Pat Morita - Early Life

Early Life

Pat Morita was born in Isleton, California. He developed spinal tuberculosis at the age of two and spent the bulk of the next nine years in Northern Californian hospitals, including the Shriners Hospital in San Francisco. For long periods he was wrapped in a full-body cast and was told he would never walk.

After a surgeon fused four vertebrae in his spine, Pat finally learned to walk again at the age of 11. When he walked out of the hospital, an FBI agent escorted him directly to his Japanese American family, which had been sent to an internment camp to be detained for the duration of World War II.

He was transported from the hospital directly to the Gila River camp in Arizona to join them. It was at this time that he met a Catholic priest from whom he would later take his stage name, "Pat". For a time after the war, the family operated Ariake Chop Suey, a restaurant in Sacramento, California. Teenage "Nori" would entertain customers with jokes and serve as master of ceremonies for group dinners. Later, he worked as a data entry clerk for the State of California and at Aerojet-General Corporation near Sacramento. In the early 1960s, he started his career as a stand-up comedian known as The Hip Nip, performing in local nightclubs and bars. He also spent time as a member of the improvisational comedy troupe, The Groundlings.

Morita was married three times. His first marriage was soon after he finished high school at Armijo High School in Fairfield, California. They were married for 14 years and had one daughter, Erin Morita, born in 1954.

Morita later married his second wife, Yuki, in 1970. They had two daughters, Aly and Tia. The couple had to deal with several setbacks during their marriage. First, their $300,000 uninsured, Tarzana, California, home was badly damaged in a mudslide. The family escaped with just the clothes they were wearing. Shortly afterward, Tia, their youngest daughter, was diagnosed with kidney disease. Their marriage dissolved in 1982 after two years of separation.

Morita met his last wife, Evelyn Louise Guerrero, when she was 15 years old because Evelyn's mother had the same manager, Sally Marr. Morita and Evelyn met again years later, and were married in Las Vegas on March 26, 1994; they remained together until his death. They did not have any children together.