Born in Enna, Sicily, to Mario Riccobene Sr. and Anna Cimmari. His father, Mario, left Philadelphia to search for a job working in the coal mines in West Virginia and joined him in 1913. His father eventually found work as a stonemason in South Philadelphia. In 1925, Harry's biological mother died of unknown causes and Mario adopted his two nephews, Robert and Mario Jr. after their own mother died during the 1918 flu pandemic. He was born with a slight curvature of the spine that has been suspected of having been caused by lordosis, kyphosis or Pott Disease.