The academy gave me a grounding in discipline and hard work that has sustained me throughout my life, and the lessons I learned there I now try to impress on young people.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The Academy not only knew I existed, they thought I was good!
Personally I discovered that you could go through the academy as a young scholar, come out, and almost immediately have an impact on the academic environment.
It's interesting, winning an Academy Award as a young man... life-changing, but I'm just me within that. It's been very helpful for my career, but I'm trying to stay on the path I was on before.
To this day, when I say that I went to the American Academy, people are very impressed. The reputation of the school has always been fantastic.
The theater was my first training ground. It taught me discipline, dedication and appreciation of hard work.
Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor.
For the last years now I've had my own academy where I train Brazilian Jujitsu and Tae boxing, Muay Thai everyday.
As a child, I liked to play outside, to stroll through the fields, and I was an active member of the local children's gang, frequently being chased by field guards and building supervisors. Nevertheless, my performance at school was very good, and mainly due to the influence of my mother, I was allowed to attend high school.
After my stellar first grade academic achievements, I continued to perform well in the city primary schools - except for penmanship, which was not my forte.
I went to a regular school, not one of those fame academy things.