Bella Flores: How to be hated with fervor

She is in her 70s, drives herself to work, lives alone, is street smart and tough talking. Those meeting her for the first time would never expect her to be any different in private life from the much feared villainess she portrays so well on the screen.

She is Bella Flores and proud that she has played the wicked tormentor of children from Tessie Agana in 1951 in Roberta, to Vilma Santos in Trudis Liit in 1963, to Maricel Soriano in Inday Bote in 1970.

“I walk alone. I pray alone. I talk to God na huwag ako pababayaan. There are times I feel lonely, natural lang yun. I know God is always with me.”

While she relates her story, of how she distrusts everyone which is why she opts to live alone and refuses to hire a live-in driver, there is something in her demeanor that tells you it is possibly just another role she is playing.

“I don’t have close friends. We meet on the set, then go home. But there are people like Susan Roces, Gloria Romero, Pablo Gomez whom I like. Friends are the ballroom dancing friends, although I stopped dancing in 2002 when I became very busy,” she continues sounding much like the sure-fire recipe on how to be hated by an audience. 

It suddenly reminds us of another much feared individual on the legitimate stage, the late Zeneida “Bibot“ Amador, who wouldn’t think twice of berating anyone in public, nor even physically sending a harebrained actor flying in the air for what to her is an unforgivable misdeed. Yet, everyone who knew her well say this is all an affectation and that she is really a very loving person.

A good friend of Bella, Pempe Rodrigo, says that Bella is also all bark and no bite. “Sa totoong buhay, she is such a tender loving person. If you are her friend, you will be her friend forever. She is such a jolly person that we love to have her in our gatherings,” continues Pempe. At the party Pempe organized in honor of Bella who has decided to migrate to the United States, the feisty actress showed us this other side — the soft side — and we could swear she was almost in tears at the thought of leaving.

According to Bella, she once brought her grandchildren to join their mom,  Bella’s only daughter, Ruby Rose Arcilla in Las Vegas. “I have been there already. I stayed a year. Ayoko dun. It’s lonely, malungkot. That’s not my place,” she says.  So it was back to the Philippines for her and the life she has always known for the past five decades.

Her daughter has been constantly after her to migrate to the US where she could be better cared for. Bella relates that in Sept. 2007 Rose came over “kasi atras abante ako. Finally nag okay na ako, sold my things and car but not my house in Tandang Sora.” Bella feels it a good decision to keep the townhouse that she got 10 years ago. Most of her colleagues know that she wants to keep a place that she can go home to when she starts missing her friends and the industry that has kept her still busy as ever.

Prior to her departure on March 6, Bella was rushing to complete a digital film she was shooting titled Manghuhula with Eula Valdes and Chanda Romero. She has also shot a commercial for SMART cellphone. She is scheduled to receive at the 18th International Women’s Film Festival at UP Film Institute the Diwata Award given to Outstanding Women in the Movie Industry. Past awardees have been Charo Santos, Vilma Santos, and screenwriter Lualhati Bautista. Bella is overwhelmed. Why me? she asks, but she will no longer be around to accept the honor. She has asked good friend German Moreno to accept it in her behalf.  Bella Flores or Beautiful Flowers could very well have been baptized Bella Contravida as she is the prototype of every evil wench who came after her. To think that the name, given to her by Sampaguita Pictures star-builder Doc Jose Perez, evokes images of beauty and sweetness. Still, Bella has held on to the name as her own. We ask her what her real name is, and she answers that she has forgotten it.

Born in 1933, Bella was 17 in 1950 when Doc Perez made her part of the studio where she was introduced in several projects until she would make that indelible mark as villainess the next year in 1951 in Roberta. There are many stories regarding that blockbuster  but the most enduring is the fact that when Sampaguita Pictures established in 1937 was hit by fire in 1951 with  hundreds of film prints destroyed, the picture Roberta starring Tessie Agana in her first lead role became one of the biggest hits of the year. Roberta saved the  company from bankruptcy. It also made Tessie Agana one of the biggest child stars of the decade. 

Together in the movie was another child star Boy Alano who continued to make films until the ’80s, but it was the evil stepmother Bella Flores who made life miserable for the children who proved she had the mettle to surpass them all.  And to think that she was only 18 at that time.

She proudly feels that her presence in blockbuster movies have contributed to their box-office returns. “I was the only one in Sampaguita with a weekly allowance not deducted from the salary,” she boasts. Her recent participation in high rating TV shows are Marinela of ABS-CBN with 38 percent rating, and Beh Bote Nga on GMA 7 which she did for two years.

With her arched eyebrows and her husky voice, Bella went on to make some 500 pictures, she says, which we feel is more believable than the google figure of a hundred plus. We ask Bella what she thinks of the contrabidas of today who dominate the teleseryes.  In a rare show of humility, Bella ruminates saying that each actress has her own style of acting, and that she has watched many contrabidas today who are very good.  She advises the new ones, though, to love their work, be good at it, and the rewards will follow. If you are good at your craft, you will last even up to your 80s like Eddie Garcia, she notes.

Have done non-contrabida roles in Siklab sa Batangas with Ceasar Ramires, in Kulog sa Tagaraw with Oscar Moreno, and also having played a nun in another picture, Bella is truly most comfortable in her niche.  Her most difficult times, however, were after Roberta and in the movies of Nora Aunor where she experienced the rage of fans who truly wanted to kill her. 

“I have no regrets in my profession. Although I am not a superstar, I have also tasted admiration and tributes,“ she muses. She works easily these days with the warring networks, and even in the days of the big studios with the warring studios. The only regret in her life is possibly her marriage to a philanderer she fell in love with at 17, married and stayed married to until his death. Did she every consider marrying again, we ask? “Ayaw kong paloko ulit,” she retorts.

At the despedida gathering, Bella sang My Way, after which Pilita dedicated her signature song A Millions Thanks To You to her, followed by Kuya Germs and the Wing Duo. Indeed the words of My Way were most appropriate to her way of living. Like everyone else at the gathering we feel that La Bella Contravida will be back for sure. She will not be able to stand being away for long. She will miss making life miserable for those sweet young things on television everyday. So to Bella Flores, bon voyage and till me meet again!

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