On the silver screen, she had always been regarded as one of the greatest actresses in Philippine movies and a legendary beauty – a mixture of French-Egyptian and Filipino blood.
Turning 74 next week (Oct. 16), Rosa Rosal, of course, is no longer as young as the pinup girl that she was to Filipino soldiers sent to fight in the Korean War in the early ‘50s, but you have to admit that she still looks regal, fabulous and radiant to this day.
No, it’s not only her having a good genetic pool that’s working to her favor. "It’s vanity," she tells me. "I admit that I’ve always been vain," adds Ms. Rosal.
She claims that she took good care of her body very early in life – as a young actress in LVN. In her early 20s, she developed the habit of not eating at night because she had always been aware of the fact that whatever she ate, she won’t be able to burn while asleep. Obviously, that worked well for her because all those years, she was able to maintain a 22-inch waistline that has expanded to 28 today – which still isn’t all that bad considering her age.
Healthy eating habits – plus exercise (bending body in the morning and in the afternoon) – helped her maintain a great figure especially during her prime.
She was (and still is) more meticulous with her skin. Ms. Rosal recalls that while her female colleagues in LVN spent a fortune on bags and shoes (which all eventually went out of style – and had to wait for another fashion revival), she invested on skin care by buying the different types of creams and cosmetics available in the market here and in the US. Yes, she purchases the most expensive brands. ("Never scrimp on your skin," she would always tell daughter Toni Rose Gayda.) But sometimes even the ordinary cooking oil can be just as effective in preventing stretch marks – so she swears.
When she reached 40, she didn’t panic like most women (and even men) at the thought of aging. Neither did it bother her when she turned 50. "Age is just a number to me," she claims. Maybe she can say that because she looks younger than her actual age – thanks to good skin maintenance.
Even now that she is a grandmother of two grown-up boys – John and James – who are both old enough to get married and have kids and make her a great-grandmother, she still makes a lot of effort to maintain her skin.
No, she has never had a facelift – "because my face is too small and there’s nothing much to lift," she laughs.
But Ms. Rosal admits to having botox injections at the Belo Medical Center to erase those unsightly lines on her forehead before she did the soap opera Narito Ang Puso Ko, where she played a glamorous and powerful businesswoman who owned several corporations.
She was actually introduced to the Belo Medical Center by Toni Rose, who had been a Belo baby from way back – long before Dr. Vicki Belo became a household name.
In a separate chat, Toni Rose Gayda tells me that she swears by all Belo treatments. No, she’s not just saying that because she gets freebies. No, no, no. For the longest time, she was a paying client. She really set aside a fraction of her income because as a showbiz celebrity, she also has to invest on her looks – and apparently it’s paying off.
Not so long ago, I remember an incident at the GMA 7 studio in EDSA when we were waiting for our pre-programming show, Eat Bulaga, to turn over the floor to us Startalk hosts. We were looking at the monitor and were watching the Eat Bulaga hosts do their chores when our head writer Ricky Lopez suddenly said, "I don’t believe it. Toni Rose Gayda looks almost the same when she was still a Camay girl." I guess you can call that return of investment.
Toni Rose admits that she practically lives at the Belo Medical Center in Greenhills (in Connecticut St.). From Eat Bulaga, she proceeds there and checks the list of treatments being offered by the clinic like she’s going over a restaurant menu.
She ticks off a number of procedures she had so far. Lift 6, which improves the skin tone (it’s like a facial, except that it’s more relaxing), Lipo-lite, which evens the tone of the skin on the body and IPL, which helps tighten the skin and removes freckles that she often gets by staying under the sun.
Mother Rosa Rosal saw for herself how effective the Belo treatments were on her daughter that she – Ms. Rosal – was encouraged to go to the Belo Medical Center. (Mother and daughter had since brought in a lot of friends there and Toni swears that everyone has so far been satisfied with the Belo service.)
From Belo Medical Center Ms. Rosal gets meso-therapy treatment, which puts vitamins to the skin to make it younger-looking. Last month, when Dr. Belo found out that Rosa Rosal was a paying client, she gave a directive to the Greenhills branch not to charge Ms. Rosal anymore for the services. "Rosa Rosal is my idol," says Dr. Vicki Belo. "And after all that she has done for the Red Cross, the least I can do is give her free treatments."