“He had his dance shoes in one hand and a violin in the other and these three boys were waiting for him,”
“[They] said something to the effect of ‘Hey, twinkle your toes for us, pretty boy.’”
After being attacked by a group of boys, his father decided it was time for him to learn how to defend himself. He encouraged him to face each of them individually. His message was strict and direct:
“If I ever see you start a fight, I’ll kick your [expletive]. And if I ever see you not finish a fight, I’ll kick your [expletive].”
His mother shared a similarly tough mindset, offering her own advice:
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“I said, ‘Just take the ballet shoes out of your hip pocket and beat the snuff out of them,’ so he went to the coach and went to the gym and asked to see them one by one with the boxing gloves, and I, frankly, think that ended that.”
His mother stepped over the line
Her strict personality was well known among those around them.
“One thing you didn’t do was cross Patsy,” a childhood friend, Larry Ward, told Biography. “When Patsy said be in by midnight, by golly, don’t make it 12:01 or she’d have this finger right here cocked and loaded.”
That intensity reached a breaking point on his 18th birthday.
