British singer/actress Maria Friedman was born in Switzerland on March 19, 1960, to Leonard Friedman, a Russian violinist, and Clair Friedman, a concert pianist. The family soon moved to Germany, where Friedman's father joined the Bremen Philharmonic, but her parents divorced when she was five, and her mother moved her and her two sisters and brother to England. Musically inclined, Friedman initially took up the cello, but later abandoned it. After a checkered academic career that included a brief stay at Arts Educational School, she began living with her boyfriend, dancer Ron...