Raymond and Lara: What’s the real score?

Just because it seems to be the season of break-ups doesn’t mean that everybody is breaking up.

This year alone, several couples have confirmed that they’ve gone to splitsville, including Parañaque Mayor Joey Marquez and Alma Moreno, Quezon City Councilor Aiko Melendez and Jomari Yllana, Regine Tolentino and Lander Vera-Perez, Geneva Cruz and KC Montero, Wendell Ramos and his non-showbiz wife… and, wait, would any of you know any more addition to the fast-growing list?

If you say Raymond Bagatsing and Lara Fabregas, I’ll be the first to react that it’s not true. Well, you’ve been hearing rumors that the couple is also breaking up, have you? I guess your first reaction is the same as mine or that of many others, "So soon? Haven’t they been married for barely a year (at Indian rites in Tagaytay City)? Why, is there any ‘third party’?"

The answers to all those questions are a big no.

"We’ve never been happier," Raymond told Funfare through her manager, Bibsy Carballo. "Masaya kami ni Lara, salamat po!"

Last Christmas, Raymond and Lara spent a vacation with Raymond’s mom in Australia. Currently, the two and some other people are conducting a summer acting workshop. Raymond is now preparing to take the entrance exams at UP where he plans to enroll in June.

No, the couple doesn’t plan to have a baby yet – "Maybe in three years time," according to Lara. In the meantime, they just want to enjoy each other’s company and concentrate on their careers.

Can you name their ‘firsts’?

Here again is an interesting contribution from Funfare-friendly Paul R. Mortel of Marikina City:

When you’re asked in game shows like Game KNB? about the first films made by your favorite Hollywood actors and actresses, chances are that you will not be able to give the right answers. Here then is a list of "First Films":

1. Paul Newman

• First Film: The Silver Chalice (1954)

• The Role: Newman plays Basil, a Roman slave selected to make the chalice for Jesus’ last meal because he can whittle better than anyone in Jerusalem. Publicity posters called it "the mightiest story of good and evil ever told, ever lived, ever made into a motion picture." Newman called it "the worst film in the entirety of the 1950s’" at one point. He even took out a magazine ad urging people not to see it."

2. Meryl Streep

• First Film: Julia (1976)

• The Role: She plays a snooty, shallow friend of the lead character (played by Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave). If you blink, you might miss her. Her two scenes last a total of 61 seconds and her back is to the camera most of the time. She’s also wearing a black wig (which she hated).

• Memorable Line: "Oooh... You’re so famous"

3. Tom Hanks

• First Film: He Knows You’re Alone (1980)

• The Role: Hanks is on for 3.5 minutes in this low-budget psycho-slasher film. He plays a college student who meets two of the killer’s future victims and takes them on a date to a Staten Island amusement park. That’s about it.

• Memorable Line: "Want a goober?"

4. Jane Fonda

• First Film: Tall Story (1960)

• The Role: Not what you’d expect. The future feminist plays June, a 21-year-old Home Economics major and cheerleader who’s got her sights set on the school’s basketball star and top scholar (Anthony Perkins). Once she gets him – about a third of the way through the film – she fades into the background. The story then focuses on Perkin’s basketball dramas.

• Memorable Line: (On why she came to college) – "The same reason that every girl, if she’s honest, comes to college – to get married."

5. Nicolas Cage

• First Film: Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)

• The Role: "Brad’s Bud" – A part so small that the writers didn’t even bother giving him a name (or any lines). Most of his part was cut out, but you can still see him looking miserable behind the grill at all-American burger. He was billed as Nicolas Coppola, but got so much flak from the cast about being director Francis Coppola’s nephew that by his next film he’d changed his name to Cage.

6. Arnold Schwarzenegger

• First Film: Hercules In New York (1969) – Re-released on video as Hercules Goes Bananas

• The Role: Arnold plays Hercules, of course. Viewers get their first look at his pumped-up body (including a ludicrous scene in which he "bounces one pectoral muscle at a time"). But they never heard his voice. The 22-year-old Austrian’s accent was so thick, no one could understand him. Result: his entire part (but only his) had to be dubbed. The film is so bad that Schwarzenegger – who was originally billed as "Arnold Strong" – won’t acknowledge it.

• Memorable Line: (When a cabbie demands payment) "Bucks? Doe? What is all this zoological talk about the male and female species?"

7. Michelle Pfeiffer

• First Film: Hollywood Knights (1980)

• The Role: "Sporting her old nose and too much eye-liner... she (plays) Suzy Q, a carhop at Tubby’s drive-in, where her job requires her to wear tall, white go-go boots." On the side, she’s an aspiring actress and girlfriend of Tony Danza who also makes his screen debut in this "low-rent ripoff of American Graffiti.

• Memorable Line: "I Have an audition in the morning."

(Source: Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.)