The last days of Nida

The last time I saw her on Sunday (Nov. 4) evening at the (71st) birthday party of Armida Siguion-Reyna at Hotel Intercon’s Bahia, Nida Blanca was merrily dancing the Boogie with Behn Cervantes. She came in black with husband Rod Lauren, about 30 minutes after the power came back following a Luzon-wide blackout. No, there was no premonition at all that in barely 48 hours, she’d be gone. What a brutal, gory and horrible way to go for such a gentle lady, well-loved by everybody in and out of the industry!

Dorothy Jones (from Gapan, Nueva Ecija) in real life, Nida was also at Annebelle Rama’s birthday bash a few days earlier (Tuesday, Oct. 30) in White Plains where Nida and the Gutierrezes (Annabelle and husband Eddie Gutierrez and their kids) have been neighbors for years. As usual, Nida was with Rod. They had been inseparable for years. Nida’s only daughter by her first marriage, Katherine (Kaye), lives in the States.

More than the awards she has won and all the praises and accolades for her acting (she was great both as a comedienne and as a drama actress), Nida will be fondly remembered for being a nice person, known and admired for not having a single enemy. She was everybody’s friend, which is, in the final analysis, what counts and what matters most in a person – her goodness, not so much her achievements; what she is/ was, not so much what she has/had in material terms.

As a parting piece for Nida, I am reprinting Nida and Her Many Loves, initially published in the Daily Express’ Sunday magazine Weekend on Oct. 7, 1984 and included in my book Star-Studded (a collection of 26 pieces, published in 1995).

Here it is:

"Sa totoo lang," Nida Blanca reveals, 32 years after she and Nestor de Villa were launched as a loveteam in Dalawang Sundalong Kanin (1952, LVN Pictures), "hindi ako niligawan ni Nestor. Isnabero ’yan noon. Ni hindi ako pinapansin. I was only 16 at that time at patakbo-takbo ako sa loob ng studio, patomboy-tomboy, while Nestor went around with another group. Hindi ko siya noon ka-grupo. He’s older, mga ilang years lang naman, at wala siyang panahon sa akin. Walang manligaw sa akin noon. Takot sila. Matapang kasi ako, e."

But the late Ninoy Aquino wasn’t afraid. He dared court Miss Galawgaw who was also the Original Miss Taray. He was 19 then.

"I was being made up in the studio dressing room when I first met Ninoy," Nida recalls with undisguised amusement. "He was robust and very lovable. He was with Bert (Avellana) and Bonnie (Serrano, deceased). Sabi ni Bert, ’You think she’ll do?’ addressing Ninoy. Ninoy answered, ‘She’s perfect!’ I didn’t know what they were talking about."

It turned out that Lila Luna was getting married and she couldn’t do the role of a Korean girl in the war-drama Korea, penned by Ninoy, Nida’s fifth movie. The picture would win for her the Best Supporting Actress Award in the first FAMAS rites in 1952. Ninoy was then a correspondent of the Manila Times, covering the Korean War.

"Have you read the book about Ninoy which came out recently?" Nida asks. "In one chapter, it is mentioned that Ninoy had an affair with LVN star Nida Blanca. Diyos ko, shocked ang beauty ko when I read it! Pero pinabayaan ko na lang; hindi na lang ako nag-react. Sa totoo lang, hindi man lang ako nahalikan ni Ninoy! He was a gentleman. Hanggang akbay lang sa balikat ko ’yan because he had the habit of putting his arm around your shoulder when he was explaining something. On the set, he was always there, explaining to us the characters. The movie, you see, was based on a true story. But we became good friends. Siya palagi ang nagdadala ng make-up box ko sa set."

The other guy who dared court (LVN matriarch) Doña Sisang’s "Spoiled Brat" was Bonnie Serrano (then already a colonel in the army). Serrano was tall, towering over the 5-foot-tall Nida who would shrink in embarrassment every time Serrano asked her in their eagle-eyed mother’s presence, of course, to grow up faster "para magkabagay ang taas natin."

"I guess kaya nag-lie low si Ninoy dahil nag-usap sila ni Bonnie," Nida now suspects. "Ninoy, I think, began courting Carmencita (Abad). He and Bonnie were good friends, pareho kasing papunta-punta sa Korea. Bonnie would drop by our house on Beata Street in Pandacan and make paalam sa akin at sa Nanay ko. Ma-drama pa ’yan. He would cut a P50 bill, give one-half to me and keep the other half. ‘Pagbalik ko,’ sasabihin niyan, ’pagdudugtungin natin uli at igagasta natin.’ Bonnie and I, like Ninoy and me, also ended up as good friends."

