He was born in Yarram to farmer George Edward King and Myrtle Daphne Green.
He held a variety of jobs as a young man, and during World War II worked on the Alice Springs-Darwin road for the Commonwealth Construction Corps.
In 1951 he joined the Labor Party, and that year married Rosalie Szabo, with whom he had a son.
He qualified as a woolclasser, working in Victoria and Tasmania until 1961, when he became the manager of a Melbourne wool store.
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