Steve Post, a Jewish kid born in 1944 in the Bronx, was an overweight, hapless nebbish who had a complicated childhood. His mother died of cancer when he was 10 years old, after which he and his older brother spent two years in a Dickensian boarding school, where he was taunted and mercilessly bullied. And he never did well in any school environment; his academic record was one of near total failure.