The topic – The Untold Love Stories of Nida Blanca – cropped up one drizzly afternoon during an interview with Nida at her sprawling White plains home while we were leafing through a well-preserved scrapbook circa 1950-1954 which chronicles Nida’s entrance to the movie world in 1952 (after trying her luck, to no avail, in singing contests on radio) until she bought (at the then staggering amount of P40,000) her dream bungalow on Central Boulevard, a stone’s throw away from the LVN Studio.

Nida was the original Cinderella of Local Movies. In a movie magazine article, the late scriptwriter/director/newsman Cesar Amigo wrote: "Nida lived in an obscure frame house that rattled to its very foundations and threatened to collapse several times a day as the southbound trains roared across Pandacan, Manila, where she lived with her family. At 20, Nida has her P40,000 dream house purely out of the spunk and the aggressiveness and the vitality with which she has captivated the nation’s movie audiences..."

The age was, of course, "fake." In 1954, Nida was only 18, having started at the LVN Studio at 16 in 1952. Nida had to lie to Doña Sisang about her age after having been rejected by Sampaguita and Premiere, two other members of Moviedom’s Big Four at that time (the fourth was Lebran Films), because she was too young and too small.

"At LVN," says Nida, "I was notorious for being hot-headed. Sobra ang temper ko noon. Everytime may gulong nangyayari sa studio, ang unang tanong kaagad ni Doña Sisang ay, ‘Si Nida na naman ba ’yon?’ Ako kaagad ang No. 1 suspect. Ang image ko noon hindi lang galawgaw kundi basagulera at walang control. Kaya nga walang lumigaw-ligw sa akin noon, e!"

It was her Famous Temper that got her into that Infamous Slapping Incident in 1953 which nearly wrecked her promising career. She was rushing to UST one late afternoon for her pre-law classes when her car was bumped by a passenger jeepney. As if to add insult to injury, the jeepney driver called her names, calling her "mayabang porke’t sikat na artista," even before Nida could confront him. In the heated argument that ensued, Nida slapped the jeepney driver not once but thrice. The next day, the jeepney driver went to Rafael Yabut’s then popular radio program and, along with Yabut, denounced Nida.

"My Mom woke me up when she heard the radio," Nida recalls, without bitterness in her voice. "Kahit ayaw ng Nanay ko, sumugod ako sa programa ni Yabut para magpaliwanag. That same afternoon, headline ako sa mga diyaryo. At that time, Yabut’s program was so popular that if he denounced you for whatever reason on the air, you were as good as finished."

Unknown to Nida, while she was appealing for understanding from the public on Yabut’s program, Huk Kumander Amat was listening in the mountains of Laguna. Nida was saying at that moment: "Hindi naman ako mananampal ng tao nang walang dahilan. Nagmukha naman akong dumi sa mga salitang ginamit niya sa akin. Ang kasalanan ko lang siguro ay naging impulsive ako."

"‘Yan ang narinig ni Kumander Amat at naawa siya sa akin dahil hindi man lang ako ipinagtanggol ni Yabut," says Nida.

Public opinion was against her. One day, Nida received a letter from Kumander Amat, instructing her in detail to act as mediator with the government for his and his comrades’ surrender, and it would surely gain favorable publicity for Nida which was what she badly needed at that time.

So every weekend for two months, Nida and a companion secretly met with Amat and his comrades, keeping the plan secret from the LVN bosses. She spoke to the rebels in the mountains, urging anti-government forces to come down. Kumander Amat and 14 other Huk Kumanders later surrendered to President Ramon Magsaysay through Nida’s intercession and the incident was played up in the media, completely erasing the black eye created by the Slapping Incident.

"That incident," says Nida, "turned me into a mature person overnight. It could have ended my career. I didn’t realize it then. It’s only now when I look back that I do. Napaka-impulsive ko talaga noon."

It must have been also her impulsiveness that drove Nida to marry Ruth Torres in 1957 when she was 21 and at the height of her career. Nida had just broken off with Cirio Santiago at that time, following a quarrel caused by Nida’s kissing scene with Nestor in Turista. In that scene, Nestor was bidding Nida goodbye before leaving for Tokyo and Nestor kissed her, very lightly now and very fast, on her lips.

