Controversial celebrities

For months now, Bill Cosby and his lawyers have been consistently debunking more than a dozen women’s accusations of sexual assault against him, in a classic example of the “deny and deny until you die” principle of blanket denial.

Last week, however, former supermodel Beverly Johnson joined Cosby’s growing legions of accusers, and her charges were so detailed that the veteran comedian’s legal team has been figuratively caught with its collective pants down—and unable to come up with a brisk, sassy and “bitchin’” reply (as of this writing).

On the local show biz scene, it’s the season for love and marriage, with a bumper crop of stars and starlets avidly altar-bound, including Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera later this month, Bianca Gonzalez and JC Intal just last week, Heart Evangelista and Sen. Chiz Escudero “coming soon”—!

Why the sudden popularity of the “urge to merge?” Does Climate Change have anything to do with this collective change in civil status?! Even Solenn Heussaff is ready to pledge her troth with her lucky beau—so, what really gives?

Career-wise, this has been a good year for Matteo Guidicelli, with a number of films already chalked up, and an MMFF entry (“Shake, Rattle and Roll 15”) about to cap the year off. On TV, things are also looking up for Matteo, with a comedy series, “Inday Bote,” set to start telecasting early next year.

The only fly in the actor’s ointment this season is his personal life, particularly with the heretofore elusive and reclusive Sarah Geronimo—and the grief he’s been getting from social media dissers, who don’t think that he “deserves” to be the apple of her eye—not to mention the love of her life!

Shouldn’t that be up to the couple involved to figure out for themselves? Sad to say, when a star as popular as Sarah is involved, everybody and his old-maid aunt feel entitled to poke their fastidious noses into the private stellar romance, so Matteo has simply had to grin and bear it.

Actually, the situation is even more complicated that than, because Sarah’s parents are also involved in the relationship—ostensibly to protect her and her interests—but, four is still a crowd, right?

Due to these and other additional distractions and tensions, the Sarah-Matteo romance isn’t vetted to go the distance—through no fault of the lovers—just because it’s unnecessarily complicated!

Master impersonator

A fan of master impersonator, Willie Nepomuceno, wants to know what makes Willie Nep stand head and shoulders over his peers in the comedy-impersonation field. We’re happy to share some insights we get from Willie himself, when he spoke to our cast members when we were rehearsing “Cory, The Musical.”

Since that particular musical-drama had a lot of famous purple in its cast of characters—Cory Aquino, Ninoy, Marcos, Imelda, etc.—we believed that it was essential to the success and artistic integrity of the production for its cast to be more knowledegable than usual about the additional factors they needed to keep in mind to credibly depict the iconic figures assigned to them.

—And, who better to teach them than the master impersonator himself? Happily, when we contacted him, Willie accepted our invitation to “workshop” our actors— and they certainly got a lot from the four-hour encounter that ensued!

We also saw how much he valued research into the people he personified—their back stories, motivations, gestures, ways of walking and moving, speech patterns, clothes, eyeglasses, watches—all the details that “make” a person unique and distinct.

This takes a lot of time, effort and expense, so newbie impersonators should realize that it’s not going to be easy. In addition, after all of this “background” work, the impersonator needs to add his own insights into what makes his assigned character live, breathe—and tick!

In Willie’s particular case, his ability at insightful comedic impersonation was first noticed and cited during the anti-Marcos rallies in the ’60s and ’70s. He was a student activist at UP, and was also with the student council and The Philppine Collegian, the university paper.

In the course of his long and acclaimed career, he has brought to insightful life his comedic takes on: Ferdinand Marcos, Joseph Estrada, Fidel V. Ramos, Dolphy, Gringo Honasan, Ping Lacson, Nur Misuari, FPJ and Noynoy Aquino—to name just a few!

Among the international stars he’s impersonated are Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis Presley, Bruce Lee and Stevie Wonder—complete with “spoof” singing, for good measure! There really is “the one and only”—Willie Nep!

If you want to follow his acclaimed footsteps, you have to put in the time, attention, interest, insights and passion that have pushed him to settling for nothing less than excellence. In particular, during his workshop for our “Cory” cast, we were struck by a note he made about a particular brand of dark glasses that he had to look for to assure the absolute believability of one of his famous impersonations—even if the glasses turned out to be stratospherically expensive—in the tens of thousands of pesos!

How many others are there out there who are prepared to take that extra step?