Early Life
Adams was born Nicholas Aloysius Adamshock in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania to Peter Adamshock and Catherine Kutz. His father was a Ukrainian-born anthracite coal miner. In 1958 he told columnist Hedda Hopper, "We lived in those little company houses -- they were terrible. We had to buy from the company store and were always in debt and could never leave."
The family did leave when he was five years old, after Adams' uncle was killed in a mining accident. "My father piled all our belongings into an old jalopy, with our bedding on top", Adams recalled. "We didn't know where we were going. He started driving, and ran out of gas and money in Jersey City, New Jersey at Audubon Park. A man came over and started talking to us, a Mr. Cohn. He said to my father 'You look like you need a job,' and my father said 'I do'." Adams' father was given a job as janitor of an apartment building along with living quarters in the basement. Eventually, they moved to Nostrand Avenue between Ocean Avenue and Rogers Avenue. His mother worked for Western Electric in Kearny, New Jersey.
While still in high school Adams was offered a playing position in minor league baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals but turned it down because he was uninterested in the low pay. He briefly worked as a bat boy for the Jersey City Giants, a local minor league team. Some sources recount Adams made money as a teenager by hustling pool games.
Read more about this topic: Nick Adams (actor)
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimproved or actually deteriorated ends.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“One’s prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.”
—Muriel Spark (b. 1918)