"Cirio saw the movie at the premiere showing at nagalit siya," Nida continues. "I wasn’t able to attend the premiere because I was down with the flu at the hospital. Nestor and I kept rehearsing and rehearsing for our dance number for the premiere night at pagdating ng premiere night saka pa ako na-ospital. Ruth, then an architecture student, was with Celia Flor’s group when Celia visited me at the hospital. Doon kami nagkakilala. He would send me flowers every day after that. When I went home, araw-araw bisita ko na siya. My mother, who was very strict, was angry. Sabi niya, ’Ano ba ’yan, bagong kilala lang, bisita na nang bisita.’ E, 21 na ako noon kaya nag-rebelde ako. Sabi ko, teka nga..."

Her marriage to Ruth lasted no longer than five years. Today, Nida and her and Ruth’s daughter, Katherine, remain close to Ruth.

"Kami man ni Ruth," says Nida, "we are good friends until now."

When Nida married Ruth, she was willing to give up her career to settle down as a plain housewife. But Doña Sisang said no, "Huwag kang magsasalita ng tapos," and asked Nida to take a vacation instead and return to the movies as soon as she had slimmed down after giving birth to Katherine.

"It’s hard when your husband doesn’t understand your career," says Nida. "Iba kasi ang field niya. It was a hard choice for me to make. But I feel that I made the right choice."

After Ruth, Nida had a three-year romance with a semi-retired action star who is now married to a former beauty queen. Their romance ended abruptly when Nida caught the action star red-handed with a woman (a starlet who never made it) at the entrance of a motel.

"Ako," says Nida with a laugh, "walang kadala-dala. I am the type kasi who doesn’t harbor ill feelings. Sobra ang pagka-optimistic ko at pagka-positive thinker."

In 1965 right after she broke off with the action star, Nida met Rod Lauren, now her second husband. Rod, an American actor-singer, was here at that time as a member of the cast of John Derek’s No Toys For Christmas which was filmed here. It was a casual meeting at Nida and Nestor’s TV show where Rod was appearing as guest. They dated but that was all. Rod came back after eight months for a singing engagement at the Alba Supper Club and they saw each other again.

"It was a casual kind of friendship," says Nida. "I couldn’t be serious with him because I knew he would have to leave again."

Nida was "uncommitted" when Romy Jalosjos, then a TV executive and now a Mambabatas Pambansa, walked into her life. They wanted to get married in Hong Kong but some hitch cropped up at the last minute.

Now it can be told: "Nandoon na kami sa Hong Kong pero walang nangyari. When we came back, pinalabas naming kasal kami kahit hindi."

Her romance with Romy, with whom she lived for more than three years, ended on a sad note. Nida doesn’t want to go into details now. Suffice it to say that another woman came into the picture.

"Doon ko na-realize," says Nida, "that no legal bond can tie two people to each other when love is gone."

She also realized that no marriage paper is needed for two people to see eye-to-eye on many things when she went steady with Bert Leroy, Jr. for eight years (until 1979 when Bert migrated to the States).

"We didn’t live together. He had his house. I had my house. It was an open kind of relationship. We didn’t keep things from each other. It was a comfortable kind of relationship. Hindi nakakasakal. Maluwag kaming nakakahinga."

As usual, another woman came into the picture and the lovers had to part ways.

The next year, Nida went to the States with daughter Kathy and, by chance, she dialed Rod Lauren’s number to say hello. That phone call went a long way, leading to their marriage in 1979. Rod was then already divorced from his second wife (by whom he has one child; he has another child by his first wife).

"He understands my career as an actress perfectly well," says Nida. "Sometimes, when he sees me working so hard, he feels so sorry for me pa nga."

Nida has maintained friendship with the men she has been involved with and it’s because, she says, "may respeto pa rin ako sa kanila and they respect me." One time during Kathy’s birthday, four of them – Ruth, Romy, Bert and Rod – found themselves face-to-face with one another and they talked like the dignified gentlemen that they are.

"Ako," says Nida, a vegetarian, "hindi marunong magtanim ng galit. It’s bad for the health, mental and physical. Ayokong mag-store ng ill feelings. Masama ’yun. Nakakapangit. And my being a vegetarian helps a lot. Hindi na ako masyadong ma-temper ngayon."

(Postscript: Romy Jalosjos is now serving a life sentence for rape at the National Penitentiary. He has been reelected Zamboanga Representative. The action actor has separated from his beauty-queen wife while Bert Leroy, Jr., divorced from his first wife who’s the daughter of a newsman, now lives with his second wife and children in the States.)