John William Jakes was born on 31 March 1932 in Chicago, the son of John Adrian and Bertha Retz Jakes. The only child of parents in their forties when he was born, Jakes early shared many of their pastimes, especially reading, the movies, and theater. Originally hoping to be an actor, he committed to writing when he sold his first science-fiction story at eighteen, while a freshman at Northwestern University. Following a transfer to DePauw in his sophomore year, Jakes moved out of his college fraternity house for the quiet he needed to write fiction while carrying a full academic load. In June of 1951 he and Rachel Ann Payne, who had been his zoology lab instructor, married. Jakes graduated from the creative-writing program at DePauw in 1953; he then earned an M.A. in American literature at Ohio State University in 1954 but left the Ph.D. program to meet the demands of a growing family. He and his wife have four children: Andrea, Ellen, John Michael, and Victoria.
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