My hero when I was 14 was Sonny Liston. No matter what kinds of problems you were having with your parents or at school, whatever, Sonny Liston would go and knock guys out, and that made it all right.
My mother was a famous photographer for actresses, including Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, and so many. I remember I went to school close to my mother's studio, and for years, I went to the studio after school and just watched how she captured these beauties.
I have a daughter who is a sophomore in college and another who is in the 11th grade of high school.
And then before going back for my sophomore year, I decided to change my major to arts and sciences, and my dad cut a deal with me: He said if I'd quit school he'd pay my rent for the next three years, as if I were in school.
By the time I was a sophomore in high school, it had become routine for me to be sent home for wearing dresses. My mere presence in a skirt became an act of protest that would get me called out of class and into the vice principal's office.
Growing up, I had a very busy social life. It wasn't until I was a sophomore in high school that I asked Mama if I could come into the kitchen and have her teach me how to cook something.
I used to be on dance team in high school; it was called drill team in Texas. And when I started doing theater sophomore year, I had to make a decision which thing I was gonna follow. It was a big shift because I sort of had all these friends on dance squad, and when I started to do theater, my whole identity shifted.
To be just straight up honest, Conor McGregor is a guy that fought at 145 - ever in his life. I haven't weighed 145 since my sophomore year of high school.
By junior high, I was a horrible student. But during my sophomore year of high school, I did have a fabulous English teacher, and I would go to school just for her class and then skip out afterwards. That's actually when I started writing, although I didn't think of it then as something I might someday do.
My schooling was disrupted by the shortage of labor during World War I. It meant foregoing high school. Then, late in 1921, I entered upon a short course in agriculture at South Dakota State College. I managed to enter college in 1924, and I was permitted to complete my college work in three years.
I grew up in Synagogue in the boys' choir. We didn't listen to music in the house; only at temple. Then I went to a mostly African American high school on the South Side of Chicago and joined a gospel choir.
Southeast Asia was home for much of my childhood, but I moved to Hawaii when I was in high school.
Out of electronics school, my first assignment was to a fighter base in Florida. My roommate, Glen, would become my best friend in Florida and Thailand as we were sent to different air bases in Southeast Asia.
I would have to say my favorite thing about hosting 'Redneck Island 4' was the cast. They were the most genuine, fun, and down-to-earth Southerners. They just reminded me of the kids I went to school with.
What I've been doing with my misfit, so-called acting career in film from day one on my first film, 'Spanking The Monkey', is, I've kind of made a concerted effort to hijack my acting career to turn it into film school, because I've always had the blasphemous idea of becoming a reasonably competent filmmaker in my own right some day.
I had a lot of trouble in school to begin with. I got left back in kindergarten, and I was in special education. My teachers didn't have very much faith in me.
I went to school for special education. I always assumed when I had the opportunity I would love to try and help kids with disabilities.
I left school with basically nothing, I was a special needs kid. I did feel as though my school had let me down.
As an urban school superintendent, I learned that hiring, training, and investing in professionals to support our children's social and emotional development, meeting academic expectations for students with special needs, and finding more minutes of instruction in the week, not fewer, mattered.
Like so many other kids with special needs, I have been bullied. Kids in elementary school made me eat sand, and those same boys would walk behind me, teasing me. Finally I had enough, and I told them to grow up.
