IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Lily Monteverde and her Midas touch in show business

Mother Lily Monteverde. Image: Instagram/@motherlilymonteverde

Way before she became known as “Mother Lily,” Lily Monteverde had already held a deep adoration for the silver screen that she decided that becoming part of the Philippine film industry was the trajectory she wanted to take. 

Mother Lily died on Aug. 4, days after her husband Leonardo “Father Remy” Monteverde was laid to rest. She would have turned 85 on the 19th of the same month.

Born August 19, 1938 to her Filipino-Chinese parents, Domingo Yu Chu and Profetiza Buban Yu, Mother Lily knew at an early age she was destined to do greater things.

As a young grade schooler, Mother Lily developed a passion for films that she would skip classes and spend time in movie houses. “How was she able to afford this?” you may ask. Well, young Lily would take a portion from the money she was supposed to use to pay for her school bus, and would just gladly face her father’s scolding afterwards. 

“I look at the mirror and say, ‘Gusto ko maging artista.’ That’s why I said, ‘Okay, pag hindi ako naging artista, I want to be a producer,” she said in an interview with Chinoy TV in 2020. 

Fast forward to her college years, the Filipino-Chinese film producer’s fondness for movies still remained, although she didn’t take a film-related course. She pursued a degree in education as she thought of becoming a teacher at a school their family owns. However, fate had something else in mind for her. 

At the time, Mother Lily fell in love with then-basketball player Remy, whom she then courted. The pair dated for two years before they tied the knot in 1961. Their marriage became fruitful and lasted more than six decades, but not many knew that it did not initially have the approval of her father, so much so that she was almost disowned. 

As she started a life with Remy and without her father’s support, Mother Lily worked for her father-in-law’s department store as an “all-around girl.” To increase their family’s income, she also sold clothes in Manila while Remy worked for his father’s company. Mother Lily then used some of her savings to buy three popcorn machines and put it in different establishments including a theater—a move that later paved the way back to her dream film career.

Mother Lily with her husband Remy and their children. Image: Instagram/@motherlilymonteverde

Mother Lily thereafter thought of investing in movie reissues and asked the help of her brother Jessie, who lent her P10,000 to support her plan. After a trip to the United States and a lot of cutbacks in their daily expenses, Mother Lily and Remy secured the rights to rerelease the 1957 Western film “All Mine To Give” in Manila cinemas, under their distribution outfit Regal Films—now known as Regal Entertainment. This collected a hundred times more than the amount they paid for the film, which the couple spent on scouting for other films to reissue. 

Over a decade later, Mother Lily, who at the time had also ventured in the TV industry and worked with several stations, produced their first-ever movie “Kayod Sa Araw, Kayod Sa Gabi.” Starring Elizabeth Oropesa, Gina Pareño, Ronaldo Valdez and Orestes Ojada, the project was a hit and earned millions.

Mother Lily as a star-maker

From then on, almost every entertainment genre and every movie trends that she touched or set her sights on turned to gold, making her a force to be reckoned with in the industry she helped shape into what it is now.

With her keen eye for show business and a retinue of trusted advisers to help her, Regal has since released hundreds of films including classics “Manila by Night,” “Sister Stella L,” “Scorpio Nights,” “Relasyon,” and “Broken Marriage,” as well as famous movie franchises “Mano Po” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll.”

“For me, it’s not the money. It’s something that you [love], something that you [treasure]. It’s not that you want to prove a point. It’s something in my heart,” she said of her films.

READ: Mother Lily’s life story to be made into film by Erik Matti

Rising along Mother Lily’s hit films were her roster of “Regal Babies” which include Maricel Soriano, Gina Alajar, Lorna Tolentino, Gabby Concepcion, Alma Moreno, Manilyn Reynes, Rio Locsin, William and Albert Martinez, Janice de Belen, Julie Vega, Snooky Serna, Dina Bonnevie, Aiko Melendez, Carmina Villaroel, Ruffa Gutierrez and Alfie Anido.

Image: Instagram/@motherlilymonteverde

Image: Instagram/@motherlilymonteverde

As the artists whose names she helped built, so did her own celebrity as a star-maker became larger-than-life.

Mother Lily as a homemaker

Meanwhile, aside from her children in the film industry, Mother Lily and Father Remy shared five of their own, namely Winnie, Roselle, Meme, Dondon and Goldwyn. Each of them ventured into different fields including, of course, movie production where their mom’s legacy lies. 

While Mother Lily believed she wasn’t a perfect mom to her children, she tried her best to give them a comfortable life amid a job that demanded most of her time. 

Mother Lily with her family. Image: Instagram/@motherlilymonteverde

Nonetheless, Roselle, who followed in her footsteps and is now managing Regal Entertainment, said she didn’t feel her mom’s absence growing up as the latter was still able to be hands-on in caring for her children.

“I’m so lucky kasi, lahat sila mababait. Lahat ng anak ko,” Mother Lily underscored. 

“In a business like this, you have to have a lot of sacrifices. But now, I don’t want to call them sacrifices. They’re part of life, a journey where you go through all these ups and downs,” she added.