The German-French-English-Scottish son of a teacher and a high school principal, Stoltz was born in Los Angeles but as a toddler, moved with his family to American Samoa. The South Pacific was home for seven years. "It was like growing up in heaven," he recalls.

The redheaded kid was "something of a freak because the Samoans are a huge, huge black people and I was a tiny, tiny orange child," he says. "They'd come up and rub my head and laugh in amusement. It made me feel good. So I didn't get a complex."