Jack Spicer
1925-1965 , Los Angeles , CA

Photo credit: Helen Adam
Jack Spicer was born John Lester Spicer on January 30, 1925, in Los Angeles. He was the elder of two sons. His parents, Dorothy Clause and John Lovely Spicer, were Midwesterners who met and married in Hollywood and ran a small hotel business. They followed the era’s conventional beliefs about child development and sent Spicer to Minnesota when he was three to live with his grandmother during his mother’s pregnancy. This sudden rift left Spicer with a lasting resentment toward his brother and a sense of alienation from his family. Years later, when Spicer left his family in Los Angeles to attend the University of California at Berkeley, he refused to talk about his past and became so secretive that many believed him to be an orphan.