📍Yorkville, Toronto, ON, Canada
1970 – 1986“Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut in 1964 to an English mother, Patricia, and a Hawaiian-Chinese father, Samuel, and his first name is Hawaiian for cool breeze over the mountains. His father left the family when he was small, and his mother, a costume designer, moved with her children to Sydney, New York and finally Toronto. There Keanu and his sisters grew up mostly in Yorkville, then the bohemian heart of the city, full of coffee houses, galleries and musicians, and were often looked after by a nanny while their mother worked. His mother's work brought performers and rock musicians through the house, and his grandmother's Chinese heritage meant he grew up around Chinese art, furniture and food. School was hard. Keanu is dyslexic and, over five years, attended four high schools, including De La Salle College, where he was a star goalkeeper in ice hockey and was nicknamed The Wall, and the Etobicoke School of the Arts, which asked him to leave. Ice hockey was his first passion, and he dreamed of playing for Canada. At fifteen he played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet at the Leah Posluns Theatre, and soon he was working in Toronto theatre, commercials and Canadian television. He left school without graduating and moved to Los Angeles in his early twenties. His quiet, private manner, his love of motorcycles and his famous kindness to strangers have often been traced back to that unusual Toronto upbringing, in which he learned to adapt to new places and to look after himself. He has often spoken fondly of growing up in Toronto, the city where he first stepped on stage.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today