Not that we were dead wrong on Dolphy overall.
He was indeed guilty of scattering his seed whenever and wherever it pleased him, and to hell with society, to hell with the Good Book. He had plenty of what Panchito said he had – siling labuyo. And siling labuyo was what the women loved about Dolphy. He was a passionate lover with the weapon to match, and what a weapon many swore upon their astonished breath. But when he lighted upon Zsa Za Padilla, we said that was too much. He should have left the young, lovely and happily married lady alone and not broken up her family. Many wanted to bust Dolphy in the snoot.
Dolphy was, in a word, flabbergasted. He felt his love life was his own business and nobody else’s and if the wimmen wanted to swoon with him in the boudoir – well, so what? Inggit lang kayo. It took time before his many critics would leave well enough alone, and not because his libido had abated. Time heals in a way. Besides he stuck to Zsa Zsa who herself suffered a lot and was punched black and blue by society.
It was the other dimension of his life – his career as a comedian. Dolphy at that time also felt he was through. He contemplated living the rest of his life in America. After all, he was already rich, could rest on his many laurels. His last big success was John en Marsha where with Nida Blanca, a comedian – pyrotechnical and pixie – he made the nation laugh again as it did watching his many movies. His favorite comedian, of course, was the immoral Charlie Chaplin, The Tramp. And it showed. Without saying anything, Dolphy like Chaplin, could make his audience laugh, chortle and guffaw even with a mere twitch of his moustache and a sinking, rolling movement of his eyes.
Mexico’s mercurial Cantinflas also showed. This was the grand, worldless gesture, the arm sweep toward the Casbah, the exaggerated hip movement, the eyes dilating into Cyclopean astonishment. Outside of that, Dolphy was Dolphy, a Filipino original. His predecessors hardly had any influence on him. Certainly not Togo and Pugo, next to Dolphy extraordinary comedians themselves, excelling in slapstick, hee-haw and bugoy mannerisms. Certainly not Gregorio Ticman, Tolindoy, Tugak and Pugak, Billy (Surot) Vizcarra. In America, in the wake of Chaplin there were Laurel and Hardy, Red Skelton, Jimmy (Schnozolla) Durante, Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello. But none reverberated on Dolphy as Charlie Chaplin did.
Ah, yes. Dolphy could sing and he could dance. I think that was how he started, singing and dancing in the old cinema houses of Manila up north. Not a great voice really, but enough to complement his sometimes rollicking, sometimes bawdy, sometimes athletic body movements. But he could dance. He had a lithe, agile figure, almost like a javelin. He could boogie, and waltz and tango. Just several nights ago, during the 10th anniversary of Home Along Da Riles, he danced elegantly with Maricel Soriano, sang with many other celebrities including Sharon Cuneta, Aga Muhlach, and Cesar Montano.
It was a nostalgic moment when he sang To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before. His eyes flickered with memory, with enchanted moments relived, with echoes of so many romantic waves dappling on a cove, of love coming and going, and melting on the beach. And he sang this in a duet with Sen. Noli de Castro, who surprisingly had a great singing voice. It was Noli, still ABS-CBN top anchor then, who asked Dolphy what his secret was in the art of seducing women. Dolphy’s answer was brief and to the point: Pag pumalag, kalimutan mo na. Pag hindi pumalag, huwag mo ng bitiwan, tuloy-tuloy na."
Dolphy proved his critics wrong. He was not washed out as a comedian. They said almost everything he did was déjà vu, stale repeats, comic dances that failed to come off, lines that no longer sparkled like leaping salmon.
I chanced upon Home Along Da Riles shortly after its inception. At the time it was still ramshackle, Dolphy still groping for the right theme, Nova Villa flinging her arms a little bit too much, Vandolph almost just right, the children led by Claudine Barretto, James Blanco, saving the situation. But it didn’t take long. One Dolphy got his role going as Kevin, Nova as Azon, the laughter came through like a naughty brook. Dolphy explained afterward that what made Home Along Da Riles click was the sense of family however poor. But even more than the sense of family, in fact enriching it, was the wellspring of laughter, laughter that drew filial bonds tighter, laughter that locked into deep-seated emotions, drying the tears before they ate into the skin.
As he ages, Dolphy’s sense of timing gets better.
There are not too many wasted movements to court marginal laughter. The sense of humor remains sharp, vivid. When asked if he would consider running for the presidency, his reply was the smack of whimsy, the point of a paper dagger: "No, definitely. As I said before madaling tumakbo, pero natatakot ako baka manalo." That was the wisdom of the wise. Erap Esrada never thought of that. Erap was the Cruise missile that pummeled into space, formidable as it soared. But it proved to be a dud upon landing, a mass of ugly, concentrated steel dead to the world.
It was in 1969, upon my return to the Philippines after a four-year absence that Dolphy struck my fancy again. With Panchito, he brought Buhay Artista to high ground. He would, on Panchito’s prodding, translate staid and straight Tagalog to high-faluting, richly bombastic English and this would bring the house down. But it was in John en Marsha that the authentic Dolphy came out. He was a clumsy but well meaning husband to suffering but good-natured wife Nida Blanca, a peach of a girl and an actress until many years, later, she was murdered in cold blood.
Ten years of Home Along Da Riles brought out the best in Dolphy.
He refined comedy to non-exaggeration, made his face talk more than his body. He was Itay Kevin, Tatay Kevin, Tito Kevin, fatherly, avuncular, loved, pealing out laughter from an impoverished family whose rickety dwelling shuddered convulsively everytime a train passed by. Nova Villa came into her own, the waif that was Claudine Barretto grew into a comedy colleen, James Blanco helped draw the family together, and Vandolph, vibrant chip of the old block, emerged as a natural comedian.
How to draw the deathless magic of laughter from such a materially handicapped family is the essence of this 10-year sitcom. It is very Filipino.
Now he no longer lusted after women. In an interview with Ricky Lo, Dolphy said (asked what he would tell God if they were face to face): "Accept me, God". He would have been a seaman if he missed the world of entertainment, a Joseph Conrad bewitched by the ocean and its many marvels. A sweetheart in every port, that would have been perfect for this young, and fast and footloose Filipino.
He was never really the perfect father, he just begat babies by the baker’s dozen. But he suffered. Quite a number of his children grew up the wrong way, some landing in jail for grave crimes. But he took material care of all of them, whatever their trespasses. Dolphy was overly generous. The ultimately agony was when Vandolph almost died in a car accident, Vandolph who took after Dolphy in almost every way. When Vandolph woke up from a weeks-long coma, that was Dolphy’s "happiest moment". It was perhaps his signal from Divine Providence that many of his sins had been forgiven.
But Dolphy wasn’t done yet.
Life was still an insalata, still crunchy, to be savored, to be tasted to the full, his youngest children with Zsa Zsa now the apple of his eye although he said he loved them all. He said he wanted to write his autobiography, a book about success that the young could learn from. It would have been embarrassing if he had been asked about Alma Moreno, Lotis Key and the many others who succumbed to the charms of this restless, tireless, insatiable Don Giovanni with an unerring eye for beauty and fiery female flesh. How wild was he really? How woolly, how kinky? He said he looked at the face first, then the boobs, then the behind. And then he was ready to prove himself a man among men. Yes, he was the siling labuyo of his time. But that, as Dolphy now says, is a thing of the past.
He probably met his match in Zsa Zsa Padilla, a lovely if there ever was one. The comedian was gone in a flicker, the wanderer, the eternal Don Juan as he turned 74 Monday. He said: Zsa Zsa, huwag mo akong iwanan. Mamamatay ako.