The Early Days
Scott was born Philip Blondheim on January 10, 1939 (not on October 1 as often stated) in Jacksonvile, Florida. That's where he lived for half a year before moving to Asheville, North Carolina. Scott's father died in Asheville in 1941, just a few months after Scott's second birthday.
Early in 1942, World War II had just begun, Scott's mother moved to Washington D.C. where she'd found a job with the Administration. During the years of the war rents were very high as was travelling and thus Scott didn't see his mother very often, usually just once a year. She had to share a room with colleagues because she couldn't afford an appartment of her own. Until 1946 Scott lived with grandmother, then with three other families in North Carolina, Kentucky and Rhode Island.
In 1946, Scott's mother was able to find two attic rooms in a town house in Alexandria, VA, and Scott joined her. At that time, for a few years, his mother worked as personal assistant to Anna Rosenberg, who was an assistant secretary of defense in the office of Secretary of Defense General George C. Marshall. General Marshall was author of the Marshall Plan, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. General Marshall received many gifts, one of which he gave to Scott's mother: tickets to the circus. Scott remembers that he sat right down in front, and when famed clown Emmett Kelly Snr came walking by in the opening parade he danced over and tickled Scott's face with the feather duster he was carrying. Scott says he will never forget that – funny the things we remember.