Today, he is world-class actor.
But he had to work very hard to achieve that status.
After years of working as a carpenter, a single breakthrough role catapulted him to global stardom, eventually turning him into a multi-millionaire.
Jewish and Irish Catholic heritage
Many Hollywood actors are practically born into the entertainment world, often with parents who have industry connections or have worked in film themselves.
But the man we’re talking about today grew up nearly 2,000 miles from Tinseltown.
He was born in Chicago in 1942, the son of a father with Irish Catholic roots and a mother whose family had emigrated from the Russian Empire.
The actor, now a household name, was raised in a three-bedroom Tudor in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois. He grew up with his younger brother, a stay-at-home mother, and a father who worked in advertising.
When asked about the religion he and his brother were raised in, he once joked, “Democrat,” before clarifying more seriously that they were “raised to be liberals of every stripe.” Reflecting on his Jewish and Irish Catholic heritage, he once quipped, “As a man I’ve always felt Irish, as an actor I’ve always felt Jewish.”
Looking back, he’s described his childhood as “relatively uneventful, middle-class – but a happy time nonetheless.”
