From Lucky to Luis to Lulu Boy

Our very first memory of Luis Philippe Santos Manzano was in the ’80s when his famous mom Vilma Santos would constantly end her TV appearances with an “I love you Lucky!” The years went quickly and Lucky Manzano soon came into his own even as his parents Ate Vi and Edu Manzano were still active in the showbiz arena.

Surreptitiously, Lucky had begun to creep into our consciousness without us being aware of it, and had crafted an image with interests and specializations of his own. Today, at 31, he is no longer known as the son of award-winning parents, but Luis, graduate of HRM, VJ (the longest on MYX), model, film actor, dancer with the Kanto Boys and television host.

It was in hosting that Luis appeared to have excelled, honing his chops as TV host via ABS-CBN’s Laugh Out Loud, E! Live, Panahon ko ‘To: Ang Game Show ng Buhay ko, ASAP Live, Kapamilya Deal or No Deal, and Pilipinas Got Talent — the later three ongoing at the present. It is also from TV hosting that Luis won his awards — as Best Program Host for ASAP from PMPC Star Awards from 2003 to 2009; and as Best Talent Search host for Pilipinas Got Talent together with Billy Crawford from PMPC in 2010, and a Favorite Male TV host award in 2011 from Yahoo! OMG.  

We recall catching him in ASAP and Deal or No Deal and finding him adequately entertaining, but Edmund Sicam wanted more. In his column last August, he wrote: “Luis proved to be a likeable program host like his dad, Edu Manzano… Luis should watch tapes of his dad’s performance on Game KNB? to improve his hosting job.”

Luis with (from left) This Guy’s in Love with U, Mare director Wenn Deramas, and co-stars Vice Ganda and Toni Gonzaga

In attending the press conference of his latest comedy film This Guy’s in Love with U, Mare, we watched him promoting his first comedy movie project with Toni Gonzaga and Vice Ganda under box-office comedy director Wenn Deramas. This was our first to see Luis in person, and he appeared to truly belong to the milieu, answered every question including the personal ones, often with a joke. It helped tremendously that he had done five projects with Vice, as many with direk Wenn that they could read each other’s minds, and that he had once courted Toni for three years, which both joked about it now.

Still, we feel it does take some kind of stable personality to face the pressures of show business with a smile each day. We asked him through e-mail if he felt embarrassed by being called Lucky by his mom, an impression we and many others had; if he ever resented his Mom and Dad’s separation; and how his relationship with them was. He answered, “I have no idea how that even started, I was never embarrassed to be called Lucky… I never had any resentment towards my parents regarding their separation, not even for a bit... My mom and dad taught me not by lecture but by example, I saw how they treated people around them and how they loved their craft.”

In Pilipinas Got Talent (PGT), Luis was partnered with Billy Crawford and they quickly clicked to the point of having commercials together and calling each other Billy Boy and Lulu Boy. “It all started in ASAP but we became brothers through PGT... Our craziness and usual guy stuff from make-up, nice dresses… Oops, I meant sports, cars, etc.” Just like Lulu Boy to joke about the gay life. So much so that it was easy for him to play gay lover to John Lloyd Cruz’s character, with Gov. Vilma Santos as his mom in Star Cinema’s In My Life, directed by Olive Lamasan. This film got Luis the Best Supporting Actor from both PMPC Star Awards and Gawad Tanglaw.

Luis needled on his love life by the press

In the upcoming This Guy’s in Love with U, Mare, Vice and Luis play lovers who have broken up when Luis prepares to marry Toni. Vice then plays a man who goes after Toni to destroy their relationship. One can imagine the many hilarious moments from such a plot. Direk Wenn promised the press audience that if they were given a laugh a minute by Praybeyt Benjamin, this time they will be given a laugh a second. This Guy’s in Love with U, Mare opens on Oct. 10 nationwide.

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