One and only superstar.

 THE SADNESS OF NORA AUNOR

Toward the end of her life she was selling tuyo and tinapa. Even got into a spat with one daughter who accused her of giving her competition, quickly resolved when they were both scraping the bottom of the barrel. 

What a comedown for our one and only Superstar who shot to fame from being a probinsyana selling water at the train station in Iriga town, Bicol, to a wildly popular singer after winning an amateur singing contest, Tawag ng Tanghalan, in 1967, earning her the nickname the "Girl with a Golden Voice".

She had an even more successful career as an actress where she won multiple acting awards, together with cinematic glory for her movies in the international scene.

She bucked the trend that celebrated the mestiza. She was the quintessential morena, petite, with a button nose of a doll and a prominent mole on the cheek. She was cuddiy and adorable before graduating to mature roles in which she earned lasting renown. 

Her unimaginable success was reflected by the series of homes she lived in, from a rented apartment in Quezon City to opulent homes in La Vista, New Manila, Corinthian Gardens before falling back on hard times. 

She also had a long-running television show which was the equivalent to today's ASAP and Showtime. 

Yet, she couldn't find lasting happiness in her personal life. She got involved with married men, including a former president, two-bit actors and composers, even one reportedly lesbian partner. Somewhere along the way she lost her fortune. 

The one and only love affair that held promise was her short-lived marriage to Christopher "Boyet" de Leon in 1975, which was met with disapproval by fans and family who didn't think they were compatible, as if crossing castes, the morena tying the knot with the mestizo god, the Piolo Pascual of his day. 

When the marriage broke down of its own weight, leaving one child to grow up fatherless, she took it all stoically and walked away in silence, even though all of showbiz was waiting for scandalous revelations.

Her family relationships were dysfunctional, especially with her adopted kids, who came into her life when her career had matured and was starting to fade. There was airing of dirty linen in public by the kids but never the mother. I don't think the kids ever enjoyed the luxury she wallowed in when life was lollipops and roses and she was walking on pearly shells. The part of living in palatial homes was but a blur, because she sold them all as fast as she changed partners and traded for humbler abodes. 

Perhaps her kids were resentful she wasn't able to provide for them in the manner of showbiz royalty or stash a good portion of her wealth as their inheritance.

So, what happened to her riches? Some blame drug addiction or alcoholism. I don't think so.

Nora was generous to a fault. It was her yearning for acceptance in the fairy tale world of showbiz that moved her to give away much of her wealth to friends and colleagues. 

Proof of this are tributes by faded stars who, after her death, are coming out of the woodwork to share tales of her generosity or improvidence, as the case maybe: one related that she gifted her with a pair of diamond earrings that must have cost millions; another owned up to borrowing from her that she never asked to be repaid. Multiply these a hundred times and you will have an idea what a bottomless hole she dug for herself to which she consigned much of her riches. 

If she had half of the financial savvy of Sharon Cuneta who was to eclipse her, she would not become a basket case that she was at the end of her life.

She realized too late that celebrity was ephemeral, that it was not a gift that kept on giving. When lucrative starring roles became few and far between, she thought she might revive her singing career but, alas, she lost her voice. Was it alcoholism? We'll never know.

A botched operation on her vocal chords in Japan in 2010 dealt a permanent blow to her singing career. Devastating as it was, she let her stoic self take over and accept the bitter truth. She didn't have any fallback and she was slowly dying. 

By the 2000s, everybody knew that she needed help, that she was a superstar in name and memory only. Perhaps a National Artist award could revive her career, not to mention earn her a stipend. She most certainly deserved it, given her body of work.

Unfortunately, some naysayers with nothing better to do raised her alleged drug addiction and alcoholism as reasons for denying her the award and president PNoy and then Duterte kept swatting the idea as often as she was nominated. It was only in the last year of Duterte's term that she finally got it.

Nora Aunor was embraced by the industry that needed transformation by her unique gifts but it was a pie in the sky that rode out her celebrity until it faded and it was back to the mestizas and the dancing queens and what are called today as nepo babies.

Now that she is dead, how about paying it forward? I mean those who benefited from her generosity who are now shedding tears on her casket, those who got jewelry and borrowed money who didn't lift a finger when she was selling tuyo and tinapa. How about you erecting a statue in honor of the one and only Superstar?