Lea and Michael: Can marriage be far behind?

Last January in Funfare’s traditional (annual) Mga Halu-Halong Hula-Hula, I predicted that Lea Salonga and her new boyfriend, Michael Lee, would break up before their relationship could bloom into a beautiful romance while at the same time wishing that my hula wouldn’t come true (as did most of the other hula-hula).

Well, like the famously notorious Madame Auring (she has been intriguingly silent during the last elections… or didn’t you miss her usual hula-hula?). I could also be wrong. My own crystal ball (now kept inside an antique baul, to be dusted off in January next year) sometimes fails me, you know (darn that ball!), as it does this time I suspect in the case of Lea and Michael.

The two are obviously and unquestionably so in love with each other that, this early, I guess I have to "concede."

I saw the couple being lovey-dovey with my very own eyes during my recent vacation in The Big Apple where, incidentally, I did an interview with Lea on her having been tapped as the new image model for Bayo (Ilonggo term for baro, as in damit), slated for a grand launch first week of June. My fellow "witnesses" were Bulletin’s Shirley Pizarro (who proceeded from New York to Toronto to join her husband Bong) and Ferdinand Agustin, president of Lyncor, Inc. (maker of Bayo), who accompanied us on the trip.

We met with Lea on May 1, Tuesday (when the pro-Erap stormed Malacañang), 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Marriott Hotel in Manhattan where Ferdie was billeted. Lea came alone, via the subway just like every New Yorker was, direct from a TV studio where she had just taped an episode for the primetime soap As The World Turns where she plays a lawyer (a role that requires drastic image change for Lea). As The World Turns, in case you didn’t know, has been running these past 45 years, – yes, 45 years! Lea was hired late last January when she got back to New York after completing a three-month stint (again as Kim) in the Manila staging of Miss Saigon. Lea is so good on the soap that the producers have decided to extend the one season (good for three months) she originally signed up for to, well, indefinitely.

After the interviews, Lea invited us to a sumptuous dinner at a, you guessed it, Korean restaurant on 32nd St./ Broadway, called Kum Gang San, where Michael was waiting for us at the lobby.

Along the way, Lea acted like any ordinary citizen and that’s what she likes about New York, her second home, I’m sure. She can move freely, without people and fans gawking at her (even if they recognize her), and therefore she can be herself.

"It’s just around the corner," Lea told us as soon as we got off a cab that brought us to Broadway. "Just a few blocks away. We’ll walk."

The "few blocks" turned out to be 20 blocks, enough to make a sedentary Manilan huff and puff but not a New Yorker like Lea who walked fast, very fast, arriving at the Korean restaurant fresh and smiling, unlike the three of us promdis who were catching for breath.

Three days earlier, Lea did an SRO concert in Atlantic City, with Michael as surprise guest performer with whom Lea sang The Gift after Michael did a solo number (This is The Moment).

On that show, according to somebody who was there, Michael corrected certain misinformation about him – yes, he’s a Korean-American and not, take note, Singaporean-American; and that he’s offended when he’s described by the Manila press as "chinky-eyed" (chinky has a derogatory connotation, just as Negro has a negative effect on Blacks). In short, Michael is, yes, chinito.

You know, of course, how Lea and Michael first met – right onstage at the AFP Theater last year when they performed together in the musical They’re Playing Our Song. Michael, based in Los Angeles, took over from Singaporean actor Adrian Pang, during the last four weekends of the presentation.

There was no courtship at all.

"We looked at each other’s eyes," recalled Lea, "and there was magic."

Did their kissing scene have something to do with that "magic"?

Laughed Lea, "Maybe. I don’t know. It did, perhaps."

During the dinner, Lea and Michael (who was leaving for L.A. the next day) would exchange bites of the Korean goodies, looking into each other’s eyes with the fondness common in people intensely in love.

After the usual picture-taking (for souvenir, you know), I asked Lea to autograph my sealed chopsticks. She wrote: Dear Ricky, God bless and may your hula be wrong. Love, Lea.

Now, with Lea pushing 32 (Michael is just as old), can marriage be far behind?

I could see the twinkle in Lea’s eyes as she and Michael waved goodbye to us on Broadway, before disappearing into the subway station, anonymously blending with the late-night crowd.

While in Jersey City (where I stayed in my friend Raoul Tidalgo’s pad), I didn’t get to see former actress Edna Diaz (remember her?) but I has a brief chat with her on the phone. I wanted to talk to Edna after Raoul gave me a copy of her latest photo as Mrs. Penafrancia during the Bicolanos’ celebration in New Jersey on June 26.

Edna and husband Rene Perez migrated to the States 22 years ago. They now have two grown-up children – Rainier, 21, a Brookdale College B.S. Management graduate now working as assistant manager of Radio Shack; and Rachelle, 19, a Computer Science student at Rutgars College.

Still as sexy as ever (judging from her photo), Edna works at the reimbursement department of St. Barnaba’s Health Care in New Jersey while Rene is a comptroller at the CCS Management Company.

During her heyday, Edna starred in more than 30 films, the last one having been Lumakad Kang Hubad sa Mundong Ibabaw directed by Leonardo Belen. She came home for a vacation three years ago and guested on Kuya Germs’ Master Showman.

Asked if she missed showbiz, Edna understandably said, "Of course, I do. That’s why when I’m invited to affairs like this (Penafrancia celebration), oo kaagad ako."

(Note: Funfare will be dishing out juicy and delicious slices of The Big Apple in-between servings of native goodies. Watch for them.)