Billy Crawford’s GQ splash

Curtain-raisers:

• Now that she’s on maternity leave, anticipating the birth of her and husband Dingdong Avanzado’s first child (a girl, to be named Jayda) first week of June, Jessa Zaragoza has been replaced in the ABS-CBN soap Bituin by Kuh Ledesma (as a record producer). Bituin will end last week of May with a finale featuring lead star Nora Aunor in a big concert.

• Could it be true that Ryan Agoncillo has been "missing" from tapings for his and Pia Guanio’s show on the ANC Channel? What gives? Is Ryan thinking of packing his things and moving, ehem, somewhere else?

• It’s final: Julius Babao will be the regular co-anchor of Korina Sanchez in TV Patrol, with Henry Omaga-Diaz as their "in the field" third co-anchor. Funfare DPAs said that Aljo Bendijo will be appearing exclusively on MUB (Magandang Umaga, Bayan).

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A few issues ago, I mentioned that Billy Crawford was featured in the recent (March, 2003) "Hollywood Issue" of GQ magazine. As promised, Funfare is reproducing the two-page and full-page spread in the portion about forthcoming horror flicks.

Here’s the full text:

Could it be... Satan? Back in the early ’70s, there were more than a few scary things out there in the culture (men wearing clogs, for one). But surely, nothing topped the 1973 movie The Exorcist which triggered regular bouts of hysteria and fainting and possibly one miscarriage in theaters across America. Well, get set for more. Prince of Darkness Paul Schrader is currently on location in Morocco shooting a prequel in which Pazuzu, the dyspeptic demon who made a pre-Rick James Linda Blair wet the carpet, inhabits a boy (pop star Billy Crawford). Stellan Skarsgard (starring in Lars Von Trier’s Dogville this fall) plays a younger, less world-weary Father Merrin who is aided in his demon wrangling by Father Francis (Gabriel Mann, appearing this spring in Buffalo Soldiers). Clara Bellar is the nurse with no medical cure for the seriously illin’ young boy.

Obviously, Liam Neeson has bowed out of the cast. I remember asking Neeson about Billy in September last year when I interviewed him in New York for K-9: The Widowmaker, his co-starrer with Harrison Ford, and Neeson acknowledged, "Yes, he’s the talented Filipino actor."

A superstar in his own right in Europe (he won yet another "pop-star" award in Cannes a few months ago during a music festival), Billy has been making waves no other Filipino actor-singer has ever done before.

This time last year when he was here on vacation (extended because he broke his jaw during a fall in the bathroom), Billy promoted his album Trackin’ (released by BMG Pilipinas, Inc.). He told a handful of movie writers that the producers of Exorcist The Prequel initially wanted a Black actor for the role of the possessed boy but they changed their plan lest people start asking, "Oh, why do Black people have to be possessed?"

How did Billy get the role?

"It was my manager who worked it out. They were looking for kids between 15 and 19 years old. My manager thought I looked ‘evil’ in one of my pictures and he sent it to the producers who get interested. To make a long story short, at the end of the auditions, there were only three of us left from the hundreds who applied. And then there was only me."

There were rumors that Billy was coming home to attend the debut of KC Concepcion last April 7 (the two having once been romantically linked). But Billy must have been too busy shooting Exorcist The Prequel to sneak back home.

Pinoy dude competes in int’l tilt

Here’s a report by Funfare’s "beauty experts" Joey Cezeare, Gery Yumping, Francis Calubaquib and Felix Manuel:

The latest report about our Philippine bet Aizza Francesca Brinas (featured in Funfare April 8 issue) who competed in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia for the title Miss Tourism Intercontinental last April 12, is that she was among the 10 semi-finalists. Miss South Africa Charlene Gerber beat 31 other contestants to win the title of Miss Tourism Intercontinental 2003. Miss Ukraine Alina Seleznyova was adjudged first runner-up and Miss Australia Jessica Catherine second runner-up.

Another Philippine bet is competing in an international male personality beauty pageant in the "Land of Eternal Spring," Guatemala, for the title of Mr. Tourism World.

He is 23-year-old Gino Paulo Tuballes Fajardo, a ramp and print-ad model from Pasay City. It‘s the second Mr. Tourism World pageant.

Elite Philippines national franchise holder Romulo Ancheta Jr. introduced Gino during his send-off luncheon party at the Tiara Oriental Hotel in Makati City last April 16. He was selected from among eight aspirants at a closed-session door in Celebrity Sport Plaza, Diliman, Quezon City.

Born on Dec. 14, 1979, Gino graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and Management from San Beda College. An only child of Cesar Fajardo, a lawyer, and former Nita Tuballes, a former Meralco employe, he stands 5’11" and won several other local male personality contests including Mr. Marketing of San Beda 2001 as first runner-up and Circle of Ten (Image Model Search) 2000.

He left April 23 for Los Angeles via PAL enroute to Mexico City then Guatemala via Mexicana Airlines. He excudes confidence and said he would do his best to represent the Philippines in the Mr. Tourism World 2003 Finals slated for April 27 at Del Rio Resort Ballroom in Guatemala City.

He is also vying for the title of Mr. Tourism World Internet. You may vote for him through Internet www.mrtourism-world.com.

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