Russell Crowe - Early Life

Early Life

Crowe was born on 7 April 1964 in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Jocelyn Yvonne (née Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were movie set caterers; his father also managed a hotel. Crowe's maternal grandfather, Stan Wemyss, was a cinematographer who was named an MBE for filming footage of World War II. Crowe's paternal grandfather, John Doubleday Crowe, was from Wrexham, Wales, while one of Crowe's maternal great-great-grandmothers was Māori. Crowe also has Scottish, Norwegian, English, and German ancestry. He is a cousin of former New Zealand cricket captains Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe.

When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, where his parents pursued a career in film set catering. The producer of the Australian TV series Spyforce was his mother's godfather, and Crowe at age five or six was hired for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star Jack Thompson (in 1994 Thompson played Crowe's father in The Sum of Us). Crowe also appeared briefly in serial The Young Doctors.

Crowe was educated at the Sydney Boys High School. When he was 14, his family moved back to New Zealand where, along with his brother Terry, he attended Auckland Grammar School with cousins Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe. He then continued his secondary education at Mount Roskill Grammar School, which he left at the age 16 to pursue his ambitions and childhood dreams of becoming an actor.