Drew Okun was born on June 25, 1952 in Natick, Massachusetts, a town of 20,000 situated on the banks of the Charles River, 18 miles southwest of Boston. His family was solidly middle-class and upwardly mobile. Both parents grew up in Brooklyn, where they were best friends with another couple whose daughter, Janie Schramm, went on to become Drew's lifelong pal. "Both sets of parents were pretty hip," she told me. "Then Drew's folks married, moved to Natick and became very middle class." Seymour, Drew's father, worked as a salesman for a chemical company. Drew's mother, Shirley, began work welding transistors to boards on an assembly line at a firm that manufactured computer components, and within six years had become its Vice President.
Drew and Janie were very close as children. "I met him when I was just a baby. Whenever I knew they were coming, I remember I'd get so excited. His folks would come to visit my folks in Queens and we'd make the pilgrimage out to Natick. Drew did some research once and discovered we were really distant blood relations. We decided to call each other cousins to make it easier to explain our relationship.
"Drew had a rather difficult childhood. He was always a little reserved because his folks were so strict, especially his mom. I remember Drew as being really well-behaved. I was into everything and his mom would sometimes get mad at me when we were together." Drew and Janie egged each other on, naturally enough, stirring up all kinds of mischief. "Once we finger-painted the side of my house and got into a whole lot of trouble. Another time we bought some of those explosive caps that go into cigarettes and booby-trapped our parents' packs. They always sat around the table after dinner, arguing about politics and smoking. Drew and I watched and waited while our parents talked. Finally, my mom picked up her pack of cigarettes and took one out. She lit up, and BOOM!, it went off. We bolted out the back door and ran like hell." When they weren't getting into trouble, they were out playing. "Natick was an old town. There was Revolutionary War stuff all over the place--you know, statues and plaques. Drew was fascinated by graveyards, the older the better. I remember there was also open country around their house so we were able to run and play in the fields. When Drew came to visit me in the city, we'd play something we called 'Dizzyland.' We'd draw circles and spirals on the street and walk around and around until we were dizzy. He also had a little reel-to-reel tape recorder that we'd use to create Ed Sullivan type variety shows. We'd imitate singers and comics. He was a great mimic."
The one thing Janie would never have figured Drew to become when he grew up was a porn legend. "He was so, well, mousy as a youngster. He was really into radio. He had a short-wave set and listened to broadcasts from around the world. I remember him as being into all the typical boy stuff like making scale models. As he got older, he was really into cars. His dad was into it also, so it was something they shared. The Okuns bought a new car every year, which struck me as really amazing. Drew loved cars all his life." Seymour Okun said, "Of all the hobbies Drew had, automobiles were the best. He could identify any car when he was young. He had a '64 Mercury convertible in high school. One time something went wrong with the car and Drew and his pals took it out into the back yard and rebuilt the engine.
"He was an exuberant kid with plenty of friends, male and female. He went to YMCA camp in the summers. Drew was a good amateur athlete. He played baseball, he swam, he went boating. He did all the things kids his age did. He was always very industrious. He had little jobs when he was in school. I remember he delivered for a pharmacy. When he was growing up there was never any indication he was gay. If he knew, there was no way he let on to us."
He had one older sister, Meg, five years his senior. Janie remembers Meg as "achievement oriented. She was an excellent pianist, then she became a doctor. Meg was brilliant." Drew was not her equal academically, and he was always in her shadow. Drew admired his sister, although they were never close. In later years, they were totally estranged.
In this achievement-oriented family, Drew was something of an odd-man-out. Nothing in his early years at school marked him for fame and fortune. "If I went back to a high school reunion, I'd be one of those people nobody would remember," he once quipped to a friend. He wasn't the tallest guy in his class, or the handsomest, or the strongest. In fact, at 5'8"--about an inch less, according to some sources--and 140 pounds, he was on the scrawny side and tended toward a nerdy invisibility in the halls and classrooms of Natick High School.
In spite of this, those in the know recognized early on that there was something special about young Drew. There was one place where he was not only visible, he was a standout. This was first brought to his attention when a seventh grade classmate took a look at him in the showers after gym class, then proceeded to expound on the size of Drew's penis to all and sundry. "I had never really thought about the size of my cock," Drew recalled, "until I was saddled with the nickname 'Pony Boy.'"
