Curtain-raisers:
• Celebrate the Year of the Rat with Little Asia (Tomas Morato, Quezon City) tomorrow night Feb. 6, Chinese Christmas, at 8 p.m.; and at Little Asia Promenade in Greenhills, San Juan City, on Thursday night, Feb. 7, Chinese New Year also at 8 p.m. There will be a spectacular Lion Dance Show to drive away bad spirits and invite good luck throughout the year. The lion will give away lucky coins and candies for good luck.
• Necrological services for Vicky Bautista, wife of Mario Bautista, will be held today at the Sta. Maria dela Strada Church, Katipunan Road, Quezon City; 3:30 p.m. by the UP College of Public Administration, 5 p.m. by the UP Open University and 8 p.m. by the Discovery Weekend.
• Corrections, please: The owner-manager of Ever Bilena (beauty products) is Dioceldo (not Diosdado) Sy... The song that George Sison composed for Pilita Corrales is titled What Name Shall I Give You, My Love and not, as mentioned in last Sunday’s Conversations with Ricky Lo A Million Thanks to You, which was composed by Alice Doria-Gamilla. Also, the song I Am I Said is by Neil Diamond, not by Trini Lopez.
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Did you know that the housekeeper of Heath Ledger, the Australian-born Hollywood actor found dead at age 28 last Jan. 22 at his Manhattan pad, is a Filipina? Her name is Teresa Cariño Solomon who told her story exclusively to Edmund Silvestre, news editor of the New York-based The Filipino Reporter and Funfare’s Big Apple correspondent.
“Teresa is still being hounded by the mainstream media but she told me that she already talked to the NYPD investigators and she wouldn’t talk to the press what she had told the authorities,” said Edmund who, as usual, very kindly shared his “scoop” (published in The Reporter) with Funfare readers. (Funfare also shares “exclusives” with The Reporter.)
“Teresa is very dignified,” added Edmund. “When you see her, you wouldn’t think that she is a housekeeper. She looks much younger in person than she does in pictures, and she has flawless skin.”
Here’s Edmund’s “scoop” in full:
NEW YORK CITY — If you thought Heath Ledger’s suddenly-famous housekeeper, Teresa Cariño Solomon, is a Filipino, you were right.
Solomon, 56, was the last person to have seen the late Brokeback Mountain actor alive on Jan. 22, shortly before he was found dead on the same day in his swank fourth-floor apartment at 421 Broome Street in the SoHo neighborhood in Manhattan.
Since that tragic day, Solomon had been hounded by journalists, some of whom followed her even on subway trains all the way to her apartment building here in the Astoria section of Queens, New York, where she’s been living for the last 12 years.
Solomon, a native of Mangaldan, Pangasinan, hesitated to talk to The Filipino Reporter at first but later agreed to the interview on condition that she wouldn’t be asked about the death of Ledger since it is under investigation. There’s still no word on the cause of the actor’s death. An autopsy report is due anytime now.
“It’s hard to talk because you know how the media can twist words,” said the petite Filipino-American. “I already told the police everything I know.”
Solomon said she was shaking and unable to sleep a day after the death of Ledger, whom she remembered as ”a very nice man, very neat and well-organized with his personal things.”
She told The Reporter, “I cried when the emergency personnel said he’s dead because I just couldn’t believe that he’s gone,” she told The Reporter. “I even told them to check him thoroughly because they might be wrong.”
Reports said Solomon had only worked for Ledger for several months doing light cleaning and laundry.
Solomon won’t say the exact month she was hired by the actor, but said she was recommended to Ledger by the superintendent of Ledger’s apartment building.
“I was told I’d be working for Heath Ledger,” she recalled. “Of course, I was honored. He’s famous and a respected actor, and I saw Brokeback Mountain.” Solomon said she went to Ledger’s place once a week, every Tuesday.
“His place was always clean that’s why I told him, ‘What else am I going to do here?’” she recalled with a smile. “He’s also very good-looking. He really looks like a Hollywood leading man.”
Solomon, who also keeps the homes of a number of wealthy families in New York, came to the US in 1985, after working for three years in Greece at the home of the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Athens. Before that, she worked as a domestic helper in Hong Kong.
She became an American citizen when an employer sponsored her years ago as a nanny for a young boy.
“I’ve been a housekeeper almost all my life and I’m proud of it,” said Solomon, who was a Commerce sophomore when she stopped to work as a domestic. “This is a decent job and I earn a decent living. I have a nice apartment. I have a nice family. And I have a quiet life.”
Solomon is married to her townmate Rogelio Solomon who works as a store clerk. She has five children from her first marriage. One of the children works in the US while the rest are in Pangasinan. Solomon said she is planning to visit the Philippines later this year and spend New Year with her children in Pangasinan. She said that her eldest daughter received a kidney transplant two years ago.
According to the police, Solomon had arrived at Ledger’s $24,000-a month apartment with her own key at approximately 12:30 p.m. of Jan. 22 to do household chores.
On that tragic day, police said Solomon entered the bedroom at around 1 p.m. to change a light bulb in the adjacent bathroom, and saw Ledger face down on the bed, with a sheet pulled to his shoulders, and snoring. Police said she left the room without thinking anything was wrong.
Masseuse Diana Wolozin arrived at approximately 2:45 p.m. to give Ledger a massage.
When Ledger did not emerge by 3 p.m., Wolozin knocked on his door but got no response. When she called his cellphone and also got no answer, Wolozin entered Ledger’s bedroom and began to set up the massage table, and tried to awaken the actor who was unresponsive.
Police said Wolozin first called Ledger’s close friend, actress Mary-Kate Olsen, whose number was programmed into Ledger’s cell phone.
Olsen, who was in California at the time, replied she would call her security men. After again attempting to waken Ledger, Wolozin called Olsen again briefly, and at 3:26 p.m. called 911. Medical workers moved Ledger to the floor, used a defibrillator and CPR, and pronounced Ledger dead at 3:36 p.m.
Police said they found six types of prescription drugs, including pills to treat insomnia and anxiety in the bathroom and that there were “no obvious signs” of suicide, nor did they suspect foul play.
They also found a rolled-up $20 bill on the floor near the bed. Rolled-up bills are often used to snort coke or other drugs. A toxicology test found no drugs on the bill. There was no evidence of alcohol use and no illegal drugs were found.
An initial autopsy on Jan. 23 proved inconclusive at determining Ledger’s cause of death. The medical examiner’s office stated it would take about 10 to 14 days to complete the investigation.
Police said the Australian-born actor probably died sometime between 1 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. of what authorities say may be an accidental drug overdose.
Ledger’s body was flown to his native Australia where it was laid to rest.
(E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph or at entphilstar@yahoo.com)