 Grimaldi 's father was a serial philanderer who had at least ten children with three different women . In 1778 , he divided his time between two London addresses occupied by his mistresses , Brooker and Anne Perry . Both women gave birth that year , Perry to a daughter named Henrietta and Brooker to Joseph . Although jubilant at the birth of his first son , Giuseppe Grimaldi spent little time with Brooker , living mostly with Perry , and probably maintaining other mistresses as well . Brooker raised her son alone for the first few years in Clare Market , a slum area of west London . In about 1780 , Brooker gave birth to a second son , John Baptiste . Keen to set up an acting dynasty , Giuseppe left Perry and his daughter and moved with Brooker and his two sons to Little Russell Street , High Holborn . Giuseppe , who often displayed eccentric and obsessive behaviour , was a strict disciplinarian and often beat his children for disobeying his orders . A fascination with death consumed his later life ; he would feign death in front of his children , so as to gauge their reactions , and he insisted on his eldest daughter , Mary , decapitating him after his death because of his fear of being buried alive , a task which earned her £ 5 extra in her inheritance . 
