Joseph Musaphia
Joseph Musaphia (born 1935) is a New Zealand writer and actor who was born in London. Biography. Joseph Musaphia was born in 1935 in London and he has Portuguese ancestry. He moved with his family to Melbourne, Australia and lived there from 1938 until 1946 when they moved to Christchurch, New Zealand. He attended Christchurch Boys' High School and left age 15. He spent three years as an apprentice motor mechanic until he switched to art and cartooning, working in commercial art for ten years. Over a period of three years, while we was in his early twenties  his cartoons were published weekly in "The Listener" magazine. Musaphia started writing and acting for stage, screen and radio after his first play was produced by the New Zealand Theatre Company in 1961. He was inspired to write after attending the Unity Theatre production of "Look Back In Anger" by John Osborne. In 1971 Musaphia and Roger Hall won a Logie Award for best television comedy, "Australia A – Z". The play "Mother and Fathers" first presented in 1975 at the Fortune Theatre in Dunedin also had presentations in at the Court Theatre and Downstage in Wellington. Musaphia acted in the  early productions. It was so popular in Wellington it transferred to the much larger theatre the Opera House for three nights. In 1979 he received the first Victoria University of Wellington Writer's Fellowship. Circa Theatre chose the Musaphia play "Mates" to celebrate their tenth year in 1986 and it was directed and starred Ray Henwood. Musaphia wrote his first novel in 1997, has been a columnist for "The Evening Post" in Wellington, and continues to write stage and radio plays.