The Early Days
Scott was born Philip Blondheim in 1939 on 10th January and not 1st October as is very often reported. He was born in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, where he lived for only six months before moving to Asheville, North Carolina. Scott's father died in Asheville in 1941, a few months after Scott turned two years old.
In early 1942, just after WWII had begun for the USA, Scott's mother moved to Washington, DC, to get a job in the civil service. During the war years travel and housing was expensive, so Scott saw his mother rarely, usually only once a year. During this time his mother had to share rooms with coworkers in Washington, in order to afford the rent. Until 1946, Scott lived with first his grandmother and then 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.