Early Life
Brolin was born Craig Kenneth Bruderlin in Los Angeles, California. The eldest of two brothers and two sisters, he was the son of Helen Sue (née Mansur), a homemaker, and Henry Hurst Bruderlin, a building contractor. The family settled in Westwood after his birth. As a young child, he was apparently more interested in animals and airplanes than in acting. When Brolin was 10 in 1950, he began building and flying model airplanes. As a teenaged filmgoer in the mid-1950s he was particularly fascinated with actor James Dean. When his parents invited a director over to his family's house for dinner before auditioning, he met another fellow actor and classmate, Ryan O'Neal, who was about a year younger than Brolin. The two clicked and later enrolled in University High School located in West Los Angeles. However, Bruderlin's own acting exposed his stifling shyness. His assurance grew when O'Neal invited him to a casting agency. Brolin graduated from high school in 1958, and his family was already encouraging him to become an actor like O'Neal.
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