This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Born John Roger Stephens in Ohio, he began playing piano at the age of four, and was a spelling bee champion by 10. At school, he was so academically gifted that he skipped two grades, and left home at 16 to study English at the University of Pennsylvania.