In an industry where manners are only words in the book of Emily Post, Assunta de Rossi stands out as one of the few young actresses with fine breeding. Although childlike in a lot of ways, she is always polite and courteous – which is why I’m very fond of her.
Last December, the day my review of Hubog came out on this paper, I bumped into her and her sister, Alessandra de Rossi, at the Country Waffles restaurant in Eastwood and she profusely thanked me for having praised her and her sister’s work in the movie.
She even summoned Alessandra over and – like the Ate that she is – instructed her sister, "Magpasalamat ka sa review." I thought that was a very nice gesture from her end.
Then, a few days after the rescue of the Ledesma children, I had another chance to talk to her in an interview arranged by Startalk. Although visibly tired, she was still very accommodating and was charming all throughout the interview. The last question I asked her was (sadly, this part had to be edited out in the show due to time constraints): Had the kidnappers asked for your life in exchange for the children’s safety, would you have given up it up for them? The question floored her. She thought long and hard. "That’s a very difficult question!" she protested. Then, she thought about it some more. "Nakakatakot yata!" she wailed. Rambling on, she added, "Siguro kung kasama si Jules." Until came her final answer. "Siguro hindi… nakakatakot ‘yon, siempre."
Actually, she could have easily said, "Sure, why not? I will do everything for the sake of the children." After all, it was just a hypothetical question. But obviously, she didn’t want to give a press release answer. The answer she gave, however, was very honest and very sincere – and I admired her all the more for that.
Even now that she is under attack for her supposed lack of professionalism, I still want to go easy on her. But then, Manny Valera, her manager whom she wants to dump after six years of service, feels he has to clear several issues here regarding their parting of ways.
Asked to describe Assunta then and now, Manny has this to say. "Before, sunud-sunuran siya sa nanay niya – for the sake of professionalism. Now, sunud-sunuran siya kay Jules Ledesma – na ikinasisira niya."
Valera obviously doesn’t mince words every time he talks about Jules. In fact, he has enough horror stories regarding Rep. Jules Ledesma to fill up an entire set of encyclopedia – from volumes A to Z.
According to Valera, he already felt even in the beginning that there was going to be a problem when Assunta fell in love with Jules. The first sign was when Assunta (or was it Jules?) fired her girl Friday. This girl Friday, you see, was the only conduit between Assunta and her mother with whom she already had a falling out because of her romance with Jules. All communications (including those from Manny Valera’s end) were coursed through her. Two female aides replaced this girl Friday. They were reportedly from Jules’ office.
Jules also became a problem when he started hanging around Assunta in movie sets. Keeping Assunta company in itself was really no issue with the actress’ co-workers. Never mind if they found it extremely strange that Ledesma would shout "Bravo" at the end of each take. Surely, there is nothing wrong with that, except that, well, this is neither ballet nor opera and just isn’t part of the culture of movies.
And when he does not like the way a particular scene is executed, Ledesma supposedly also says so at the end of each take – to the annoyance of the director, of course. Until one time, while a scene was in progress, he supposedly entered the frame to correct the blocking and this ruined the entire take.
Another major problem encountered by Valera is Assunta’s refusal to honor her two-picture contract with Viva (P500,000 each). Actually, the actress was supposed to do Hibla with Maui Taylor. But since she now refuses to do R-18 films, the Hibla role went instead to Rica Peralejo. Now, she just doesn’t want to do the two Viva movies – period.
In fairness to Assunta and Jules, they offered to pay P3-M just to be able to get out of the Viva commitment. But along with it is the condition that Valera would also release Assunta from their managerial agreement.
The night before the kidnapping of the Ledesma children, Jules initiated a move to end Assunta’s contract with Valera. Although Manny agreed to sit down for a meeting, he specified that he was only willing to talk to Assunta. Over dinner at Mario’s in Tomas Morato, Assunta asked Manny to release her from their contract. Sure, why not? – shot back Manny. But only if they were willing to buy out the contract for P10-M.
Before you start thinking that Valera is a greedy man, find out his reasons first in the concluding portion of this column on Saturday. (To be concluded)