Alice: What’s the real score?

Curtain-raisers:

* An avid Funfare reader (and, I should add, a keen showbiz-watcher) swears that, without telling me what, the following actors have one thing in common (at random now): Joey Marquez, Joey de Leon, Vic Sotto, Dolphy, Francis Magalona, Janno Gibbs, Chad Borja, Ronaldo Valdez, Raymart Santiago, Randy Santiago, Ogie Alcasid, Jestoni Alarcon, Phillip Salvador and Bong Revilla. Could it be, uh, the "comic streak" in them? "And the winner is," he said, "Francis Magalona!"

* Jose Mari Chan’s Beautiful Girl is the background song for the TV commercial for Mister Donut (featuring Miriam Quiambao) and not Dunkin’ Donuts as Funfare wrongly mentioned in a past column.

* Osteria Italia, partly owned by Ara Mina, and the café behind it (along Tomas Morato, Quezon City) has gone out of business. So soon? How come? What happened?

* * *

Just because Alice Dixson is here and her husband, Ronnie Miranda (younger brother of former GMA executive Raymund Miranda now doing very well as head of Disney Channel in Singapore) has opted to remain in Vancouver doesn’t mean, according to Alice, that their three-year-old marriage has hit the rocks.

When Alice came home last last year, she planned only to take care of her ailing father (who, along with the other members of Alice’s family, are now based in the US). But then, she got an offer she couldn’t refuse: A starring role in the GMA 7 soap Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (with Richard Gomez and Christopher de Leon, among others) and a talk show.

"I did ask Ronnie’s opinion before I accepted the offer," explained Alice who’s spending Christmas here alone for the first time in her life, "and he gave me a free hand to decide. He told me, ‘I don’t want you to be asking yourself later, what if?’ It’s a good offer, so..."

There are movie offers but Alice is still, you know, mulling over them. Next year, she’ll start shooting a TV commercial that will surely catch people’s attention the way her Palmolive Shampoo "I can feel it!" commercial did several years ago.

In Vancouver, Ronnie is busy propping up a new business he has put up and it has nothing to do with computer graphics like his first venture. Alice and Ronnie were married in Vancouver where they planned to settle down in the Koquitlam area (with Joey Albert and her family as neighbors) until she was forced to come home to take care of her father and to sort out titles to their family properties here.

No, Alice and Ronnie haven’t been family-planning. In fact, early last year, Alice suffered a miscarriage.

"With Ronnie’s business and my (newly-revived) career here," said Alice, "we have deferred our plan to have another baby."

Digital imaging

Several issues ago, Funfare featured Aubrey Miles in three eye-catching poses (one with wings like an angel, another semi-nude and the third resting in a barn). Those pictures caught a lot of attention, as expected.

Credit should go to Willis Laddaran who has been into "digital image" photography for two years now, a technique Willis learned from John Chua. "Digital imaging" is a relatively new photography technique using a special kind of camera attached to a computer. The rest is... trade "secret"?

A PSBA Commerce graduate, Willis takes such beautiful photographs that are as real as, yes, life. One of his works has Tessa Nieto as model. Tessa was The STAR Face of the Year in 1998, the second to win the title in the year-long search conducted by the formerly STAR Mode (now Allure) section.

Anytime now, Willis might team up with Dondon Monteverde in an advertising/events-organizing business. Meanwhile, those interested in enlisting Willis’ services may call 0917-5249466 or landline 2440262.