At age three, he orchestrated a miniature train crash with his Lionel set just to watch the wreckage unfold again and again.
He was also fascinated by World War II — but gradually distanced himself from his Jewish faith.
Growing up, he had no idea he’d one day become the most financially successful celebrity on the planet — worth more than household names like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, and even George Lucas.
And yet, that’s exactly what happened.
So, who is this iconic celebrity we’re talking about? We’re not ready to reveal that just yet — let’s give you a few more clues and fascinating details first.
Couldn’t embrace his heritage
This icon was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 18, 1946, into a family rooted in Orthodox Judaism. His grandparents had once journeyed from Ukraine to the United States, escaping earlier unrest but never forced to flee the horrors of the Holocaust. Still, growing up in a post-Holocaust world left an indelible mark on him.
Looking back on his childhood, he once admitted, “It isn’t something I enjoy admitting, but when I was seven, eight, nine years old, God forgive me, I was embarrassed because we were Orthodox Jews. I was embarrassed by the outward perception of my parents’ Jewish practices. I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times.”
It would take years before he fully embraced the culture and faith he’d been born into.
His mother, a concert pianist with a flair for the dramatic, also ran a kosher dairy restaurant. His father was an electrical engineer at the forefront of early computer technology. But the stability of home life didn’t last — his parents divorced when he was in his mid-teens.
A painful chapter
That split would haunt him. “When they separated, I needed a special friend,” he once said. “And I had to use my imagination to take me to places that felt good—places that helped me escape the pain.” That imagination became his refuge, and eventually his calling. He later admitted that, when reflecting on that painful chapter of life, he imagined an otherworldly companion — an alien — as the perfect symbol for loneliness, loss, and healing.
His mother remained in Saratoga with his three sisters, while he moved to Los Angeles to live with his father. Despite what really happened, he held his father responsible for the divorce for many years, largely unaware that it was his mother who had been unfaithful.
Those emotions seeped into his early creative work — where absent fathers, broken families, and lost children searching for connection became recurring themes.
As a teenager, he found himself captivated by World War II — not by its politics or destruction, but by the raw stories of courage and survival. He would dig through library archives to find old war footage, then create entire characters and stories that could have easily belonged on those battlefields. It wasn’t just fascination; it was his way of understanding heroism, loss, and the world around him.
Looking at the black-and-white photo below, it might be hard to imagine who this giant would one day become — but it’s easy to picture the world he grew up in and the environment that helped shape him.
