I was born Desmond Eugene Phillips on 2 October, 1971 in Pietermaritzburg, which is the capital city of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal (formerly Natal) in South Africa. Pietermaritzburg is approximately 100 kms from the coast, and it's nearest coastal city is Durban.
My parents are Othelia Navara James (nee Hanson) and Desmond Eugene Walford Phillips. My early childhood was pretty uneventful, except for my immediate love for theater and the movies which I got from my father's side of the family.
My great-grandparents were once world renowned trapeze artists before becoming missionaries in Africa. My grandfather was Major Harry Eugene Walford Phillips, a long-time member of the South African Army, and a well known local conductor for the Natal Carbineers, Durban Light Infantry, and Natal Mounted Riflery. He composed the Durban Light Infantry's March which is still used to this day.
The first movie I ever saw, and remembered, is "The Wizard of Oz" and it remains one of my favorite movies of all time.
As soon as I could talk, I was performing plays, skits and generally annoying my parents on family holidays with plays after dinner.
I was educated at Cowan House, a small all boys private school in Hilton, just 15 Kms from Pietermaritzburg, and it was here theat I first acted in a musical, Lionel Bart's "OLIVER!" when I was in standard 3 (grade 5). Since then, I have performed in and/or worked on a large number of productions, which are listed on a separate page called PORTFOLIO.
I finished my education at Cowan House in 1985, and went to Carter High School in Pietermaritzburg to attain my matriculation, which I did in 1989.
In 1990 I moved to Durban to finish my studies at the Technikon Natal. I trained for three (3) years and my diploma says that my qualification is: NAT.DIP:PERF ARTS: THEATER CRAFTS: THEATER TECHNOLOGY. (Which in layman's terms means I am a Techie!)
When I left Tech. I worked with a friend of mine, Allan J. Hagan, and together we built up a theater company called Toucan Productions. We produced mainly touring shows which traveled to schools in the province, and I acted as Company manager for almost two years. After Allan and I parted company, I worked for a Taiwanese textile company as their buyer for a year, and ended up suing them (and winning) for unfair dismissal.
I then opened up a Closed Corporation with a good friend of mine, Darryl Sutton, and we called it PHILTON PRODUCTION HOUSE CC. With this company we opened an Ice-cream store, which regrettably was not very successful, even in Durban's tropical climate.
It was while I was preparing to open the ice-cream shop that I met my wife, Caroline. After a short romance (six weeks to be exact), we were married in court on 11 July, 1995. The following year we had a church wedding on 22 June, 1996, and Caroline fell pregnant at the end of July. You can visit Caroline's Page here. My son, Michael Sean was born at 1:05pm on 28 April, 1997, a day after Caroline's 23rd birthday. You can go to Michaels' page here.
Upon closing the shop, I was employed by Umhlanga BMW, a franchised dealership of the German motor car company, and worked their for a year before resigning to take up my a position at Hilton College For more details on this job, please click here.
On 6 April, 1999, my Daughter, Frances Kate, was born at 1:05 pm (yes, I'm starting to see a pattern here too!!). You can go to her page here.
As mentioned on the index page, we have just heard that our application for emmigration to Canada has been accepted. It has been 18 months since we sent in all our forms, and the thought of actualy going both excites and terrifies us!!
� 1997 [email protected]
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