When sports, show-biz stardom collide

Some observers are ruing the fact that a number of current sports heroes are getting distracted from their game by the heady importuning of show business. Stop dallying with TV-movie stars and focus on sports alone, they urge the “distracted” sports stars. Will their well-meaning advice fall on deaf ears?

Most likely. Let’s face it, most sports stars (with the exception of Manny Pacquiao and some highly paid basketball stars) work extremely hard for relatively little money, while many popular actors and actresses generally don’t work hard at all, and yet laugh their way merrily to the bank.

And yet, the strong link between sports and show biz cannot be gainsaid. From as early as the ’40s and ’50s in Hollywood, Olympians like Johnny Weismuller ended up on the silver screen (the champion swimmer played Tarzan of the Apes).

On the local show-biz scene, the symbiosis between sports heroes and entertainment luminaries is even more pronounced. Boxing champ Flash Elorde became a film star, and just as occasionally, so has Manny Pacquiao (who has added singing to his growing list of performing distractions or distracting performances, as the case may be).

Other boxers have ended up as comedians on TV shows, as have quite a number of erstwhile basketball heroes.

Even busier is the traffic in the opposite direction, involving female stars who have ended up being wooed and won by show-biz luminaries, like Kris Aquino (James Yap) and Mikee Cojuangco (Dodot Jaworski).

Angel’s turn?

Will Angel Locsin become the latest addition to this lengthening list? Currently being courted with particular friskiness and creativity by football hero Phil Younghusband, the young TV-film star may be playing it coy in public, but she’s clearly charmed by the inventiveness with which (her perhaps future) Younghusband is mounting his amorous campaign.

To be sure, there are people out there who are sincerely or cattily (as the case may be) raining on Phil’s parade by warning Angel that he could be just trying to win publicity mileage to propel his comeback to show business. (A couple of years ago, he tried to make it as a contestant on “Celebrity Duets” but failed to get much traction from that unsuccessful initiative).

Well, let’s just hope that Angel has learned enough from her unhappy romantic experiences in the past to detect the difference.

Once bitten, twice shy; thrice wizened and worldly-wise, indeed!