49 years in showbiz and still counting

For someone who has been in this business for nearly 50 years, Eddie Gutierrez doesn’t seem to have any plans of retiring or even coming close to halting his career.

He says that for as long as there’s work and he can still memorize his lines, he will still be there.

It’s my first time to work with Tito Eddie, although I’ve already met him at a  team-building seminar.

Chatting with him in-between takes, I didn’t expect Tito Eddie would be very nice, since he seems like a very serious person.  

Tito Eddie was only a boy when he dreamt of becoming an actor.

His grandmother owned an old haunted house  which movie outfits wanted to rent out for their shoots.  His grandmother didn’t agree to rent the house out, so Tito Eddie begged her for nearly three days to change her mind.

After a few days, Tito Eddie’s grandma finally decided to rent the house out. Tito Eddie thought this was his chance to finally get discovered and he was  excited about the shoot. He was there the whole day. Suddenly, the movie’s director noticed Tito Eddie. The director asked Tito Eddie to head over to the studios for the screen test the next day.

 He went and realized the director didn’t give him a call slip, which will allow him to enter studio premises.

“They didn’t allow me to get inside. I didn’t give up, and so I went around the block to the back of the studio. There was a seven foot wall, which is now in front of Mother Lily’s (Monteverde, Regal Entertainment, Inc. matriarch )  home. I jumped over it!,” Tito Eddie recalls.

“ I really went rolling down and ended up doing a couple of flips. As soon as I got in, I looked around for the people who asked me to come. A car passed by and the owner of Sampaguita Pictures  called me over.  She asked me if I was an actor there and I confidently answered back, ‘Not yet,’” he goes on.

Tito Eddie was skinny that time and it took him four months to shape up and sign a four-year contract with Sampaguita Pictures.

After putting on layers of clothes and making it seem as if he had gained enough weight to look “macho” on-screen, things slowly fell into place for Tito Eddie.  

It has been 49 long years of doing well as an actor for Tito Eddie. And  he is proud to say his children are following in his footsteps. He wants them to surpass what he has achieved.

He says, “I hope and  pray that they will do better than me. I want them to be more popular, be better actors. I just want them to concentrate on what they’re doing, love what they’re doing and just enjoy while they’re working.”

In the ‘80s, Tito Eddie took a break from showbiz. But his heart never left the business. He was always and will always be in the entertainment industry.

He is also, the only person I’ve ever interviewed who has no retirement plan. He loves his job too much to leave it.

As for someone like me who loves my job as well, and has no intentions of leaving it, all he could say is, “You have to love your work and you also have to socialize and be seen.

“Show yourself. I can see that you’re feeling the role. Just do it!” Tito Eddie advises.

I will be working with him for the next few months, and I’m certainly looking forward to learning more about how he has kept his career going this long. More power, Tito Eddie.

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Have a wonderful Sunday!