Dennis Chua

Dennis Roberto M Chua was born in Los Angeles on 9 April 1971, the son of Guatemalan immigrants. The family returned to Central America when Dennis was an infant. There, he schooled at the American School of Guatemala, until his Junior year, at which point he was awarded a scholarship to the Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. While there, he was part of and then leader of the Cliff Rescue Unit. From there, Dennis moved back to LA, where he pointedly did not do any acting, although he picked up work as an extra in shows such as Beverly Hills 90210. He worked in the now defunct Chalet Gourmet, on the corner of Fairfax and Sunset, where one of his main jobs was writing the specials board for the Deli - usually tail ended by a relevant literary quote; this became a trademark of the store. Dennis attended Vassar College, graduating Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in Economics. While there, he also learned fluent Italian, played varsity squash (at the very bottom of the ladder) and was a student supervisor of the language lab through which he developed a love of Italian Neo Realist film and a certain disregard for the Nouvelle Vague. A prestigious Marshall Scholarship took him to Oxford University, where he read a multidisciplinary Master's degree comprising economics, history and literature.