Zac Efron

Zachary David Alexander Efron was born on October 18, 1987, and grew up in Arroyo Grande, California. His father, David Efron, is an electrical engineer at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, and his mother, Starla Baskett, is an administrative assistant who also works at Diablo Canyon. Efron has a younger brother, Dylan, and had, as he has described, a "normal childhood" in a middle-class family. His surname originates from Hebrew. His paternal grandfather is Jewish. Efron has described himself as Jewish, though he was raised agnostically and did not practice religion as a child. He has said that he would "flip out" if he got a "B" and not an "A" in school, and was a class clown there. Efron subsequently worked at The Great American Melodrama and the Vaudeville theaters, and began taking singing lessons. He performed in shows such as Gypsy; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up; Little Shop of Horrors; and The Music Man. He was recommended to an agent in Los Angeles by his drama teacher, Robyn Metchik, the mother of actor Aaron Michael Metchik. Efron was later signed to the Creative Artists Agency. Efron graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 2006 and was then accepted into the University of Southern California but did not enroll. He also attended Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, a theater company operating out of Allan Hancock College, a community college located in Santa Maria, California, where he performed in 2000 and 2001.