Early Life
Gary was born in Vilnius under the name Roman Kacew (Yiddish: קצב, Russian: Рома́н Ка́цев). In his books and interviews, he presented many different versions of his parents' origins, ancestry, occupation and his own childhood. His mother, Mina Owczyńska (1879—?), was a Litvak actress from Švenčionys and his father was a businessman Arieh-Leib Kacew (1883—1942) from Trakai, also a Lithuanian Jew. Arieh Leib abandoned the family in 1925 and remarried. When Gary was fourteen, he and his mother moved to Nice, France. Gary studied law, first in Aix-en-Provence and then in Paris. He learned to pilot an aircraft in the French Air Force in Salon-de-Provence and in Avord Air Base, near Bourges.
Read more about this topic: Romain Gary
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