Dolphy - Early Life

Early Life

Dolphy was born on July 25, 1928 in Calle Padre Herrera (now P. Herrera St.) of Tondo, Manila. His father was Melencio E. Quizon, a ship engine worker in the Atlantic Gulf and Pacific Company of Manila, and the son of Modesto Quizon and Adorable Quizon (née Espinosa). His mother was Salud V. Quizon (née Vera), the daughter of Maximo Vera and Ninay Vera (née de la Rosa). He was the second eldest of ten children.

Dolphy sold peanuts and watermelon seeds at movie theaters as a boy, which enabled him to watch movies for free. He was about thirteen when World War II started. He did odd jobs including shining shoes; attaching buttons at a pants factory; sorting bottles by size; working as a stevedore at the pier; trading; and driving calesas. In his free time he regularly watched stage shows at the Life Theater and the Avenue Theater. His favorite performers included the comedy duo Pugo and Togo, and the dancers Benny Mack and Bayani Casimiro.

He started performing onstage during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Dolphy was turning 17 when Benny Mack got him a job as a chorus dancer for a month at the Avenue Theater and subsequently on the Lyric Theater. He also appeared in shows at the Orient Theater. Golay was his first stage name. During air raids, they would interrupt the show and run for the air-raid shelter in the orchestra section together with the audience. If no bombs exploded, the show resumed.

Read more about this topic:  Dolphy

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.”
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    Sunday morning may be cheery enough, with its extra cup of coffee and litter of Sunday newspapers, but there is always hanging over it the ominous threat of 3 P.M., when the sun gets around to the back windows and life stops dead in its tracks.
    Robert Benchley (1889–1945)