Just imagine the energy Philip must have needed, to keep that false face securely in place over all the years? Maybe it was made easier to bear, the pain softened, somehow blunted by the copious amounts of vodka and cigarettes he consumed throughout his life.

Philip was indeed a remnant from a bygone time. A completely self-created man. His secret life before he came to New York could not have been more different. Yet we all accepted the person he invented; as the real Philip. 

He was born Earle Lavalle Morton Drew, in late 1920's Richmond. He didn't like the name. He was also born a quadroon. He didn't like that, either. As a young man, he left his home and traveled North. Reinventing himself. With a new life, and new name. Along the way, he also became a white man.

At 72, with tales to tell of many lives lived, as I craft and invent this current one in New Orleans....