Jeffrey was born on June 8th in North Canton, Ohio. He attended Hoover High School there and always knew he wanted to be an actor.

He went on to Carnegie-Mellon University but dropped out in 1969, and moved to New York. He was called back awhile later by a college friend, John-Michael Tebelak, who was creating the musical GODSPELL for his master's thesis in college. This is how Jeffrey got started.