Mike Scully - Early Life

Early Life

Scully was born October 2, 1956 at Springfield Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts and grew up in the Merrick section of West Springfield. His father Richard was a salesman and owned a dry cleaning business, his mother Geraldine worked for the Baystate Medical Center once Scully and his brothers were old enough to be left at home alone. Scully is of Irish ancestry. As a child he "hoped to be a musician or a hockey player." At Main Street Elementary School, with the encouragement of his teacher James Doyle, he developed an interest in writing, serving as editor for his school newspaper. He graduated from West Springfield High School in 1974, having been voted "Most Likely Not to Live Up to Potential" by his classmates, and dropped out of Holyoke Community College after one day because he did not know what direction he wanted to take his life. He took up work in the clothing department at Steiger's department store, as a janitor at the Baystate Medical Center and also as a driving instructor. He commented: "I think if I had actually succeeded at college and gotten a degree in accounting or something, I might have given up too quickly on writing. Having no marketable job skills was a tremendous incentive to keep trying to succeed as a writer." He realized "there probably wasn't going to be a career in riding around with my friends listening to Foghat," so Scully decided he "definitely wanted to break into comedy" even though he "really had no reason to believe could succeed." Regardless, he moved to Los Angeles, California in 1982.