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Early life

Kubrick was born to a Jewish family in the Lying-In Hospital in New York City's Manhattan borough on July 26, 1928. He was the first of two children of Jacob Leonard Kubrick (May 21, 1902 – October 19, 1985), known as Jack or Jacques, and his wife Sadie Gertrude Kubrick (née Perveler; October 28, 1903 – April 23, 1985), known as Gert. His sister Barbara Mary Kubrick was born in May 1934. Jack, whose parents and paternal grandparents were of Polish-Jewish and Romanian-Jewish origin, was a homeopathic doctor, graduating from the New York Homeopathic Medical College in 1927, the same year he married Kubrick's mother, who was the child of Austrian-Jewish immigrants. On December 27, 1899, Kubrick's great-grandfather Hersh Kubrick arrived at Ellis Island via Liverpool by ship at the age of 47, leaving behind his wife and two grown children (one of whom was Stanley's grandfather Elias) to start a new life with a younger woman. Elias followed in 1902. At Stanley's birth, the Kubricks lived in the Bronx. His parents married in a Jewish ceremony, but Kubrick was not raised religious and later professed an atheistic view of the universe. His father was a physician and, by the standards of the West Bronx, the family was fairly wealthy.

Soon after his sister's birth, Kubrick began schooling in Public School 3 in the Bronx and moved to Public School 90 in June 1938. His IQ was discovered to be above average but his attendance was poor. He displayed an interest in literature from a young age and began reading Greek and Roman myths and the fables of the Grimm brothers, which "instilled in him a lifelong affinity with Europe". He spent most Saturdays during the summer watching the New York Yankees and later photographed two boys watching the game in an assignment for Look magazine to emulate his own childhood excitement with baseball. When Kubrick was 12, his father Jack taught him chess. The game remained a lifelong interest of Kubrick's, appearing in many of his films. Kubrick, who later became a member of the United States Chess Federation, explained that chess helped him develop "patience and discipline" in making decisions. When Kubrick was 13, his father bought him a Graflex camera, triggering a fascination with still photography. He befriended a neighbor, Marvin Traub, who shared his passion for photography. Traub had his own darkroom where he and the young Kubrick would spend many hours perusing photographs and watching the chemicals "magically make images on photographic paper". The two indulged in numerous photographic projects for which they roamed the streets looking for interesting subjects to capture and spent time in local cinemas studying films. Freelance photographer Weegee (Arthur Fellig) had a considerable influence on Kubrick's development as a photographer; Kubrick later hired Fellig as the special stills photographer for Dr. Strangelove (1964). As a teenager, Kubrick was also interested in jazz and briefly attempted a career as a drummer.

Kubrick attended William Howard Taft High School from 1941 to 1945. He joined the school's photography club, which permitted him to photograph the school's events in their magazine. He was a mediocre student, with a 67/D+ grade average. Introverted and shy, Kubrick had a low attendance record and often skipped school to watch double-feature films. He graduated in 1945 but his poor grades, combined with the demand for college admissions from soldiers returning from the Second World War, eliminated any hope of higher education. Later in life Kubrick spoke disdainfully of his education and of American schooling as a whole, maintaining that schools were ineffective in stimulating critical thinking and student interest. His father was disappointed in his son's failure to achieve the excellence in school of which he knew Stanley was fully capable. Jack also encouraged Stanley to read from the family library at home, while permitting Stanley to take up photography as a serious hobby.