AFTER being “inactive” in show business for about 100,000 years, Heart Evangelista comes back in a big way. A few days ago, she signed up with GMA for an exclusive two-year contract. On May 5 she will start shooting for a new telefantasya, tentatively titled Asero, opposite GMA’s numero-uno leading man Richard Gutierrez. 

Her manager now is her own father, Reynaldo Ongpauco, along with Anabelle Rama.

It can be recalled that Heart, after publicly hooking up with Jericho Rosales, virtually dropped out of the showbiz radar. To think that for the longest time she was showbiz’s “it” girl. Her striking and massively charming Chinese features were a perfect fit at a time when Korean and Taiwanese soaps were the trend.

After moving into Jericho’s condo unit, there were talks that she became an outcast in the Ongpauco household. Heart revealed that even during Christmas or birthdays, she continued to receive the cold shoulder from her elders.

For his part, Jericho’s career also went down the drain. He had this weird illusion that he can sing with a live band. And that he can compose songs, too. But nothing happened.

After not renewing their contract with Star Magic, ABS-CBN’s talent management arm, this cute but seemingly unlucky couple decided to be managed by Genesis, the talent management firm of Gary Valenciano and wife Angeli.

Jericho’s band was called Jeans, and is now defunct. The album sold like rotten bibingka. Heart became virtually unknown.

Now that Jericho is doing a soap in Malaysia, Heart suddenly realized her mistake.  “One day I woke up and I just wanted to see my parents. I went home for breakfast and that was it. I got a lot of scolding from my dad. We started at 10 am and ended up at 7 pm. But that’s OK, because I deserved all of the muras,” Heart said.

Now with GMA, it was revealed that she will star in a movie also opposite Richard Gutierrez. There’s also plan for her to star in an adaptation of a Koreanovela. As for the Malaysia-based Jericho, Heart said that he knows the latest developments in her career and only wants the best for her.

Really? If Heart made the right move, then Jericho should do the same soon.

Angel and good boy Piolo

IT’S common among showbiz scribes to speculate that the love team of Angel Locsin and Piolo Pascual is only for a show, that all the sweetness onscreen is all there is to it. Nothing more.

However, when they ask Angel if she is unattached or not, she can’t answer with a straight “yes” or “no.” She’ll just say she’s happy with her life. With Piolo, he will immediately declare that he’s happy being single but won’t fail to add that Angel has all the qualities he is looking for in a woman.

Angel celebrated her 23rd birthday on April 23 by giving gifts to the needy in economically challenged communities in Manila. Just by body language alone, many believe that Luis Manzano is her real-life beau.

ABS-CBN, where the two are signed, through its sister company, Star Cinema, has plans of bringing the Angel-and-Piolo tandem to the bigger screen. Let’s just hope that the bland kilig factor on display in their ongoing soap Lobo will get a massive jolt for the movie.

Yapping it all up

AUSTRALIAN blogger Brian Gorrell was very happy for the profile that the BusinessMirror did on him, which appeared on our April 25-26 weekend issue. He mentioned it in his blog as the very first cover story did on him and his case. Needless to say, he is jolly thankful.

Then again, as of press time, Gorrell is facing another major battle. This time, it’s from the camp of one of the generals of the Gucci Gang.

Gorrell wrote that his being a guest on 89.9 FM’s Good Times show every Wednesday morning has caused some powerful and genuinely rich people related to the GG general to call up the owner and host of the radio network to please not include Gorrell in the program. Or else there will be legal actions to face.

But, so far the management and hosts of the said show are not perturbed.

Gorrell didn’t mention any names but kept on repeating Big Mac. And we’re not talking about computers here.

So if you’re reading this paper before the morning rush hour and you happen to have an FM radio near you, try to catch Gorrell today at 89.9 FM, from 7:30 to 9 am.

Into the Zone

TECHNOLOGY juggernaut Google created a bit of a stir in 2005 when it was reported that the company would create a citywide Wi-Fi mesh for San Francisco.

The View: No country for old men?

LATE afternoon Monday saw me making a detour from picking out very expensive clothes for an upcoming fashion shoot, to Music One in Glorietta 3. I came to buy one CD and one CD only: no, not Janet Jackson’s Discipline, nor Mariah Carey’s E=MC2, but Madonna’s Hard Candy, which hit the shelves of music stores worldwide on April 28, a day earlier than its US debut.

Show &Tell: Heart now a Kapuso

AFTER being “inactive” in show business for about 100,000 years, Heart Evangelista comes back in a big way.

Why Matthew Broderick is naturally likable

WHETHER onstage or on the screen, Matthew Broderick is the guy you root for. It isn’t show-business law but it’s understood. Even by Broderick. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a lunatic, but I usually am likable to audiences,” he explains.

Home is where the artist is

WHEN artist Romi Mananquil left fame and a lucrative career in the Philippines for Canada in 1985, little did he know that he would return to the country of his birth in 2004 as a virtual stranger.

Briefs: NYC trial of accused Uma Thurman stalker opens

NEW YORK—A former mental patient’s note that his hands should be on Uma Thurman’s body “at all times” may be creepy but it is not criminal, a lawyer said Monday in defense of a man accused of stalking the Kill Bill actress.