|
IT has
been said that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Unless, of course, you work in the entertainment
industry where, if you peruse the local media, a star is
apparently born every second. Every Tom, Dick, Harry or
Jane who appears in a commercial, enters an Orwellian
house, or joins a reality-based talent show goes on to
become a star. Or what—after, of course, the requisite
head-to-toe makeover and obviously fruitless turns at
acting and singing workshops—passes off as one. Which is
why it doesn’t pay to take a leave, however briefly,
from the spotlight. In show business, at least around
these parts, the fundamental truth would be “out of
sight, out of mind,” and there are those men and women
born every second—typically frightfully young, usually
with a talent for all the inanities that have become
hallmarks of film and television this side of
Hollywood—who would happily pimp their grandmothers
besides themselves to fill in the vacuum.
Then,
there is Nora Aunor, who routinely ends up being the
talk in various media outlets that you would think she
is not currently based in the US—and has been for many
years now. Too many, in fact, for the liking of her fans
around these parts, among which I happily and proudly
count myself. Now. Forever. Always.
True
enough, the talk is not often pleasant, often not even
remotely, as so-called blind items that regularly fill
scabrous entertainment columns in tabloids and
newspapers gleefully account the supposed hard times
Nora has fallen in stateside. How supposedly she has
taken to taking up residence in the homes of fans
because she could no longer afford to rent her own
space. Or how supposedly her rental is so small and
inconsequential that you would expect somebody waiting
on tables for a living to answer the door and not the
woman who continues to be referred to as the one and the
only superstar in Philippine entertainment. Or how
supposedly she has taken to pulling her own laundry to
the laundromat, as if this were the shameful equivalent
of entertainers-turned-politicians bilking taxpayers of
their hard-earned money. All that supposed dirt, along
with the standard-issue and never-ending gossip about
gambling problems and bad choices in partners male and
female.
And you
know what? Nora Aunor doesn’t care that such
unflattering talk about her continues to make the rounds
in showbiz circles and watercooler stations. In fact, in
a recent interview with GMA’s top-rating Startalk,
The Superstar herself matter-of-factly admitted to
the so-called hard-times stories that have been going
around, including the tale about the laundromat. Of
course, not a few of her loyal fans have deemed this
confession as further proof that she has remained the
“Nora Aunor” they have always admired—the ever-so-humble
genius actress-sublime singer. From where I sit,
however, her confession springs not from that seemingly
unprepossessing quality that has become part of The
Superstar’s legend, but from an unyielding sense of
candor that can only come from a woman who has looked at
life in the eye and come to terms with what it is, flaws
and all. And, more important, with what she was, is and
always will be. Flaws and all.
Long
before she made the US her home—in fact, even at the
nose-bleed heights of her magnificent fame that has not
and perhaps never will be equaled, the hub-bub over
Marian Rivera notwithstanding—Nora Aunor already came to
an appreciation that life has an utterly wicked sense of
humor, and has a wicked good time routinely shaking up
the status quo. Under such capricious conditions, most
everything then becomes ephemeral, transitive,
temporary—like fame, which especially in the
entertainment business is often not about the work but
in being at the right place at the right time, or,
alternatively, having the right connections. However,
what fuels fame to outsize proportions and beyond its
shelf life, which is not unlike that of a carton of
milk, is indeed the work—and that is why Nora Aunor
thinks nothing of acknowledging her seemingly diminished
fame, or of the public knowing that she hauls laundry to
laundromat. Or why she refuses to mind the vultures in
the entertainment industry gleefully spreading all sorts
of nasty talk about her.
Because
after all has been said and done, after the media have
declared that yet another star has been born, there is
The Work—her tormented World War II ingénue in
Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos, her humiliated fan in
Bona, her misguided visionary in Himala, her
haunted vigilante in Bakit May Kahapon Pa?, among
many other thoroughly unforgettable characters and
performances—that will go on and on and on and on, not
only lingering in the minds of her fans, old and new,
but also referenced by those who follow after her and
regard with the deepest respect the brilliant history of
the craft they now pursue.
Which
isn’t to suggest that the brilliance of Nora Aunor now
merely belongs to the past. No, not even remotely. As
The Superstar has said in her Startalk interview,
for as long as there is even one person out there
wanting to hear her sing and see her act, she will
continue to do so. Now, where can I buy a lifetime pass,
Guy? |
The
View