Inspiring Women : November 2020

Cruising from Hollywood
to Hamburg
JULIA RODRIGUEZ-BUIS
Member: American Women’s Club of
Hamburg
From: San Francisco, CA
Lives: Hamburg, Germany
My Life Journey
I was born in San Francisco, CA, and moved to the Philippines when I was seven years old. My father
is from the Philippines and thought it was important for his children to learn the language and
culture first-hand.
It was at my all-girl Catholic school that I got my first chance to
perform on stage in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. I was so
excited to be cast as Snoopy! It was in this strict Catholic
environment that I grew academically, spiritually, morally, and
it made me the person I am today. The one thing that stands
out in my mind was the extreme poverty I witnessed every day
in the streets of our town, and I was shocked to see people,
sometimes very young or disabled children begging in the
streets. I felt helpless, and I would frequently give them
whatever pocket change I had or something from my lunchbox.
After I graduated from High School, I moved back to the US
with my dad and stepmother. I had graduated HS when I was
only 15, so I did not feel ready to go to a university as my l
With my Dad
father had planned. Instead, I enrolled in the local Junior
College where I had a
chance to mature and also discovered that I wanted to study
Theater and Acting full-time.
I left home at 19 and worked several jobs to finance my rent
and car payments. One of my first jobs was working as the
secretary for the Computer Center Department at the
University of San Francisco where I learned how to use a
desktop computer for the first time. I remember being
fascinated with it and even toyed with the idea of becoming
a computer programmer, but acting was (and is) always on
my mind. I supplemented my income by slinging cocktails on
the weekends at a Caribbean restaurant that had an indoor
waterfall, faux jungle, and an actual "downed" airplane that
served as a lounge. The downed plane was actually the
"Doobieliner" which The Doobie Brothers used to travel in
during tours.
17
Me in the 1980’s