Crime, notoriety corrode celebs’ stellar glow

Marilyn Monroe

For some show biz stars, fame and celebrity are “hissing cousins” to crime and notoriety.

The fact that stars or starlets are involved in them, either as perpetrators or victims — or both — makes those crimes and/or misdemeanors all the more “news-“ or gossip-worthy.

In Hollywood, oldtimers still talk about comedian Fatty Arbuckle, who was accused of killing a young fan many decades ago. Then, there’s Marilyn Monroe’s death, which remains a controversial mystery — even after 50 years.

More recently, of course, the sudden and sordid death of Michael Jackson was only the latest fodder for gossip involving him, after the sexual molestation charges hurled against him — which he successfully fought, to the great relief of his fans.

Luminaries

The local entertainment scene hasn’t been wanting in controversial crime cases involving luminaries, either. The death of Lillian Velez, the still unsolved murder of Nida Blanca, the arson case that sent a comedian to prison, Robin Padilla’s own stint in jail, the recent stabbing of Charice’s estranged father — these and other stellar encounters with both the long and wrong arms of the law have cumulatively created the impression that show biz gold is sometimes corroded by crime, thus dimming its stellar glow.

Nida Blanca

We daresay, however, that most of the star-associated crimes committed in “Pinoywood” pale in comparison to last month’s Revilla murder case — and then some. We append the “Atbp.” because, if criminal investigators and witnesses’ testimonies are to be believed, much more was involved than just the death of Ramgen Revilla, grandson and scion of senior star and ex-senator Ramon Revilla.

The atbp. and etc. appendages extend further when it’s revealed that the masterminds of Ramgen’s murder may have been — two or three of his own siblings.

To add to the confusion and serial complications, ex-senator Ramon is said to have fathered scores of other children by many women, hence what initially started as a one-layer killing had become a positively “biblical” tragedy, a multi-leveled and many-pronged concatenation involving numerous  “sub-families” with their corresponding “sub-spouses,” plus potentially internecine conflicts, financial envy and strife, festering issues involving familial, fiscal and financial territoriality — Atbp. and etc.

Ramgen Bautista

Structure

Pardon the extended complex/compound sentence structure, but that’s the best way to graphically sum up this hydra-headed criminal case, with all of its contentious and even occasionally contradictory intimations and reverberations, its teeming cast of combative characters, and its still unreeling spider’s web of “real” facts and factoids, and motives already exhumed — and still to be revealed.

After everything shall have been said and done, and the smoke has cleared on this multi-familial war zone, the whole truth that is expected to fully emerge may unfortunately not be all that definitive and revelatory. And so, the plot continues to — coagulate.