Christopher "Kit" Culkin was born on December 6, 1944, in New York City. He is a fourth-generation New York City boy. His father, Philip Harley Culkin, was a PR man when he met Kit's mother, Marian Ethel (Wagner), who was a writer. They had four children: Kit, Bonnie Bedelia, Terry and Candy. Professionally since age ten and even before that, Kit and his siblings worked on the stage in New York City. Their mother was their manager and she was aggressive and formidable in her mission, but only to get good educations for her brood, and to expose them to the culture of the NY theater. Bonnie and Kit were the young children in George Balanchine's "Nutcracker" one season (Balanchine is the legendary head of the New York City Ballet). At age 15 Culkin worked in "Becket" on Broadway and was on tour with Anthony Quinn and Laurence Olivier, and also played in "Hamlet" with Richard Burton and shows with many other famous stage actors. For ten years he worked on Broadway in different productions. When he was about 19 his mother died of cancer. She had done everything for him as a manager and motivated him and provided the base from which he kept working. She was gone and so was his motivation. There were things the young Kit had not done as a regular person. He went to college, working odd jobs and then worked as a photographer's assistant to Martha Swope, the photographer for the NY City Ballet and the Opera, once again seeing Balanchine regularly--even visiting his home. After this he bought a car and traveled America, sitting at old battle sites and studying what he really loved: history. He traveled around for ten years before going back to NY to live with his father. On one of these trips home he met Patricia by the side of the road, working on a construction crew. Her pregnancy and continuing pregnancies (Kit always wanted a big family) made it impossible to go back to the stage as he had to provide a regular paycheck for the kids. He continued to visit his friends in the theater and once in awhile did something himself and always took the kids with him.
