A fairy tale with a sad ending

This item has to be written fairy-tale style, even if, unlike most fairy tales, it didn’t end happily ever after.

Once upon a time there was a beauty queen, so beautifully bedimpled that after she competed in an international contest, movie producers scrambled over one another for her services.

Soon, she was enjoying not just fame but also fortune.

But in the wink of an eye, she lost everything all because she became a drug addict.

She has a pre-teen son by a man believed to belong to Asian royalty against whom the beauty-queen-actress filed a case for support when he stopped supporting her, suspecting that she might spend the money not for their love son but only to sustain her drug dependence.

A few years ago, the actress landed in the news when she was forced to vacate the condo unit she was staying in, claiming that she was seeing ghosts, when she was believed to be actually hallucinating when she was high on drugs.

Her story is similar to those of some bold actresses who, perhaps unable to handle success (and their eventual downfall) resort to taking drugs to escape from painful reality. They thought that stardom was forever – you know, money in showbiz comes easy and, sob and sigh, evaporates just as easily – so they forgot to save for the rainy days.

So what happened to the beauty-queen-actress?

She’s now selling fish at a Manila market and, woe of woes, she’s in danger of being eased out of the stall she’s renting. Her son – the "royal heir" – is said to be under-nourished and is out of school.

The sad part: She’s still hooked on drugs.

One of these days, I think she will again land in the headlines because of another case she’s planning to file (for support to the tune of millions of dollars?).

But first, she should be rehabilitated as her friends and relatives have been suggesting.

I wish a reversal of fortune for this luckless lady so our fairy tale would end happily ever after.

Dance, dance on, Aldeguer Sisters!

Once a dancer, always a dancer.

That’s the case of dance icons Terri and Laly Aldeguer who are exponents of the "head throw" and "kick-swing" style which dancers of all shapes and sizes have adopted as their own. If you watch the Disney movie High School Musical, the performers’ dance style must have reminded you of Terri and Laly.

The Aldeguer Sisters reigned supreme for almost two decades until they decided to migrate to the US in the mid-’80s.

But as I’ve said, once a dancer...

No, Terri and Laly haven’t stopped dancing and the good thing is that they have put up their own school called Aldeguer Sisters Performing Arts Center (ASPAC) in West Covina, California, starting with a handful of students back in 2000 and now by the dozens, consisting not only of Filipinos but also Hispanics and Americans.

"Dance is universal," said Terri and Laly who are here for vacation and for business. "It knows no nationality."

But more than teaching dance, ASPAC aims to inculcate especially in its Filipino students love for their native land and for their heritage.

"That’s why we urge everybody to learn Filipino songs," said the sisters.

Once, a Pinoy oldtimer in the US asked, "And what are you doing about our heritage?" Laly promptly asked an Afro-American student to stand in front and sing a Filipino song. "That answered her question," said Laly.

The "business side" of the sisters’ homecoming is the putting up of a local branch of the Pusong Pinoy USA Foundation which they recently organized in the US.

"Our students (in the US) now proudly say, ‘We were born and raised here, all right, pero Pusong Pinoy pa rin kami."

See. Terri and Laly are dancing for a good cause!

Briefly noted

A comedienne asked her boyfriend to pull over while they were driving back to Manila from a show up North.There, under cover of darkness, "did something" to him that drive him, well, to ecstasy. No, she didn’t feed him drugs. She just "did something."

It is "blind items" like this that make me tune in to Wow, Ang Showbiz!" from 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon Monday through Friday, on DZXL (558 AM band). And more: Hosts Ogie Diaz (Miss O) and Fernan de Guzman (Miss F), plus the new addition Tia Pusit, are such fun to listen to that you are not aware you’re stuck in a traffic jam on your way to wherever you’re driving to. Try listening to the trio and you’ll know what I mean.

The theme song has a lilting beat, followed by the hilarious intro of the trio whose spiels sometimes border on the salacious. The voice that says "Wow, ang showbiz!" and exclaims "Sino yan!?!" during the "blind-item" portion, sounds very familiar and it belongs to none other than Ricky Reyes.

Anyway, tune in to Wow, Ang Showbiz! and see if you can guess the blind items which can drive you crazy (but keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road, but your ears on Miss O, Miss F and Tia Pusit).

Incidentally, the radio program is celebrating its first anniversary second week of August.

Keep up the riotous work, Miss O and Miss F and Tia Pusit!

* * *

E-mail reactions at [email protected]