Leonard Whiting was born and raised in North London, specifically in the Wood Green area, where he spent his formative years. He is the only son of Arthur Leonard Whiting, who managed a store that specialized in creating exhibition materials, and Peggy Joyce O'Sullivan, who worked in a telephone instrument factory. Whiting's family is completed by his two younger sisters, Linda and Anne.
Whiting's educational journey began at St. Richard of Chichester in Camden, where he attended school. As an average scholar, he graduated just a week or two before embarking on his professional acting career, which would ultimately lead him to work on the iconic film Romeo and Juliet in 1968.
Whiting's early foray into the entertainment industry was facilitated by an agent who happened to be present at a recording studio when Whiting, then just 12 years old, was recording with a pop group. The agent was impressed by Whiting's singing talent and suggested he audition for Lionel Bart's "Oliver!", a long-running London musical that constantly required replacements for its child performers. Whiting's impressive performance earned him the role of the Artful Dodger, which he played for an impressive 18 months.
In addition to his work in "Oliver!", Whiting also appeared in the National Theatre production of Congreve's "Love for Love", which toured Moscow and Berlin for 13 months. His exceptional performance did not go unnoticed, as Director Franco Zeffirelli, who discovered Whiting among 300 youngsters auditioned over more than three months, described him as having "a magnificent face, gentle melancholy, sweet, the kind of idealistic young man Romeo ought to be."
