SAIGON (1956)

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Source:  Literary Song-Movie Magazine, April 1956

Courtesy of Simon Santos, Video 48

Khanh Ngoc (1936-    ) is a legendary Vietnamese film actress and singer. 

At the age of 12, Khanh Ngoc became a protegée of Duong Thieu Tuoc and Minh Trang, the husband and wife team of musical mentors and hosts of a popular music program on Radio France-Vietnam National Broadcasting Network ( Đài Phát Thanh Pháp Á) in Saigon.  Like many young Vietnamese singers of the day, she began performing weekly at various cinema theaters in Saigon like Nam Viet, Nam Quang, Van Cam and Dai Nam as part of the live entertainment for the audience right before the movie presentation.  According to Khanh Ngoc's recollections, the very first song she had ever performed on stage in front of a live audience was Tieng Hat Lenh Denh written by Tu Phap.  In 1949, while at the age of 13, Khanh Ngoc was hired on as a professional singer for Radio France-Vietnam National Broadcasting Network.  She then became acquainted with a music singing group called Thang Long which originated in Hanoi and was comprised of 4 siblings, Hoai Trung, Thai Hang, Hoai Bac, also known as Pham Dinh Chuong, and Thai Thanh.  Khanh Ngoc would occasionally perform as a guest singer for Thang Long.  As her popularity grew, she was invited to perform in various cities all over Vietnam.  In 1953, Khanh Ngoc married Pham Dinh Chuong.

During a casting call in 1955 for a film called, Anh Sang Mien Nam, a joint Vietnamese-Filipino production, Khanh Ngoc was selected by Filipino film actor/director Gerardo de Leon for the lead role.  The following year, she would win the Philippines Film Festival Award for best actress.  Khanh Ngoc followed up the success of Anh Sang Mien Nam with another film, Dat Lanh, starring actor Le Quynh in 1956.  Her final Vietnamese film was Rang Buoc, released in 1959 by Alpha Film Studios.

Riding high as one of South Vietnam's most popular and beautiful film actresses with three blockbuster feature films under her belt along with an equally successful singing career, Khanh Ngoc's world came to a shattering halt plagued with scandal and negative press from the collapse of her marriage to Pham Dinh Chuong after an alleged extra-marital affair she had had with composer Pham Duy.  Following her divorce, in 1961 she decided to leave it all behind to start a new life in the United States.  She enrolled at Pasadena Theater College and found herself an agent shortly thereafter.  In 1963, Khanh Ngoc was cast in the Hollywood feature film, Operation Bikini, which starred Tab Hunter, Frankie Avalon and Scott Brady.  Unfortunately, her acting career in Hollywood films did not sustain the longevity as it did back in her native Vietnam.  During the 1970s and 1980s, Khanh Ngoc resumed her singing career and traveled across the United States performing for overseas Vietnamese audiences in various cities.

Now retired, Khanh Ngoc resides in Los Angeles, California.  She is remarried and a mother to three grown sons.  It is believed that the popular ballad, Nua Hon Thuong Dau, written by her former late husband, Pham Dinh Chuong, and covered by many Vietnamese singers such as Thai Thanh, Julie Quang and Khanh Ha, was loosely based on their failed marriage. 

See Link:
https://vietceleb.blogspot.com/search/label/Khanh%20Ngoc

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THE PHILIPPINES' LIVELIEST ART (Compiled by Danny Villanueva, The Weekly Nation, December 11, 1967)

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Source:  The Weekly Nation, December 11, 1967

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HIT DITO, HIT DOON (by Quijano de Manila, Pilipino Magazine, January 21 1970)

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Source:  Pilipino Magazine, January 21, 1970

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STAR-GAZING by Danny Villanueva (BOMBA TREND CREATES CRITICAL AUDIENCE, The Weekly Nation, November 9, 1970)

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Source:  The Weekly Nation, November 9, 1970

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HOW THEY LEARNED TO LOVE THE 'BOMBA' WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (by Frankli Roosevelt Cabaluna, The Weekly Nation, June 2, 1969)

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Source:  The Weekly Nation, June 2, 1969

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A GOOD OMEN FOR THE FAMAS (by Kitch Ortego, The Weekly Nation, March 14, 1966)

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Source:  The Weekly Nation, March 14, 1966

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A GOOD OMEN FOR THE FAMAS

Re-acceptance of returned trophies by Sampaguita winners reflects renewed confidence in the academy.

By KITCH ORTEGO

THE FAMAS season was ushered in recently with a monumental event – the re-presentation of 29 awards which were returned to the academy in anger in 1959.  The body’s gesture was an earnest reaffirmation of its recognition of true excellence, while the recipients’ re-acceptance of the awards was a hearty demonstration of their unruffled respect for the organization.

            Some Famas officers saw this a re-emergence of confidence in the academy  The awardees, on the other hand, felt that they were just retrieving what had belonged to them all along.  True.  And Famas president Ramon Lopez corroborated this when he told the awardees, “We are returning to you your statuettes which we just held for safe-keeping.”

            In fact when the awardees returned their trophies six years ago they had not actually lost confidence in the Famas, except that the studio under whose sway they were was piqued by some ill-timed academy whim and thereby lost its temper.  That the wounds have healed was explained by the presence of Pepito Vera Perez who represented Sampaguita Pictures at the “return” of the awards.  He even received all the statuettes of the awardees who could not come.

            Thus, everybody was happy again.  Rita Gomez expressed her jubilation in tears.  Rosa Mia could only manage to whisper, “Thank you, thank you…,” as she gulped down her emotion and kissed her statuette.

            Fred Montilla grinned from ear to ear and exclaimed, “My award and I were just separated for a while, we belonged to each other all the time!”  Marlene Dauden controlled her feelings, received her statuette solemnly as though she was getting it for the first time.

