Weng Weng is one of the most popular and richest Actor who was born on September 7, 1957 in Baclaran, Philippines.
At the time, according Nelson Anderson, the production house received the photos of a then unknown Jean-Claude Van Damme, and were creating a film where Van Damme would have acted with both Anderson and dela Cruz. Also during his tenure at Liliw Production, Anderson also said that he and dela Cruz developed a friendship and introduced him Italian neorealist films. Loving this new genre, both made plans to make a dramatic characters based action comedy remake of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948). Anderson had a financial dispute with the company and the projects were never made. Both director Bobby A. Suarez and actress Marrie Lee said they were working with dela Cruz on a project that never materialized. In it dela Cruz would have played his own version of Superman.
Dela Cruz had several friendships throughout his career. Guerrero describes that the first time he met dela Cruz children were around who did not know what to make him, and when dela Cruz spoke the little girls got scared. He found dela Cruz hilarious. A fond memory he holds, is that dela Cruz often taunted him to go sparring, where he would pretend to be way too scared to go along. Anderson’s account of his friendship with dela Cruz was at the time when both were under contract with Liliw Production. He said it was polluted by the possessive attitude of producers Peter and Cora Caballes. When he started socializing with dela Cruz, he noticed the his potential and felt he was put down by others. He recalls bringing dela Cruz at an Art house cinema to introduce him to Italian neorealist films. Dela Cruz was enthralled by them. Together they watched Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados (1950), Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954), and François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959). Dela Cruz was particularly fond of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948), on his first viewing he cried. They agreed to make an action comedy remake with a human touch. Anderson also talked about dela Cruz’s fearlessness. When he gave dela Cruz a ride on his motorcycle, dela Cruz was upset when he asked him to wear a belt and a helmet. He also recalls that a man once tapped his hand on dela Cruz’s head, who stood up for himself. It led to a situation where Anderson had to separate them. Shortly after Anderson voiced concerns regarding both dangerous working conditions and mispayments to the Caballes, they separated them. They would tell him that dela Cruz was absent when he wasn’t. Anderson parted ways with the company, never to see dela Cruz again. Catral stated she had affection for dela Cruz. On set, she said he was the only worthwhile individual to hang out with. She added that when she stopped acting only he and Dolphy were worth saying goodbye to. Celing said that fellow actress Lotis Key attended dela Cruz’s funeral.
Dela Cruz was born to Felicito Jose dela Cruz, an electrician (1914-1968) and Rita DeGuzman dela Cruz, a laundry woman (1919-1989), the youngest of five brothers, on the seventh of September 1957. As described by dela Cruz’s brother Celing, dela Cruz’s early life went as followed. When his mother was pregnant she didn’t know until the doctor told her so, and when gave birth, his size was “no bigger than a small coke bottle”. This forced dela Cruz’s parents to place him in a shoe box under a light feeding him with drops. With a medical condition known as primordial dwarfism, it caused dela Cruz to grow to a height of 2 feet and 9 inches (0.83 meter) tall. Being devoted Catholics, dela Cruz’s mother showed their devotion to their faith by dressing and parading a young dela Cruz as Santo Niño each year for the annual Baclaran parade. Dela Cruz became popular in the neighborhood and his mother Rita felt he should become an actor. By 1968, dela Cruz’s father died due to falling down a ladder at work
