Why Barbara Perez
said no to Hollywood

By RICARDO F. LO

• Condolence to the family and relatives of movie producer Peter Gan who died of a heart attack yesterday morning. His remains lie at the Funeraria Paz on Araneta Avenue, Quezon City.

• Also, to Leo Valdez whose father, Aurelio Valdez, died at 96 yesterday in Bacolod City. His remains lie at the Alisbo Memorial Chapels in Mandalagan, Bacolod City. Leo’s text to Funfare reads: Today (March 1) mid-morning, our Tatay, in the presence of family members singing hymns, opened his eyes and gave a big smile which made us clap and cheer. That turned out to be his way of saying goodbye. What a fabulous way to go which made it easier for all of us who felt that he left us to celebrate and not to grieve. Of course, we’re sad though comforted by the thought that he is now with the Lord. Nanay was at home and she’s doing all right after I went home from the hospital and broke the sad news to her. God be praised!

• Now, for a bit of nostalgia: Danny Dolor, spearhead of a tribute to Carmen Rosales, is reminding Carmen’s fans and lovers of old movies that two more Carmen Rosales starrers are showing at the NCCA (National Commission for Culture and the Arts) in Intramuros, Manila. They are: Iyong-Iyo, tonight at 6, and Maalaala Mo Kaya, tomorrow night also at 6, both co-starring Rogelio dela Rosa. Admission to the screenings is free.

• There was a “scandalous” little incident during the recent Flower Festival Parade in Baguio City. According to my friend Miss J (a PAL stewardess), she and her young children were watching the parade when girls in skimpy and see-through white outfit started climbing a float with a picture of Eddie Gil and Alma Moreno on it. “Of course,” recalled Miss J in disgust, “men ogled and mobbed the girls who willingly bent over, exposing half of their breasts and their T-backs for picture-taking. We mothers in the crowd were outraged! According to the security men, the girls called themselves D’Bodies. They were scandalous and offensive. I and several other mothers left, not wanting our children to see those brazenly-clad girls!”

* * *The following piece, sent to Funfare by reader Kiel Parungao in reaction to previous stories about Pinoy actors/talents in Hollywood, rightfully belongs to Danny Dolor’s Remember When? Sunday column also in The STAR. But I’m putting it out anyway. It’s a story told before but won’t suffer with one more retelling, it being a triumph of love over career. Read on:

So much has been written about local actors making it in Hollywood. There was Pancho Magalona, Fernando Poe, Jr. and even Charito Solis. The latest actor to get a crack at Hollywood is Cesar Montano, in The Great Raid (with Benjamin Bratt among his co-stars). However, I can’t help but emphatize with G Tongi for all the efforts and the difficulties she went through just to be able to penetrate Hollywood. But it seems that her efforts did not pay off. G Tongi was reported to have gotten married and I suppose it is goodbye to her dreams.

I want to give you a piece of information about this actress who almost made it in Hollywood not of her own liking but it was Hollywood which ironically pursued her. She is Barbara Perez who, in the mid-’60s took Hollywood by storm in her very first international film, No Man Is An Island.

How Barbara got the role was a story in itself. She did not audition nor was recommended by her home studio, Sampaguita Pictures. She was just spotted by a Hollywood talent scout in a party with Minnie Osmeña. Right there and then, Barbara was offered the role: That of a 15-year-old Guamese girl supposed to keep home and shelter to American fugitive played by Jeffrey Hunter.

It was a coincidence that when the film had its world premiere, Barbara was also in the US as one of the original Karilagan models performing at the Seattle World’s Fair. Universal International, the producer of the film, wasted no efforts to invite Barbara to Hollywood. A press conference was arranged for Barbara and it was reported that she regaled and impressed the snooty Hollywood press not only with her intelligence but with her exotic looks.

It was also reported that during the press preview of the film, Barbara was applauded by the press and the ensuing reviews were all accolades which even landed in the local papers, Manila Times for one. Right there, Barbara was offered a three-year-contract by Universal International. Not to be outdone, MGM also offered her a starring role in Dime With A Halo where she would portray a prostitute. Barbara turned down this offer and the role went, incidentally, to another Asian actress of her monicker, Barbara Luna.

Another offer was to play opposite William Holden in The Seventh Dawn, shot in Malaysia. The role went to a French model, Capucine. There was this other movie supposedly with Rock Hudson and during the time of negotiation, a local magazine, Women’s, featured Hudson on the cover holding a magazine with Barbara on the cover.

It was really amazing how Barbara was able to resist all these offers, considering that during their first years of marriage to Robert Arevalo, she has not been doing any film and their finances were not exactly fine. Offers came far and between and Barbara, made not in the mold of Amalia Fuentes and Susan Roces who were then the darling of the “bakya crowd”, were only given so-so roles.

Is it not grand for the actors of the present generation to know that one time, somewhere in our midst, we once have an actress who literally held Hollywood at her feet, but turned her back on it in exchange for a simple family life? Did Barbara make the right decision? I guess she did.

What’s Up?• Correction, please: Claire dela Fuente graduated with a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Western Australia not by correspondence (as Funfare wrongly reported) but by actually attending classes at the UWA in Makati City. Among Claire’s classmates was Lucien Dy Tioco, advertising director of The STAR.

• Happy birthday today (March 2) to Alwin Dalusung of Angeles City, a student of MIT, from his friend “a million miles away.”

• Ruffa Gutierrez watched the Oscars in Istanbul where she and her family (husband Yilmaz Bektas and their two daughters) are residing. Ruffa’s choice as the best-dressed star was Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi who, Ruffa would later found out, wore an elegant gown by Monique Lhuillier, a Cebuana like Ruffa’s mom Annabelle Rama (who’s currently visiting the Bektases in Istanbul).

E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph