Most successful Stars of Tomorrow batchmates recalled

PAREÑO. Quality rather than quantity.

Every year, TV-film “stables” of contract starlets and stars come up with their most likely prospects to make it as Stars of Tomorrow. Past sad experience has shown that these annual predictions of future stardom haven’t been all that successful, with only a few bets eventually making it as stars.

What seems to be the problem?

Some studios play it safe and select starlets who look like established luminaries, not realizing that stardom requires uniqueness, not the ability to ape somebody else.

Another drawback is the fact that the selectors have subjective motives that prompt them to cite their “personal” favorites, even if they really don’t have what it takes to shine as stars.

SONORA. Quality rather than quantity.

Discussing this issue with some veteran industry observers recently, we agreed that this needn’t be so, because objective and discerning build-up campaigns in the more professional past have proven to be much more successful.

The most effective stellar build-up campaign was launched by Sampaguita Pictures for its “Stars ’66” lineup of potential headliners, judiciously picked by the most iconic star discoverer of them all, Doc Perez.

Just take a look at the composition of his list of Stars of Tomorrow for 1966 : Rosemarie Sonora, Gina Pareño, Shirley Moreno, Loretta Marquez, Blanca Gomez, Pepito and Ramil Rodriguez, Dindo Fernando, Edgar Salcedo and Bert Leroy Jr.!

Assignments

Impressively, all of those starlets became lead players—and Gina is still very much around, busy with assignments as a brassy, sassy character actress.

And, once in a while, we see Ramil and Pepito appearing in a TV drama, proof positive of their durable ability and “face value.”

FERNANDO. Quality rather than quantity.

Rosemarie, the kid sister of movie queen Susan Roces, became a teen star and continued to face the movie cameras up to the 1980s. We even acted with Rose in Eddie Romero’s “Hari sa Hari,” which was filmed in China for five whole months, before she opted to settle down in the United States.

Shirley and Blanca were known for their exceptional beauty, while Loretta was a sensitive thespian.

Among the male starlets launched to stardom via “Stars ’66,” it was the late Dindo Fernando who became a famous and acclaimed dramatic actor. Even as a mature talent, he did a lot of TV work, most extensively on “Flor de Luna,” where he played Janice de Belen’s father for many years.

Indeed, it’s possible to make a case for Dindo’s being included in a list of the 10 best film actors in the country’s show biz history.

Our link to Dindo is the fact that he played Jose Rizal in our historical drama about the national hero and Josephine Bracken (Rosemarie Gil) in Dapitan, staged by Peta in the 1970s.

For his part, Edgar was the son of the famous Leopoldo, while Bert also had show biz genes.

Today’s so-called starmakers would do well to adjust the way they do things to match “Stars ’66’s” enviable record!

PEPITO RODRIGUEZ. Quality rather than quantity.

The fact that all of the starlets in the group ended up playing lead roles, and many of them enjoyed long-running careers, means that it can be done even today, if talent discoverers and developers become more objective and discerning. —No more “personal” motives, please!

They also need to go for quality rather than quantity, and stop signing up far too many talents, only to “freeze” them to make sure that the competition doesn’t get to them first!