BOBADILLA. Surprise meeting with his favorite actress.
Currently in Germany, I was pleasantly surprised when I recently got a message from Holland from my friend, Franklin Bobadilla, a retired ballet dancer who’s now a Dutch citizen.
His favorite Hollywood star is Audrey Hepburn, so it isn’t surprising that his favorite Filipino actress is Barbara Perez.
When he visited the Philippines some years ago, I invited him for lunch—and surprised him with the presence of Barbara! They were thrilled to meet each other for the first time.
Franklin wrote to say that he was pleased with my article on the late Luis Layag, who was his friend and contemporary in Manila.
I’ve also been trying to get a hold of prima ballerina, Anna Villadolid, who used to dance for the Munich Ballet Company. I was lucky enough to catch her perform “Giselle,” a ballet I was once a part of when I was a UP student.
In Munchen, I was pleased when Leo, who’s married to my sister, Priscilla, announced that I had a phone call—from Uwe Shmelter, head of the Goethe Institut in Manila in the late ’80s. Our chat was like a trip down memory lane.
The Berlin-based Uwe remembered Nestor Mata, Odette Alcantara, Marilou Diaz-Abaya, Tessie Ojeda Luz and NUT. He was one of the most popular foreign cultural workers in Manila during his Manila stint—but, that’s another article!