year, and played for its tennis team, before moving to California. Wayne graduated from Grant High School, then from Los Angeles Valley College with a journalism degree. He played keyboards in local bands and coached tennis to support himself. After completing his journalism degree he switched to music, playing keyboards briefly with The Sandpipers.
Read more about this topic: Jeff Wayne
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)
“As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and work broadened and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade an issue. When I found I had something to do—I just did it.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)