Early Life
Gooding was born in The Bronx, New York on January 2, 1968, the son of Shirley Gooding (née Sullivan), a singer with the Sweethearts, and Cuba Gooding, Sr., a lead vocalist of soul group The Main Ingredient. He has three siblings: Tommy, Omar, and April. His paternal grandfather was a native of Barbados. His family moved to Los Angeles after his father's music group had a hit single with "Everybody Plays the Fool" in 1972; the elder Gooding abandoned his family two years later. During his appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Gooding revealed that after his father had left, his family lived in hotels throughout Los Angeles. Gooding was raised by his mother and attended four different high schools: North Hollywood High School, Tustin High School, Apple Valley High School, and John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills in Los Angeles. He served as class president in three of them. He became a born-again Christian at age 13.
Read more about this topic: Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good, and against some greatly scorned evil.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)