Tats Rejante-Manahan, one of the most in-demand writers on television in the ’70s up to the early ’80s, recalls that her time was the era of specials. With Fritz Ynfante directing mostly and then future husband Johnny Manahan as set designer, she wrote specials for Jose Mari Chan, Pinky de Leon, Celeste Legaspi, Basil Valdez, Leah Navarro, Hajji Alejandro and, much later, for Sharon Cuneta and Zsa Zsa Padilla.
Oh, she remembers those fabulous Balenciaga gowns of Pinky and the sumptuous dinners — usually ribs — the singer-actress hosted during production meetings in her BF Parañaque home. “Pinky was fun,” quips Tats.
While Celeste worked mostly with Lyca Benitez, Tats also wrote a few specials for the singer who was already a friend way back in college at Maryknoll. “People thought Celeste was taray, but deep inside, she has a soft heart.”
Writing specials for these singers, Tats had to assume their personalities.
“The first thing you have to do is study their speech pattern,” volunteers Tats. “And while writing their spiels, you also have to figure out: Is this something Celeste would say?” Basically, Tats offers that the writer becomes the dressing room confidante of the stars.
But she also did some experimentation — on Basil, for example. Since Basil had always been so serious, Tats tried to bring out the lighter side of his personality by making him sound hip in his spiels and putting him in a white pair of rubber shoes. Basil was upset in the beginning, but the whole act worked beautifully in the end.
Tats laments the fact that the few specials being produced today are mostly rushed — unlike in their time when it took them six months of preparation, three to four days to shoot just one sequence and at least a week to edit.
Times have changed and most of the specials that are shown on TV today were originally produced as live concerts. At this point, we can only hope for the return of those honest-to-goodness musical specials Tats and her peers did during the glory days of television.
While musical specials were her forte, Tats also wrote for talk shows: Manila by Night with Gloria Diaz, Two for the Road with Nestor Torre and her late mother-in-law, Elvira Manahan and Ms. Ellaneous with Tina Revilla, Maan Hontiveros and Yogi Dominguez. (It was also here in Ms.Ellaneous where she also tried her hand at directing).
Most unforgettable for her, however, was The Late Hour With June and Johnny because the show featured mostly quirky subjects: The Bionic Boy (later exposed to be a fraud), faith healers from up north and Leo Parungao and his dwarfs. While she didn’t exactly relish “talking” to the dwarfs (she didn’t see nor hear them), she basically had a ball working with hosts Johnny Litton and especially June Keithley. Of June, Tats insists that “she’s the most well-read talk show host I’ve ever worked with.”
Unfortunately, even the talk show scenario today has drastically changed. “The attention span of everyone is so short,” sighs Tats, whose last TV work was The Shahani Perspective that ran from 1992 to 93. She and the other writers during the glory days of television in the ’70s have all but packed up and went on to pursue other interests. In her case, she studied surface design and decoration in San Francisco and Venice and is now one of the best interior designers in the country — and I have that on good authority.
“What I’m doing now is something I’ve always wanted to do. In fact, when Johnny and I were newly-married, we were always painting the house,” admits Tats.
She also helps with the restoration work of some of the country’s old buildings —like the Gota de Leche that is now back to its old splendor in the congested district of Sampaloc. At the moment, she is also bringing back to its former glory an ancestral home in Iloilo.
What about a television comeback? “Occasionally, I get to talk to people I worked with on TV and who — like me — have since gone on to other fields. We figured, maybe we outgrew the medium. We’re not sure if we burned out or the medium burned out on us,” she laughs.
Tats Rejante-Manahan may not return to TV anymore, but at least she can always look back and say that she was part of the glory days of television. Undoubtedly, her newfound career in interior design is just as sterling, if not golden.
(Next: Beauty pageants in the ’70s).