My favorite Filipino actors

SANTOS. Everyman.

Not too long ago, a glossy magazine asked me to name my favorite Filipino film actors. I could hardly make the dozen required of me, but I managed to do as requested.

Alas, none of my selected actors ended up in the elite list acclaimed by the glossy magazine as the “best actors of the country!” I was disheartened.

Frankly, I thought most of those selected were simply OA (overacting).  Or, they gave “predictable” performances or employed tricks to enhance badly written characters. So, I became more convinced that I had chosen the better ones.

At the top of my list was Pedro Faustino, the eminent pre-war actor who portrayed aged wise men with simplicity and the proper carriage.  I thought Faustino was convincing in any and all roles he played.  I remember him distinctly as an old tribesman in “Badjao,” the classic directed by National Artist Lamberto Avellana and scripted by his wife Daisy.  (I think the great director often cast Faustino in special featured roles in his best films.)

The next on my list was Tony Santos, often referred to as Senior. Tony had an ordinary face and he portrayed ordinary men with great dignity.  He starred in Bert Avellana’s “Anak Dalita” and “Badjao,” both classics wherein he starred with the great Rosa Rosal.  He and Rosa were a fine tandem because, while Rosal tended to test the dramatic possibilities of a scene, Tony often opted to balance it in a lower key.

ZSHORNACK. Believable.

There was something very real about Santos’ depiction of characters, as there was about Faustino’s simple approach.  Neither prettified their looks nor lowered their voices so that they sounded like radio announcers.  In fact, they had unconventional voices that tended to be slightly high-pitched.

These two fine actors were happy portraying ordinary Juan de la Cruz in their films.  Neither aimed to be matinee idols.

Convincing

They were so convincing that they often made matinee idols look fake. Theirs was a very real presence you remembered.  Thus, you respected every film character they portrayed.

In high school, I found Zaldy Zshornack a fine actor, despite the fact that he was usually billed as a matinee idol. In Premiere Productions box-office films, Zaldy was the “leading man” opposite such beauties as Shirley Gorospe and Lani Oteyza.

Zshornack was a contemporary of Fernando Poe Jr., as well as Joseph Estrada.  The trio were Premiere’s “big guns” pitted against the box-office giants of Sampaguita Pictures, like Romeo Vasquez, Juancho Gutierrez and Luis Gonzales.

I am not sure if Zshornack won acting awards, but he certainly deserved them because he created believable characters, whether he portrayed a troubled teenager, a Filipino cowboy or danced and sang with the studio’s latest female heartthrob.  Besides, Zshornack was as adept at comedy as in drama, not to mention the musicals and the local Westerns he appeared in.

Zaldy, Pedro and Tony Sr. – three of my favorite Filipino actors. I prefer their simple approach to acting, rather than many of much-touted actors I often accuse of indulging in “acting na, acting pa!”