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Anthony Kiedis

Anthony Kiedis arrives on the Talent Wall by an unusual route. Best known here through his work as an American musician, singer, rapper, songwriter, composer and rock performer, he also had an early brush with acting during his youth in Hollywood. Kiedis was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on November 1, 1962. After his parents divorced, he was raised by his mother in Grand Rapids and spent summer visits with his father, actor John Michael Kiedis, who worked professionally as Blackie Dammett. In 1974, at the age of 12, Kiedis moved to Hollywood to live with him full-time. That change placed him closer to the movie business and led to his first screen role. Through his father, Kiedis was cast in the 1978 film F.I.S.T., playing the son of Sylvester Stallone’s character. Two more acting jobs followed: an ABC Afterschool Special and an appearance in Jokes My Folks Never Told Me. It is a compact screen résumé, but it offers an interesting view of Kiedis before music became his central creative outlet—a teenager already moving between performance, writing and the particular energy of Los Angeles. At Fairfax High School, Kiedis met Flea, beginning what he later described as the longest-lasting friendship of his life. He also met Hillel Slovak after seeing him perform with his band Anthym. Kiedis graduated from high school with honors in June 1980 and enrolled at UCLA that August to study writing. The connecting thread is performance. Whether acting on screen, writing, singing or rapping, Kiedis’s career has been built around voice, rhythm and direct expression. His film work belongs to an early chapter, before the musician and songwriter came fully into view, but it remains part of the path that brought him there.