Charles Francis "Frank" O'Connor was born September 22, 1897, in Lorain, Ohio to steelworker Dennis O'Connor and homemaker Mary Agnes O'Connor, the third of their seven children.; . Although raised Catholic, Frank O'Connor dropped out of his Catholic school when he was fourteen years old, and he was atheist thereafter.. When he was fifteen, his mother died, and O'Connor and three brothers left Ohio to live on their own; the brothers moved to New York, where O'Connor began an acting career. When filmmaking moved to Hollywood, he moved there as well, sometime around 1926. writes that "Frank followed the studios west, arriving in Hollywood around the same time as Rand" and that "Rand arrived in 1926".
