Always an original

"I was asked if I believe in cosmetic surgery," shares the characteristically bubbly Leila Benitez over lunch. In town again after five years to participate in ABS-CBN’s 50th anniversary celebrations, Leila has graciously squeezed in a lunch interview in a hectic schedule that has included TV guestings and reunions with friends.

She continues, "I don’t believe in it unless there is a physical need like you were in an accident or something." Leila then moves her head sideways and points to her hairline behind an ear. "Look, no scars!" she reveals with a laugh. "Lahat original!"

Given the way she looks – immaculately coifed, glamorously made up, dressed with just the right accesories – and with what she has contributed to Philippine TV, there’s no way you can’t agree with Leila Benitez. For this lady is every inch an original, both in the literal and figurative sense of the word.

Above all, purpose

Spend even a relatively brief time as lunch with Leila Benitez and you can appreciate those qualities that made her one of local TV’s pioneers, the trail-blazing live TV host of such shows as Student Canteen and the Leila Benitez Celebrity Hour – wit, humor, a genuine interest in people, and above all, a strong sense of purpose.

"Maybe I haven’t watched enough (local TV) shows," Leila shares, "but the few times that I have, I sit there and I say, ‘What are they trying to get to? What is the message’?"

This is because Leila believes that an effective TV host is someone "who doesn’t make just idle banter."

"You must have very good guests, interesting people," she explains. "If you have a guest, the whole purpose is to get to know this guest and to bring out the best (in him). Your show must have more than just conversation or talk. Even in the US they have talk shows that are not rating as the other good ones because they’re shallow, with no purpose, no meaning, no nothing."

"Let me put it this way, " Leila continues. "I think (local) TV now is catering to what the television audience wants. It seems that a lot of times, Pinoys like idle banter. During my time and particularly where I was concerned, I had a purpose, a projection.

"For Student Canteen, I wanted to bring kids off the streets because that was the time kids were starting to use drugs in the US. You know how Filipinos mimic (Americans). So I had this booth and the kids would bring their guitars and their harmonicas and poems and sing to a point where the show got so popular we were given one of the biggest studios in ABS CBN.

"For the Leila Benitez Celebrity Hour, a night talk show, I had cocktails and a bar and I’d pit all the protagonists and political enemies and I would ask them questions. Very interesting. Very, very controversial. No one else had a show like that. It was my idea to take a bit of the Johnny Carson Show, a little bit of this and a little bit of that and put them all together. But I made the show more glamorous because it was at night time. I had music, I had entertainment, I had everybody dressed up. I pioneered the first live talk show."

Her big thrill

Leila must have gotten her priorities right because even after three decades since she last appeared regularly on TV, people still remember her – and fondly at that.

"My very dear from way back, Marilou Magsaysay brought me to Greenhills," Leila relates, "and the most outstanding thing was it was amazing – I must have been stopped two dozen times! (People would say) ‘Miss Benitez, Miss Benitez! Please do a TV show again’! I mean, it was very, very flattering.

"I’m being stopped in restaurants, in the malls and asked for my autograph. I mean – you know how long ago my shows are! I am so flattered! They made me feel like I’ve discovered the fountain of youth. (They’d say) ‘Ma’m, hindi kayo nagbabago’!"

Perhaps it’s a case of good karma for Leila who prides herself with being a good judge of character and being someone who nurtures friendships that endure.

"When I went with the Philippine delegation that performed in a hotel in Berlin," she recalls, "there was this nice young man at the front desk who was fascinated by the Filipinos. I told him to come and try working in the Philippines for he would surely enjoy it there. The young man did come and eventually married a Filipina. Now he – Helmut Gaisberger – is the general manager of the Mandarin Oriental. And this time I am his guest in his hotel!"

"I have a good sense of humor and I have a very good outlook in life," Leila muses. "I love people and I’m always very interested in the other person. I have friendships that go to (the extent that) we’d give the shirt off our back and even risk our lives. That for me is what friendship, involvement with other people, means."

That’s also why, apart from TV guestings, Leila’s visit has been marked by a seemingly endless round of reunions with friends.

Even abroad, Leila shares, in hospitals or cruise ships where many Filipinos work, she is still remembered and treated so nicely.

And Vic Damone, Johnny Mathis, Harry Belafonte and other American stars who have guested in her TV show have been pleasantly surprised to meet Leila again in the US.

It takes one to know one

This woman of accomplishment is fortunate to have met her match in her American husband of 27 years, Donald McCollum, founder of the first marketing and television research company in the US. Donald had majored in Speech at the University of Alabama and obtained his MBA at the University of Denver.

Before she met Donald, Leila had been interviewed and was supposed to start with CBS and ABC. "With CBS I was supposed to be a roaming reporter," she relates. Though she does not regret how her life turned out, Leila reckons that working for an American TV station "would have been most interesting."

"Like everything in life, marriage has its ups and downs and its moments. In other words it’s never dull!" Leila shares. "And it shouldn’t be. We have so much in common.

"Donald is successful, hard-working, very dedicated. I don’t like people who are spineless, weak and have no direction. He’s a strong man in every way and is very intelligent."

