Cope was born Myron Sydney Kopelman on Jan. 23, 1929, in Pittsburgh. He graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School -- briefly boxing at the age of 16 -- and the University of Pittsburgh before launching a career in print journalism.

He started out in newspapers, working first at the Erie Times. In the summer of 1951, Cope was hired by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where an editor suggested that his last name sounded too Jewish and that he shorten it. As Cope recounted in his autobiography "Double Yoi!", the editor began shuffling through the phone book and stopped at "Cope."