Andrew Ballin was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1911. He grew up to be a soldier and fought in World War II. He died in 1944 while fighting in Italy in an accident while laying anti-personnel mines. He then became an Immortal, meeting his teacher, Gianni Fabiano, who taught him all about being an Immortal. In the 1950s Ballin lived in New York as a police officer under the alias of Andrew Holt. As a police officer he could keep his challenges outside suspicion as well as keep tabs on other such deaths, that is, other Immortals.