Bessie Badilla turns film producer

I know of some people who fly to Hong Kong for lunch and return the same day to Manila for dinner. But to plane in from far London for the night and leave after only so many hours to go back to UK is too much. That was exactly what fashion model-turned-comedienne-turned film producer Bessie Badilla did last Sunday so that she could attend the premiere night of the indie movie and Cinemalaya entry Bakal Boys, which she co-produced with Albert Almendralejo. In 24 hours, she was in three different time zones.

The journey actually began last Friday from Connecticut where she is based. From the US East Coast, she and youngest daughter Inez flew to London to meet up with her other child, Blanca, who is now taking up her masters in decorative art in England. All three were supposed to watch the second leg of Michael Jackson’s concert on July 26. But since that will not happen anymore, her daughters urged her to proceed to Manila so that she could be at the film’s screening at the CCP.

And so, after only a few hours in London, she was again on a plane — this time for Manila. She arrived at the NAIA 1 last Sunday at 4:45 p.m. and simply freshened up for the CCP screening at 6:15. After the movie, she hosted dinner at the upper lobby of the Peninsula Hotel and that was where we met up. She was very happy with the way the CCP audience received the film.

Starring Gina Pareño (everyone was raving about her performance), Bakal Boys is about these young boys who retrieve scrap metal for a living. Bessie and her creative team used real out-of-school kids to appear in the film.

Aside from Bakal Boys, Bessie is also co-producing the animated film Aswang with Imee Marcos. “Lintik na animation ‘yan — ang mahal pala!” cries out Bessie in her usual comic tone, while adding in jest: “Kaya ngayon, once a day na lang ako kumain.”

A widow for three years now, Bessie keeps herself busy producing local movies — long distance. She actually has time to do that. Stepdaughter Isabel (her late husband’s child with Hilda Koronel) is now working in Vancouver. Inez was recently accepted at the prestigious Sacred Heart Convent School. Out of 100 applicants, only six were accepted and Inez was one of them and that’s where she’ll be studying high school. Blanca also finished her undergraduate course with honors in a prominent school in Massachusetts before taking up graduate studies in London.

But she still misses Bambi. At night, she tucks herself in bed at 3 a.m. so that when her head hits the pillow, she’d already be fast asleep. “I miss those nights when we lie next to each other just talking about our day,” she confesses.

She also yearns for those times she’d be in the kitchen and while cooking, Bambi would call up from work to ask: “Ano ulam natin?” Now, she refuses to stay near the kitchen because she fears that while cooking — “baka tumawag si Bambi at itanong kung ano ulam namin,” she says, laughing. But really, she tries not to cook anymore because of that. And this is the reason why when her kids want sinigang, she merely tells them, “Let’s buy na lang in the Filipino store.” Or sometimes, she would say to them almost apologetically: “Anak, canned goods na lang kainin natin.”

While she can already joke about that big tragedy of losing her husband, I still feel the pain in her heart and I can’t blame her because she loved her beloved Bambi so much. Always a fighter and a survivor, she really is trying to cope with her husband’s death. I hope and pray that her involvement with indie films will help her move on because I know there is so much in store for a good woman like Bessie.

* * *

While Funfare has its team of reliable beauty experts — with Felix Manuel dutifully reporting on the death of the first Binibining Pilipinas winner last Saturday in Ricky Lo’s column — I still want to give my short and humble tribute to Myrna Panlilio-Borromeo, who succumbed to heart attack the other Friday at the Makati Medical Center where she was supposed to have a gall bladder surgery, but just collapsed and was never revived.

I first met Myrna in 1994 — when the Philippines hosted the Miss Universe pageant for the second time. ABS-CBN was the carrying network and they made me anchor a series of documentaries prior to coronation day (it was held in the morning so that it could be beamed in the evening in the United States).

Most memorable (and most difficult) for me was the gathering of the past Philippine representatives to the Miss Universe contest — starting in 1952 when the pageant (originally meant to sell bathing suits) was born in Long Beach, California.

The venue was at the home of a former Miss Philippines in Green Meadows. I no longer recall the name of our hostess and the year she went to Miss Universe, but I do remember her hospitality — allowing us to shoot in her residence.

Researching the whereabouts of these former beauty delegates was tough enough. But putting them together for an interview in one afternoon was even tougher. Some of those who belonged to the ‘50s batch were already tired and old and, frankly, didn’t want to be bothered anymore. During the interview, they just wanted to get it over and done with. Those from the younger batch were forever on the phone (landline) and were eternally primping up and getting them to sit down was a challenge for the staff.

But Myrna was a dream and was such a big help because she made the younger beauties behave — and the older ones, too, but was very respectful with the way she handled them. Of course, she also had her own quirks. When she found out that she brought the wrong shoes, she had to have her driver sent back to the house, while giving instructions to the helper on the phone as to which pair to give to the chauffeur. With all that ado about shoes, I told her she didn’t have to go through all that trouble since she was having mostly close-ups anyway — medium shots at times. She knew that, but charmingly, she told me she just had to have the right shoes with the dress (it was dark green, I remember). I guess it was a girl thing and really, she didn’t cause any delay because the others were.

Finally, when I did the one-on-one with her, she remembered how she was then working in an office and was made to join the first Binibini competition in 1964. She was crowned on a Saturday and was off to Miami Beach in Florida by Monday (in those days, it was easy to get a visa — it was just like going to the ATM and withdrawing money). No, there was no intensive training and preparation at all. But she said she had fun in the pageant.

Myrna and I would later bump into each other at social events and the last time was at the house of the late Chito Madrigal — during the reunion of the Hyatt models (upon the invitation of Bessie) some three years ago. As always, she was solicitous and tried to make me feel comfortable in the presence of the other guests who were mostly her friends.

With Myrna gone, it is lamentable to see another gracious lady exit the world of refinement and fine living. Yes, she belonged to that glamorous era when the Binibining Pilipinas winners were truly binibinis.