Elizabeth is gone but Helen is here to stay

During a recent trip to Los Angeles to interview The Proposal stars Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds (the movie will be released in Manila next month), I had the chance to spend a few days with an aunt in nearby Glendale and I was surprised to find out that she doesn’t watch American television anymore. She is forever glued instead to GMA Pinoy TV and The Filipino Channel (TFC) of ABS-CBN.

From daytime till night, she watches Eat, Bulaga!, Totoy Bato, Dapat Ka Bang Mahalin?, Zorro and All About Eve on GMA Pinoy TV.

On TFC, her favorite is Tayong Dalawa and it was there that I got to see for myself why the public had been raving about the performances of the stars, particularly Helen Gamboa.

I’ve always considered Helen to be an accomplished actress (and singer, too) — an Urian winner at that (for the 1995 film Ang Bagong Bayani). But on Tayong Dalawa, she plays an offbeat role — the first time she did since Darna and the Giants in the early ‘70s. As Elizabeth, she has a mean streak and is convincing on screen. But alas, when I returned to Manila, her character had already died (she must have been killed while I was in transit).

Before leaving for L.A. last month, however, I had the chance to have dinner with Helen — along with a few members of the press. Chit Ramos informed me about it only a few hours before the get-together and I had to cancel another appointment at the last minute because it’s not every day that Helen and I would get the chance to see each other.

I was the last to leave and by then Helen and I were able to go down memory lane and talk about her good old days. Oh, she was such a big box-office draw that her name was billed this way: Helen Gamboa in Lea Productions’...

Those boots she wore in the movies — these came in all colors (gold, silver, purple), material (suede, leather, etc.). Some were purchased as far as London and she reveals that she gave a lot of the pairs away to friends.

In contrast to the colorful outfits she wore in her old musicals, her young life — she readily admits — was dull. “Back then, I was always with my mother,” she recalls. “I never experienced how it was to have a night life.” When she married entertainment personality and former Sen. Tito Sotto, it turned out that he, too, wasn’t fond of going out at night. “Do I have a wild side? None.”

Scandal-free, she was able to maintain a good name for herself all these decades and is greatly admired for her elegance. Pitoy Moreno, Aureo Alonzo and Christian Espiritu — great legends in Philippine fashion — they all told her about her natural elegance. And now, Rajo Laurel tells her: “Even if I make you wear katsa, you will still look elegant.”

In the middle of dinner, I get a call from Caridad Sanchez and I pass on the phone to Helen. They are neighbors in White Plains and in the past did several movies under Lea Productions. She fondly calls Ms. Sanchez Ate Caring.

After their brief phone chat, Tita Caring tells me that in her excitement, she forgot to congratulate Helen for her fine acting job on Tayong Dalawa. “Tell her,” Tita Caring instructs me, “na magaling na siyang artista nuong araw, pero mas magaling pa siya ngayon.” That was truly a compliment — coming from one of our respected character actresses, who is now also earning good reviews for her part on Totoy Bato.

Caridad was actually a witness to Helen’s early acting triumphs in the movies and also in some dramatic excursions on television. One was when she appeared on Balintataw in an episode called Isang Tagay, Dalawang Tagay. Written by Orlando Nadres, she played a drunken person there and had to do a 10-minute soliloquy — in front of members of the press who were invited to cover the taping at the old Channel 5 studio in Pasong Tamo.

Her favorite screen roles, however, were still those she portrayed in Kailan Mahuhugasan ang Kasalanan and in Oras-oras, Araw-araw. Ang Bagong Bayani, of course, will always remain memorable to her not only because she won her Urian there, but also because of the way the part was offered to her.

The film’s director, Tikoy Aguiluz, was in Hong Kong during pre-production and was casting her as the ill-fated domestic helper Flor Contemplacion, who was hanged in Singapore. Over the phone, Helen, one of our fairest-skinned local actresses, bluntly asked Tikoy: “Have you ever seen me in person?” Tikoy hadn’t, but was confident that her acting prowess could pull it through. She did and got the nod of the Manunuri.

Since she got married, she had limited her showbiz engagements to devote most of her time to showbiz — but without regrets. Of course, her marriage is not perfect, but she and Sen. Tito Sotto had been very successful at keeping it intact. What is their secret? “It’s our love and respect for each other,” she answers. “Also, when I know he is angry, hindi ko sinasabayan. I am also quite confident that later, aamuhin niya ako. And I know that he adores me.”

Away from the camera, she plays another role: As an organizer for medical missions. “I have a cousin who has a hospital in Pampanga and that helps our group a lot. Of course, through the years, it’s been getting more and more difficult to ask for contributions (from the big manufacturing companies) because times are getting hard. But we manage to get by.”   

Now that she has stopped doing her soap, she has more time to attend to her medical missions, although I’m sure there will be other offers for shows. But she isn’t rushing. In the past, she has turned down other important TV roles: Marsha Puruntong on John & Marsha that went to Nida Blanca and Inez Capistrano on Chicks to Chicks that went to Nova Villa.

But she was so happy about her decision to accept the controversial role on Tayong Dalawa. And now, the soap fans mourn the passing of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is dead. But long live Helen!