Trueblood was born in
San Jose, Costa Rica to Edward Gatewood Trueblood (1905-1994) and Elizabeth (1906-1973), daughter of United States Army general and aviator
Billy Mitchell. He had an elder sister, Felicity (1932-2021). Edward Trueblood was a
Princeton-educated diplomat assigned to Asuncion, Santiago, and Paris, and would later serve as a
UNESCO cultural relations officer in Uruguay and India, and as permanent U.S. representative to UNESCO stationed in Paris; he was also a senior editor of the
Encyclopædia Britannica, and an associate professor of Latin American Studies in Phoenix, Arizona. The Trueblood family had been resident in America since 1682, being descendants of John Trueblood, of
Shoreditch, London, England. At age eight, his parents having divorced in 1940, Trueblood went to live with his grandparents in
Alexandria, Virginia. After serving in the
United States Navy as a sonar technician, he attended
George Washington University, majoring in speech and drama, then lived in
Provence, France before moving to Hollywood in 1969. ==Career==