George Dzundza

Dzundza was born in Rosenheim, Germany, to a Ukrainian-Jewish father, Roman Dzundza, originally from Kalush, Ukraine, and a Polish-Jewish mother, Maria Humenecka, originally from Lviv, Ukraine. His parents were forced into factory labour by the Nazis. He spent the first few years of his life in displaced persons camps with his parents and one brother. The family moved to Amsterdam in 1949, then moved to the US in 1956, settling in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. He attended Xavier High School in Manhattan. He attended St. Johns University and also studied under Stella Adler and Harold Clurman. Dzundza began acting in his freshman year of college at the insistence of another student. However, his professional stage debut was in a 1973 New York Shakespeare Festival production of King Lear.