After he came to public attention, LaVey shielded much of his early life in secrecy, and little is known about it for certain. He had been born in Chicago as Howard Stanton Levey in either March or April 1930. He was of mixed Ukrainian, Russian, and German ancestry. He claimed to have worked in the circus and carnival in the years following the Second World War, and in later years, he also alleged that he worked at the San Francisco Orchestra, although this never existed. He also claimed to have had a relationship with a young Marilyn Monroe, although this too was untrue.