Early Life and Family
DiCaprio, an only child, was born in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Irmelin (née Indenbirken), is a former legal secretary; born in Germany, she moved from Oer-Erkenschwick in the Ruhr, to the U.S. during the 1950s, with her parents. His father, George DiCaprio, is an underground comic artist and producer/distributor of comic books. A fourth-generation American, DiCaprio's father is of half Italian (from the Naples area) and half German descent (from Bavaria). DiCaprio's maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken (1915–2008), was born Yelena Smirnova in Russia. In a 2010 conversation with the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, DiCaprio said that two of his grandparents were Russian.
DiCaprio's parents met while attending college and subsequently moved to Los Angeles. He was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when DiCaprio first kicked. DiCaprio was raised Catholic.
His parents divorced when he was a year old and he lived mostly with his mother. The two lived in several Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Echo Park, and at 1874 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Feliz district (which was later converted into a local public library), while his mother worked several jobs to support them. She remarried. He attended Seeds Elementary School and graduated from John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years.
Read more about this topic: Leonardo DiCaprio
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or family:
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, its probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of an extreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“If you have this enormous talent, it’s got you by the balls, it’s a demon. You can’t be a family man and a husband and a caring person and be that animal. Dickens wasn’t that nice a guy.”
—Dustin Hoffman (b. 1937)