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’TIS the
time when most hot-blooded Filipino males wish they were
talking dogs. And this is because of one woman. But
we’re getting ahead of the story.
Indeed,
the entry of 2008 has been good for
actress-model-product endorser Marian Rivera.
In the
ongoing Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), the “it” girl
of the hour stars in two competing films, Desperadas
and Bahay Kubo.
In
Desperadas, she plays a kikay role, a
liberated woman who speaks like a—her words—“babaeng
bakla [female gay].” She stars with bombshells Ruffa
Guttierez, Rufa Mae Quinto and Iza Calzado. In Bahay
Kubo, she essay a serious role, as one of the
daughters of veteran actress Maricel Soriano.
Both are
under Regal Films and the buzz is that Marian, since her
shot to fame middle of last year, has become the
favorite baby of the film outfit’s matriarch, Lily
Monteverde.
Then
there’s the consistent top-rating Marimar on GMA.
Just how powerful her role is can be gauged in the
earlier MMFF Float Parade. She was with the
Desperadas float and, despite the presence of three
big costars, people were shouting “Marimar! Where’s
Fulgoso? Where’s Sergio?”
Indeed,
the character becomes her.
Then
there’s the endless product endorsements, the most
recent of which is a multimillion-peso deal with the
giant telecommunications company PLDT.
Her
legions of fans, surprisingly, are hot-blooded males. If
dogs can really talk like Fulgoso, then Marian can be
considered the queen of the Animal Kingdom.
Most
important, Marian isn’t attached to any real-life
partner. At least, that’s what we know, making her even
more desirable to Fulgosos and Sergios all over the
planet.
Shot to
fame
THE name
Marian Rivera became a household name sometime in July
last year. When that Angel flew to the other side of
Morato Street, the most coveted role for Marimar landed
on Marian’s lap.
And
everybody was asking, “Who is Marian Rivera? Why her?”
To
think, there were more popular stars—at the time—who
auditioned for the role.
One was
sexy star Katrina Halili (who plays the villain in the
soap opera); another was Jennylyn Mercado and then
Karylle, who is the real-life partner of Sergio
(Dingdong Dantes).
“She was
the perfect choice, because she can be sexy and innocent
at the same time. Hindi bastusin unlike the
others,” said a GMA executive who refused to be named.
In the
ratings game, this remake of the Mexican original that
starred Latin American sensation Thalia and Eduardo
Capetillo has been consistently on top of the game.
In the
ongoing squabble among GMA, ABS-CBN and AGB Nielsen
Philippines, it has been Marimar that remains the
torchbearer for consecutive weeks in the controversial
ratings survey. Then again, survey or no survey, close
observers in local show business attest that Marimar
is being watched even in far-flung barrios.
A
showbiz-magazine editor who requested anonymity and who
we may hide under the name Ces, following a vacation at
a fishermen’s village in Southern Luzon, told this
writer that come nightfall in the said beachside
barangay, people were glued to Marimar. It’s a kind of
village not unlike the setting of the said telenovela.
“When
the fishermen gather for a few drinks in front of the
usual beachside sari-sari store, there’s always a
television accompanying the drunkards’ talk. As soon as
Marimar starts,” Ces recounted, “everybody stops talking
and watches the show.”
The
village is not a popular beach destination, just one of
those masa communities where life is as simple as
it can be. “And these fishermen are the macho type ha,
those who don’t patronize soaps about love and revenge
and the like,” Ces pointed out, “But they are glued to
Marimar.”
Definitely, they’re not after close-up shots of Dingdong
Dantes’s well-developed abs.
Solo
product endorser
AS the
latest product endorser of PLDT Touch Card, her first as
a solo brand1product hawker, Marian is said to be a
millionaire already. Executives at the giant
telecommunications company refused to divulge the
amount, even Marian’s manager, but according to a PLDT
insider who refused to be identified, the contract is
good for 15 months.
Just for
the heck of it, does Marian really call her loved ones
and whoever using such product? Given the obvious cash
inflow, she can use her cell phone for hours and it
won’t burn a hole through her pocket.
“Believe
it or not, I do. I call my grandmother, who is still
living in Bacoor, Cavite, in the house where I grew up
in. I call my dad who is now based in Spain. It’s not
because I earn more than I used to, I don’t have to make
tipid na. I do make tipid. I know that
whatever blessings I have now, I have to save up for the
future,” she said, with emphasis on the word tipid
during a recent encounter when the product was launched
at Merk’s Bistro.
“In my
condominium, I really use PLDT Touch Card,” she went on,
“which costs only P30 and is good for seven days, then
you can reload nonstop. You can also call NDD for only
P3 per minute and IDD calls for as low as P8 per
minute.”
