Early life and career Haley was born William John Clifton Haley (some sources append "Junior" to his name, but his eldest son states that this is erroneous) in Highland Park, Michigan and raised in Pennsylvania. Many sources (almost universally predating his death in 1981) state that Haley was born in 1927, which is due to Haley knocking two years off his age for publicity purposes in the 1950s. A few recent sources erroneously give a birth year of 1924.