Ricardo Lee
| Ricky Lee | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Ricardo Lee March 19, 1948 Daet, Camarines Norte |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Occupation |
|
| Years active | 1973 - present |
| Known for | |
Ricardo "Ricky" Lee (born as March 19, 1948) is a Filipino screenwriter, journalist, novelist, and playwright.
He has written more than 150 film screenplays since 1973, earning him more than 50 trophies from various award-giving bodies, including a 2003 Natatanging Gawad Urian Lifetime Achievement Award from the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics). As a screenwriter, he has worked with many Filipino film directors, most notably with Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal. Many of his films have been screened in the international film festival circuit in Cannes, Toronto, Berlin, among others.
Lee grew up with his relatives in Daet, Camarines Norte. His mother died when he was 5 years old and only saw his father on few occasions. He studied primary and secondary school in the same town. It was said that Lee often sneaks into film houses and bury himself in books at the school library, tearing away pages with striking images. An intelligent student, he consistently topped his class from grade school on to high school. His promising writing career took a first step when he won his first national literary award for a short story he wrote when he was still in high school. Driven by his passion to pursue dreams, he ran away from home and took a bus to Manila. He roamed the streets, taking on menial tasks as a waiter during the day and asking his town mates to accommodate him during the night until he collapsed one day in Avenida out of hunger.
He was accepted at University of the Philippines Diliman as an AB English major but never got his diploma where, ironically enough, he later taught screenwriting at its College of Mass Communication. He became an activist during those politically turbulent times and was affiliated with Panulat para sa Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan (PAKSA, or Pen for People's Progress) along with Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera and Jose F. Lacaba. He lived as an activist during the Martial Law years and was later incarcerated in 1974.
His body of works, which has spanned over forty years, include writing short stories, plays, essays, novels, teleplays, and screenplays. A rare achievement for a writer, two of his short stories won first prizes at the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature for two years in a row (1970 and 1971). Thereafter, he never joined any literary contest believing that writers should not compete with each other. His two-stage plays Pitik-Bulag sa Buwan ng Pebrero and DH (Domestic Helper) played to SRO crowds. DH, starring Nora Aunor, has toured the US and Europe in 1993. He has written more than 150 produced scripts, earning for him more than fifty trophies from all the award-giving bodies in the Philippine movie industry. He has never and will never write any literary work in English, a conviction he holds to this day.
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