Marian’s
luck in the advertising world comes back to Marimar.
Just
watching the PLDT Touch Card television commercial and
the accompanying posters in your neighborhood grocery
stores, and it’s quickly apparent that the campaign
borrows from the GMA telenovela. For those who haven’t
watched anything beyond CNN and BBC, the TV commercial
has Marimar/Marian in her signature innocent-sexy dress
running like crazy at the shoreline. Her attention is
caught by a drowning man in the water, calling for help.
She plunges into the waters but instead of pulling out
the drowning man, she dives for the PLDT Touch Card. Cut
to the next frame, and she is seen calling someone
special using the card at a sari-sari store. As for the
man in distress, well, the TV ad ends with him still
yelling for help.
The
shoot was done from sunrise to sunset at Elizalde Beach
in San Nicolas, Zambales, late last year. PLDT’s senior
vice president for sales and marketing Eric Alberto said
it was done without a stunt double for Marian. He added
that they chose Marian because “...just like PLDT Touch
Card, Marian Rivera touches the lives of millions of TV
viewers as Marimar and Bella Aldama in the country’s
highest-rating show on prime-time TV.”
Repeat,
“highest-rating show on primetive TV.”
Also
present at the launch was PLDT’s assistant vice
president for retail marketing services Raul Alvarez,
who is also the president of the powerful Philippine
Association of National Advertisers.
In the
creative world of advertising, it is seldom that one’s
advertising concept skews close to the storyline of a
popular TV show. Some actors who were once commercial
models actually managed to enter show business because
of a popular TV ad. “But with Marimar and Marian Rivera,
it’s the other way around. People are now following what
Marian is wearing, what perfume she is using...and like
now, what she uses to connect with people electronically
because she is Marimar,” said a creative manager of a
popular ad agency who requested anonymity.
Who is
Marian Rivera?
A
RESPECTED business-lifestyle columnist covering the PLDT
event was in a hush-hush, asking, where did Marian
Rivera come from, why the sudden rise to fame? Did she
come from a landed clan?
Indeed,
before Marimar, who was Marian Rivera?
The
Spanish-Filipino stunner was born on August 12, 1984, in
Madrid, Spain. Her parents are Spaniard Francisco Javier
Gracia, now based in Madrid, and a Cavite native named
Amalia Rivera. They parted ways when Marian was only two
years old.
Being 50
percent Española, Marian speaks fluent Spanish.
She grew
up and studied in
Cavite,
making her a certified semi-probinsyana. She was
finishing an AB Psychology degree in De La Salle-Dasmariñas
when she was spotted by an agent to do modeling. She
accepted and graced various TV and print ads until TAPE,
the same production company behind the longest
top-rating noontime show Eat Bulaga, signed her for
three afternoon soaps for GMA: Kung Mamahalin Mo Lang
Ako,
Agawin
Mo Man ang Lahat
and Pinakamamahal. In all three, she was
partnered with leading man Oyo Boy Sotto. She was also
part of GMA’s Philippine-Malaysian drama Muli and
the prime-time telefantasya Super Twins. Then came
Marimar, and the rest is history that continues to
be written in showbizlandia.
Dennis
Trillo, the Kapuso Network’s biggest male star,
described her as “GMA’s next big female star.” Of
course, that was a couple of months or so ago.
Zero
love life?!
GMA News
reported that there’s a nonshowbiz guy named Ervic being
linked to Marian. She denied any romance, maintaining
that she can’t stop people, especially her admirers,
from visiting her at her house especially during the
holiday season.
Asked if
her lovelife is as steamy as those of her Desperadas
costars, Marian said, “I don’t know about their love
life. I don’t ask them. As for me, I spent Christmas
with my mother, grandmother and childhood friends in
Cavite. They’re the ones who make my Christmas happy and
mainit.”
Marian
admits that she grew up in a conservative family. Though
she didn’t grow up with a father, it was assured by
mother and grandmother that she absorbed the right
Filipino values, or what grade-school teachers term as
“good morals and right conduct.” In fact, she confessed
in an interview that she’s uncomfortable when reporters
ask her about sex and virginity.
“It’s a
personal thing kasi. There are other topics that
are worth talking about. Sex life and all that is
something very personal,” she was quoted as saying.
As of
press time, there’s talk that Marian will be the next
Darna or Dyesebel for another GMA prime-time
telefantasya, to which she responded, “I don’t know if
GMA will give me the role, but I’m ready to fly high in
the sky or swim deeper into the ocean.”
For the
Year of the Rat, as millions of hot-blooded Filipino
males aspire to become talking dogs, Marian’s luck
continues. |
