richard simonton was born in evanston, illinois, in 1915. his father died when he was three, and his mother subsequently moved to seattle, where he grew up in the difficult conditions of the great depression. he showed an early aptitude for music and audio engineering, earning money in high school by tuning pipe organs. he later worked for the masterphone sound company, which installed sound systems in silent theatres adapting to the new talking pictures. always of an inventive and entrepreneurial mindset, before the age of twenty he had patented a circuit for electronic organs. in time he made his way to southern california, where he was licensed as a professional engineer by the state and worked for peerless transformers and subsequently for rca.