My earliest memories of Vilma

(First of two parts)

Lipa City Mayor Vilma Santos Recto turned 50 yesterday, but the years certainly do not show on her face and especially not on her still slim figure.

And those 50 years certainly were not wasted because she excelled in everything she did – in both life and career.

As an actress, she has the most number of acting awards – with eight Urian trophies (10 if you include the two times she was named Actress of the Decade along with Nora Aunor).

As a TV host, she had the best variety show on television that ran for many years.

As mayor of her beloved Lipa, her reputation is untarnished.

As a wife, her 11-year marriage with Sen. Ralph Recto, is sometimes part of the gossip mill, but which celebrity union isn’t?

As a mother, she must be very proud of her son Luis’ recent achievements in the field of entertainment. But her biggest sacrifice as a mother – and for this she earned my undying respect – was when she risked her career to give birth to Ryan Christian.

Vilma is truly an accomplished woman. Why, even her recording of Sweet Sixteen was certified gold!

All those 50 years behind her have indeed been fruitful. However, I still can’t believe that Vilma has turned golden girl. Wasn’t it only yesterday when she was still doing those light musical comedy/dramas with Edgar Mortiz? I still have vivid memories of Vilma from way back and I would want to share them with you.

My earliest memories of Vilma Santos must be in black and white. Back then, I knew there was a Vilma Santos playing teenage daughter to Eddie Rodriguez and Lolita Rodriguez in those Virgo love triangles. She was said to have been launched by Sampaguita Pictures in Trudis Liit and supposedly did a lot of other projects as a child star in the early ’60s, but I didn’t know that then. The more popular Vilma that time was singer-actress Vilma Valera.

Then Nora Aunor came along and both TV and movie screens were filled with diminutive female teen stars – with Vilma Santos among them.

No, Vilma wasn’t as popular as Nora that time, but her rise to superstardom was steady.

The public’s interest in Vilma interestingly enough came when her Trudis Liit was shown one summer on afternoon television a couple of years before martial law. In those days, only one Tagalog movie was aired by the station (it was ABS-CBN in this case) from Monday to Friday, but children on a summer break with nothing else to do at home would still watch the same film everyday. And so on that summer vacation, even kids from the uppity homes had their fill of Vilma. It was a good thing she excelled in that film and was cute and had charmed everyone.

And so, even if her singing of the theme song of D’Sensations was murder on the eardrums, she already had the public’s curiosity and even respect – thanks to the revived interest on Trudis Liit.

From my end, the first time I became curious about her was when I read an article on her in this fan magazine that featured her house in Arfel Homes in Project 6. Even then, I was already interested in architectural designs and I marveled at the simple, yet tasteful structure of the home she has built for her family. The only opulent feature of that house was her round bed and I’ve always wanted to ask her what she did with it.

Later, the FAMAS had its awards night and she tied with Boots Anson-Roa for Best Actress and I was among those who watched her tearful acceptance speech on television.

Months later, I finally saw a Vilma Santos movie on the big screen – and in color. My Dad that time had a friend who gave us season’s passes to the Manila Filmfest every year and one of the entries then was Dyesebel. Since I’ve always been the type who wouldn’t want to see anything go to waste, I saw to it that the entire pass was used – all 10 movies. The problem was getting people to bring me to the theaters – in downtown Manila – since I couldn’t get there on my own yet. On the night I saw Dyesebel, it was raining very hard and my older cousin (who had to be bribed to accompany me) and I had to squeeze into Miramar because the film was a box office hit.

The film wasn’t really much (and I enjoyed another entry more – Ramon Zamora’s Pedro Penduko by Celso Ad. Castillo), but Vilma – in spite of that awful rubber fishtail – was very charming in Dyesebel.

Unfortunately, my fondness for her dipped a bit when she did another variety show called – good grief! – ‘Yan Eh! Couldn’t they have thought of a better title? And yes, the horrible theme song. It went like this: La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, ’yan eh, la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, ’yan eh, la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, ’yan eh! ’Yan eh! No wonder, she got the Batangueño a la eh votes so easily.

Okay, so her 50 years weren’t really all that great. But hey, this was just one tiny mistake in her career and I can forgive her for this. After all, she more than made up for it – and how!

(To be concluded)