Emil Freed was born as Emanuel Rosenberg in New York on June 25, 1901. His mother, Rose Palevsky, came from Brest-Litovsk (then in Russia). She married Abraham Rosenberg on August 20, 1900, and had two children, Emmanuel and Dorothy. She then married Morris Freed on November 12, 1909. The Freeds moved to Los Angeles in September 1910, where they changed the children's names to Emil Freed and Dorothy Freed. He attended Manual Arts High School in South Los Angeles (from which he graduated in 1917
