Early Life
Tom Lehrer was born on April 9,
1928 into an American Jewish Family in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Lehrer
studied piano from the age of seven, and was even sent to a popular piano
teacher. But eventually his interests shifted to pop music. His parents divorced
when he was 14, and he entered Harvard at 15. He was a very intelligent boy,
and was intrigued with mathematics and music.
Education
Tom Lehrer was intellectually
inclined, and he skipped several grades. Tom Lehrer was educated at the Horace
Mann School, and Harvard. He graduated from the Horace Mann School at the early
age of 15 in 1943. After years of work and study, he later graduated from
Harvard with a B.A. in mathematics at the early age of 18 in 1946, and received
his master’s degree the next year. At that time Lehrer held teaching
appointments at MIT, Harvard and Wellesley. Then he entered Harvard's doctoral
program where he remained on and off for the next 16 years. Unfortunately he
couldn't get his doctorate in mathematics, but instead moved on to serve in the
army.
Employment
Tom Lehrer first decided to join
the army as an enlisted soldier in 1955, and remained until 1957. He achieved
the rank of specialist third class, and then started his show business. He
remained in show business until he was 40, and retired from show business at
the peak of his carrier. In 1960 he returned to his life of studying, full time
at Harvard. But in 1965 he gave up on his mathematical education after working
intermittently for 16 years. Tom Lehrer then decided to live out his days
teaching. He taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the
University of California, Santa Cruz He now spends half a year in Cambridge and
the other half in Santa Cruz, and is often seen at the University of
California, Santa Cruz. Tom Lehrer has and is living an eventful life, and is
still with us today.