Bio
Abuba was born in Aiea, Heights, Honolulu, Hawaii.
His father, whose origin is of Moro stock from the Philippines, came America as a stowaway in 1911, landing in Seattle, Washington at the age of 11 years old.
For several years his father traveled throughout the country until the outbreak of World War II, for which he enlisted in the U.S. Army to obtain citizenship.
His father had avoided immigration authorities by working as a migrant worker on the West Coast cannery docks, and as a house-boy, butler, cook, and gambler, as far as Las Vegas, Kansas City, and Texas.
Ernest's mother, Della Marie DeFrance, of French-Dutch-Cherokee heritage, is a descendent of French Huguenots. Della Marie was born in Fairfield, Texas.
Abuba's first professional job as an actor was in 1967 at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California in the role of Aly in Eh?, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
From 1967-70 he continued his studies in the theatre at Actor's Stage Studio in Washington, D.C., founded by Louise Brandwen who was a member of the famed Group Theater.
Brandwen, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, had also studied at the Moscow Art Theatre, and subsequently during the McCarthy Hearings was blacklisted.
At Actor's Stage Studio intensive study of "The Method", the Stella Adler Technique, as well as the theories of Jerzey Grotowski, Antonin Artaud and Vsevolod Meyerhold were extolled.
Having arrived in New York City in the early 70's, Abuba landed his first role in a SAG film as a bit-player at an open call, as a Puerto Rican gang member in Little Murders.
Having become a member of an Off-Off Broadway group (now no longer in existence), Theatre Unlimited, he performed the title role of the Young Man in William Saroyan's Hello Out There at the (Old) American Place Theatre located at St. Clements Church.
Shortly afterwards Ernest was performing at the Jean Cocteau Theatre in Oprhee by Jean Cocteau, and He, Who Gets Slapped by Leonid Andreyev.