Szente András V was born on December 10, 1939, in Budapest, Hungary to Szente Erzsebet and Szente András IV. András was one of four children with an older sister named Katalin and younger twin brothers named István and József. His father owned his own hair salon and was a well-known hairstylist in Budapest with a client list that included some of the most famous opera and movie stars of the time. In his early teens András took up the sport of kayaking, which is a national pastime for the Hungarian people. He quickly rose through the competitive ranks becoming first a national champion, then a European champion, world champion, and finally a two-time Olympian winning two silver medals in the 1960 Rome Olympics and placing fourth in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. András saw his sports career as a ticket to travel the world, traveling all throughout Europe with his teammates and visiting distant countries that the average Hungarian only dreamed of because travel was strictly limited during communist rule. In 1956, when András was only in his late teens and in high school, he participated in the uprising when the Hungarian people revolted against their communist dictators. Many years later, after he had defected to California, András would commemorate the anniversary of the ’56 uprising and would reflect back that many of his classmates that went out to protest that day never came home because they lost their lives. In 1969 András defected communist Hungary, traveling to Germany where he worked with American aid workers until he was given permission to come to the United States. Upon arriving in America, András quickly integrated into the large Hungarian-American community in Los Angeles, California, joining a youth dance group where he would meet his future wife, Ágnes Zerinvári. András pursued Ágnes for two years until they fell in love and were married on August 26, 1972. The two were adventurous from the outset, traveling across the United States with their Dalmatian and camper in tow, and later traveled extensively throughout the world. On February 23, 1981, Ágnes and András gave birth to twin boys, and would raise their young family in California. András died on September 14, 2012, at the age of 72 while vacationing with Ágnes in Florida.
