He was born Lancelot Victor Edward Pinard, to well-to-do Anglophile parents in Trinidad. Oddly though, it wasn't until schooling took him to New York City in 1940 that he discovered a love of calypso music. In a profession where successful artists commonly took names like King Radio or Lord Invader, it was natural for someone named Lancelot to choose the stage name Sir Lancelot, and with that name he wrote and performed calypso (with some acting on the side) for movies, live theater, and radio beginning in the 1940's.