Gene Tierney was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavina Taylor. She had an older brother and a younger sister. Her father was a insurance broker of Irish descent, her mother a gym teacher. Tierney attended St. Margaret’s School in Waterbury, Connecticut, and the Unquowa School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She spent two years in Europe and attended the Brillantmont finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she learned to speak fluent French.
