Roberts was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, to Betty Lou Bredemus (1934–2015) and Walter Grady Roberts (1933–1977), one-time actors and playwrights, who met while touring a production of "George Washington Slept Here" for the armed forces. In 1963, they co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia, off Juniper Street in Midtown. They ran a children's acting school in Decatur, Georgia while she was expecting a child that was to be Julia Roberts. Roberts' mother became a church secretary and real estate agent, and his father, a vacuum cleaner salesman. Roberts' younger siblings, Julia Roberts (from whom he was estranged until 2004) and Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors.