Kingsley was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, the son of actor Ben Kingsley and theatre Director Alison Sutcliffe. His paternal grandfather, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji (1914–1968), was a Kenyan-born medical Doctor of Gujarati Indian (Ismaili Muslim Khoja) descent. His great-grandfather was an extremely successful spice trader who had moved from India to Zanzibar, where his grandfather lived until moving to England at the age of 14. Kingsley's paternal grandmother was English; she was born out of wedlock, and "was loath to speak of her background". His other great-grandfather was believed by the family to have been of either German-Jewish or Russian-Jewish descent, while his great-grandmother was English and worked in the garment district of East London.