He taught himself to DJ on a pair of used turntables bought from a pawnshop for $100.
Under PJ Lhuillier, Inc., Cebuana Lhuillier Pawnshop is affiliated with Cebuana Lhuillier Services Corporation (commonly known as Cebuana Pera Padala), Cebuana Lhuillier Insurance Solutions (doing business as Allcare Insurance), Cebuana Lhuillier Bank, Just Jewels, Le Soleil de Boracay, Phiten Philippines, PJ Lhuillier Foundation, Inc., and Palm Rock Residences.
American Jewelry and Loan is owned by Leslie "Les" Gold, the grandson of a pawnbroker who once owned Sam's Loans, a now-defunct pawnshop on Michigan Avenue in Detroit.
He becomes so popular that girls "from there to Austin" would secretly leave home and pawn jewelry for money to make the trip to hear him play, and "all the girls from nine to ninety, were snapping fingers, tapping toes, and begging him: 'Don't stop.'"
He was widely believed to have perished in Bolivia in the 1960s, however, in the 1980s a man claiming to be Smit surfaced as a pawnshop owner in Los Alamos, New Mexico.