Teller

Teller was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Irene B. (née Derrickson) and Israel Max "Joseph" Teller (1913–2004). His father, who was of Russian-Jewish descent, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Philadelphia. His mother was from a Delaware farming family. They met as painters attending art school at Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial. His mother was Methodist, and Teller was raised as "a sort of half-assed Methodist". He graduated from Philadelphia's Central High School in 1965, and in 1969 graduated from Amherst College with a Bachelor of Arts in Classics. He became a high-school Latin teacher. At some point, Teller legally changed his name to the mononym "Teller", his family surname. He had reportedly been using the mononym professionally since, at least, some time before the 1975 formation of the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society. By December 2000, he reported that his own parents were calling him Teller. Teller taught Greek and Latin at Lawrence High School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. In 2001, he was inducted into the Central High School Hall of Fame.