Heather O’Rourke was born on December 27, 1975, in San Diego, California, to Kathleen and Michael O’Rourke. Her mother worked as a seamstress and her father was a construction worker. She had an older sister, Tammy. Kathleen and Michael divorced in 1981, and O’Rourke’s mother married truck driver James A. “Jim” Peele in 1984. After her parents’ divorce, O’Rourke rarely saw her birth father and called her stepfather “Dad”.
Before O’Rourke began acting, the family lived in a trailer park in Anaheim. Her success later allowed the family to purchase a home in Big Bear Lake, California. In between acting jobs, O’Rourke attended Big Bear Elementary School where she was president of her class. At the time of her death, the family was living in Lakeside, California.
