Son of Frieda (actually Frimet Jitte) Steiner and Chiel Weissmann, who moved from Austria-Hungary to become a successful film distributor based in Zurich, Switzerland. His parents divorced in 1933 and he went to live with his mother, first in Lugano. After his Swiss military service, "Heini", as he was then called, chose to emigrate to the United States, some time before the start of WWII.