Tommy Chong

Biography:

In Edmonton, Alberta, on May 24, 1938, Thomas Bing Kin Chong was born. His father was Chinese and born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1908, while his mother was a Canadian with Scottish and Irish ancestry. Tommy’s father resided at 10846 Jasper Ave. Stanley Chong later married Lorna Jean Gilchrist, with whom he had two children: Tommy and Stanley Chong. Chong moved to Vancouver to live with an aunt at first. Tommy’s brother Stan (1936–2018) was older.

Tommy Chong and his family relocated to Calgary when he was a young man, settling in a conservative area that Chong has called “Dog Patch.” According to him, his father had “been wounded in World War II and there was a veterans’ hospital in Calgary.” He raised his family on $50 a week after purchasing a $500 home in Dog Patch. Chong subsequently explained in an interview that he left Crescent Heights High School “when I was 16 but probably just before they were going to throw me out anyway.” He earned money by playing the guitar. Regarding his early years, he wrote in 1993, “I discovered that music could get me laid, even if you were a scrawny, long-haired, geeky-looking guy like me.”