Donald, a photographer in his youth, had accompanied Gen. Douglas McArthur in the latter’s campaigns, and had even been with the General when the latter landed on Leyte.

"I got to know the Filipinos back then," shares Donald, "and other than getting shot at by the Japanese it was enjoyable here in the Philippines!"

Donald established a business venture in Japan and would visit the Philippines for vacations. In the early ’70s, a mutual friends of his and Leila’s made him a list of people he might like to call while in Manila. At the bottom of the list was Leila Benitez.

The two met after over a month but it was not a case of love at first sight for Donald. "Maybe second," Donald says in jest. He was, however, smitten enough to ask Leila to marry him three and a half months later.

"Yes that was fast!" says Leila. "When he makes up his mind, he makes up his mind!" The couple got married in the United Nations chapel.

Even if he was aware of her stature, Donald says he wasn’t intimidated by Leila because "I do business internationally and I know my way around."

"The first few years in the US were the most difficult," Leila remembers. "I felt that from the meaningful life with purpose in my career here in Manila, all of a sudden, living in the US, hey, it was so empty. What (was I to) do?

"They got me to do English news narrations and took me to Washington for the Voice of America. I did this for about three or four years. That was broadcast to 11 English-speaking countries in Asia."

Family Values

Leila also busied herself with motherhood – with lots of help from Donald who she credits for teaching her three sons (from a previous marriage) the value of discipline.

"He got them doing things for themselves because in Manila they had maids and everything," she says. "Now, they are all very successful. Gerry handles a lot of hotels in New York. He has three children. Gio works for the restaurant business and is single. Martin is the manager of a furniture design plant and he has one child."

It is a testament to Leila’s familial values that even during the peak of her popularity, she made a decision for her children’s sake.

"In those years," she recalls, " I was asked to run for senator by one party and they were really gung-ho about me. (They said) ‘It’s a cinch, we know you’re gonna win’. I said no and they kept going after me. The reason was because politics is dirty – let’s face it. My life was an open book and I had a great life but they could make up things and unearth things and I did not want my children exposed to that. And for their sake I said no."

"I brought up my kids," Leila adds, "(in such a way that) they’d get a whack if they ever told a lie!"

"Yes, I must say we’ve had a good life," muses Leila. "My family (members) are all happy and healthy."

Educating Leila

Leila in turn is grateful to her parents for her upbringing.

"This is the other thing I have hang on to," she says, "value of family ties which is inborn here; we’re brought up that way."

"I’m very lucky," she muses. "My father (Eulogio Benitez) spoke to me in English from the day he began speaking to me. He was a very eloquent man who was a Law graduate of Georgetown. My mother (Rosenda Lavadia-Benitez) spoke to me in Spanish."

After high school Leila studied in Washington where her guardians were General and Mrs. Carlos Romulo. After a year in a convent school, she studied at the Marjorie Websters finishing school for two years, then finished Psychology at the George Washington University.

"I also accomplished what my mother wanted me to be," adds Leila. "I graduated as a concert pianist! When I came home I never touched the piano again. My mother was Spanish-strict. As a matter of fact – can you imagine going to the US and being there all that time but always maintaining what you were brainwashed (to do) as a child – you don’t get married unless you’re a virgin! And sure as I came back, I was!"

Leila guffaws even more when Donald chimes in, "Nobody will believe that!"

Busy, Busy, Busy

"Everytime, I find I don’t have enough time," says Leila, who has homes in New York City and Palm Beach. "I will have the (household) help come in but we don’t let them stay overnight. We like our privacy.

"And then there are the kids, grand children friends, and the Fil-Am communities. I help out with the Philippine American associations. When they have fund-raisers and they need me to be a co-host or guest of honor, I’m there.

"I’m also involved with golf associations. There’s one in particular – it has the lady club champions from all over the US. I’ve been on the board for 20 years. We meet in different parts of the US and we have a tournament of champions."

Would she have wanted to have been a champion golfer? Leila replies, "Actually I have been champion five times at my husband’s club where he brought me when we got married, The Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey."

"I also love to cook," Leila adds. "My specialty is kare-kare. Donald loves all the food I cook."

Another Tv Show, Perchance?

"Would I accept a TV show now?" Leila wonders. "Now that you bring it up, before my dear good friend Geny Lopez passed away – I was here five years ago – he and I had talked. He brought me to ABS-CBN and showed me the new building and studios.

"Our talks were not for me to come and live here but what about me coming and doing something for three months and then I’d go back to New York and do something from there which is something I’ve always wanted to do. I would feature Fil-American people and do it by satellite. That would have been something, and it can still be done.

"People pushing me (about this) in the US are people from the Philippine Embassy, the UN, diplomats. I personally feel we have so many successful doctors, nurses, professionals in the US.

"I would consider such an offer, especially after this trip. I would have the best of both worlds."

Leila By Leila

What three words best describe Leila Benitez?

"Spunky, honest and truthful," Leila believes. "(I think that you should) face life. Don’t shrink, don’t hide, don’t turn your back – you gotta face it."

Leila Benitez faced her TV audience in all her wit, candor and sincerity, hosting and entertaining the best she could, just as she has faced life.

And for that, no wonder she is well-loved.