His stepfather Graves was an ardent fan of big-band music and vocals one of his favorites was Dinah Shore, born Fannye Rose Shore to Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers in Winchester, Tenn. His love of drums was an outgrowth of a stint playing in a hospital band. Even today, Beatles-themed bus tours of Liverpool that take fans to all the Beatles’ childhood homes skirt the area where Ringo grew up, with guides just pointing down a long street, curtly noting, “Ringo lived down there.”Ī sickly child, Ritchie spent much of his youth in hospitals and convalescent homes, having variously contracted appendicitis, peritonitis and tuberculosis. Ritchie grew up in Dingle, one of the poorer, rougher neighborhoods in Liverpool.

His mother, Elise Gleave, remarried to a Jewish man named Harry Graves when young Ritchie, as he was called to distinguish between him and his ne’er-do-well father, was 14 years old. His biological father, Richard Starkey, only stuck around for a few years and then disappeared, presumably in a haze of alcohol and gambling. The Liverpool-born drummer and member of the Beatles, born 82 years ago on July 7, 1940, did in fact have a Jewish stepfather.

Ringo starr family