A Quiet Affair

            Carmen Rosales was indisposed at the time.  She sent a handsome son to receive the award and express her gratitude.  Another awardee represented by proxy was Katy de la Cruz whose daughter Angie was surprised to find out that her Mommie had already got her trophy sometime before in order to be sure about it.

            Lolita Rodriguez couldn’t have been more touched.  She was overjoyed at having back her award, saying, “This is my only genuine evidence of success which I can show my children and tell them that once I was up there – and a good one too!”

            Child star Boy Alvarez was also there, not to reclaim a returned award but to collect a debt.  Through a oversight last year, the Famas had no statuette for him as best child star of 1964.

            The ceremonies didn’t last long and were not pompous.  With only the officers of the academy and executive of Kodak Philippines Inc., donor of the statuettes, witnessing the re-turn-over, the affair was not so formal.  Lopez had intended it so in order not to arouse so much publicity and provoke comments.  The small VIP Room of the National Press Club was a perfect setting for such a delicate event.

            Ad so an old sore in the Famas has been relieved.  Credit for the achievement goes to Lopez who had approached Dr. Jose R. Perez of Sampaguita to clear out all misunderstandings between the studio and the academy.  Dr. Perez’s response was so illustrative of unshaken confidence that he has decided to submit entries for VP Pictures and United Brothers Productions for this year’s awards.

            With the row with Sampaguita settled, the Famas has a few more internal ruffles to smooth up.  Its constitution needs some revisions in some portions in order to meet the facts of current trends in the motion picture business.  Its provision on the qualification of entries for awards, for instance, cites “…any full-length feature film produced and exhibited in the Philippines,” which includes Hollywood movies shot in the country, but which isn’t the case.

            Membership is still a pain in the neck for the academy.  The membership committee is aching to weed out members with dubious qualifications and those who are serving as PROs for local movie companies or stars.  For the presence of undesirable members discourages qualified prospective members whom the committee yearns to take in.

Revamp Undesirable

            A reorganization, the most practical solution to the membership problem, wouldn’t be a convenient action since this would prick personalities.  It would also tend to be misconstrued by outsiders as a confession of weakness within the body, as Sampaguita did during the first reorganizational ripple in 1959.  A complete revamp should only be a last recourse.

            Meanwhile, the Famas has to content itself with what it is – an earnest effort to promote artistic and technical excellence in the Filipino film industry, whose better judgment has generally prevailed.

            And despite its inherent shortcomings, the academy has steadily advanced from a small guild riven by conflicting ambitions to an institution of around 50 members who support the common cause of upgrading standards in local films.  To broaden the members’ knowledge of motion picture arts and sciences, the academy holds annual symposia on direction, acting, cinematography, sound recording, editing, script-writing, and other pertinent aspects of moviemaking.

            This year’s program of learning included showings of artistic foreign pictures, a project made possible by Lopez.  There could have been more educational activities but for the lack of time.  Actually not much intellectual pursuit is still needed by the academy since its members are generally already capable examiner of films.

            What the Famas has yet to attain is financial foundation.  It’s so humble as to cash position that it cannot even afford to rent a permanent office or pay a full-time executive secretary.  The gala premiere of The Sandpiper it sponsored last summer hardly met the goal.  The scarcity of funds is the only blotch on the academy’s prestige.

New Groups Opposed

            With its prestige an established fact, the Famas has become an envied organization.  A certain group dominated by women, which has had a strong hand in the affairs of the board of censors, is reported by a famous director to have planned giving its own award to deserving Tagalog films and talents.  The director, who had been invited by the group to air his views, opposed the plan for the reason that “the Famas is already doing it and has been doing it excellently.”

            This is not the first time that other groups have tried to rival the Famas.  There was the Manila Film Reviewers’ Guild which fizzled out without having reviewed a picture.  Then there was the Film Society of the Philippines which was the result of a defection from the Famas, and didn’t go far either.

            Even if other groups succeed in putting up competition against the Famas, the academy has nothing to worry about since any beginner in its kind of undertaking would have a long way to go before it could understand the esoteric arts and techniques behind the film.  The reason the Famas didn’t have to undergo a process of absorbing this knowledge was because it started with members who were directly connected with the moviemaking craft, or writers who had covered the movie beat for some time.

            The present Famas is far way up from the dissent-ridden association that it was in the beginning.  Its members are now solidly united toward the goal of bringing out greatness in the Filipino moviemaker.  In this status it has attained its own measure of greatness.  Despite complications, which is natural to an endeavor engaged in a complicated pursuit, the academy has become more and more effective as a conferor of merit in the local film industry.

            That the Famas can be great again is plain play of words.  The correct thing to say for the academy would be, “The Famas can even be greater.”

Source:  The Weekly Nation, March 14, 1966

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MARICEL SORIANO-RICHARD GOMEZ (Hot Copy Magazine, April 20, 1992)

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Source:  Hot Copy Magazine, April 20, 1992

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FLOR, YOUR INFORMATION (Text & Photos by Oghie Ignacio, StarNews Magazine, May 6, 1995)

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Source:  StarNews Magazine, May 6, 1995

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MINSAN LANG UMAWIT ANG PUSO (Text & Photos by Oghie Ignacio, StarNews Magazine, August 5, 1995)

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Source:  StarNews Magazine, August 5, 1995

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KARLA ESTRADA: BABAENG BAKLA NA NAPASUONG SA MARAMING PAGSUBOK NG BUHAY... (Controversial Experience by Rose Garcia, Controversial Magazine, December 15, 1995)

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Source:  Controversial Magazine, December 15, 1995

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