Photograph: WIG TYSMANS
(Lily “Mother Lily” Yu Monteverde, matriarch of the renowned Filipino film production company Regal Films, which was behind such movies as the Mano Po and Shake, Rattle, and Roll series, and discoverer of the famed “Regal Babies” stars that included Gabby Concepcion, Dina Bonnevie, Alma Moreno, Snooky Serna, Albert and William Martinez, and Maricel Soriano, passed away last August 4, a few days short of her 85th birthday. Asian Dragon is reprinting this feature which appeared in the magazine’s December 2008–February 2009 issue, and which captures the iconic woman’s spunk and character.)
AT 69 and wearing heels, Lily Monteverde can touch her toes while standing up. This she does while waiting for photographer Wig Tysmans to shoot her third layout for the day. Two hours into the session, Mother Lily, as she is famously called, is energetic, laughing when Wig asks her to laugh, throwing her head back, obviously relishing being dolled up, accessorized, and playing the role of a cover star.
In Chinese years, she is already 70, but the most renowned producer in the country—maker of such stars as Maricel Soriano, Kris Aquino, and Angel Locsin, and who bankrolled some of the best (Sister Stella L, City After Dark, Tuhog,), the most controversial (Scorpio Nights, Live Show), and the most profitable films in Philippine cinema history—is showing no signs of slowing down. Even when the movie business is not as profitable as it used to be, Regal Films, her production outfit, manages to come up with almost the same number of movies as Star Cinema, the biggest film studio in the country today.
While it is true that she now shares management duties with her daughter Roselle Monteverde-Teo in the family’s Regal Entertainment, Mother Lily seems to remain in control. In between short naps on the road going to the Imperial Palace in Quezon City, a hotel she partly owns, she would be on the phone talking about Judy Ann Santos shooting promo materials for the film outfit’s anniversary presentation Mag-ingat Ka Sa Kulam. Next, she would be expressing disappointment towards an associate producer who has caused several delays in a film she’s producing.
Next she is on the phone with Manny Valera, one of her producers, asking him why there are people who refuse to listen to her when she has to clean up their mess. Yes, while green-lighting projects is a job she now shares with Roselle, Mother Lily still approves the budget for every shoot date and signs the checks. That’s why she’s on the phone a lot, making sure things are being done the way she wants. But she doesn’t throw phones at anyone anymore, which she did back in the day.
These days, she seems more relaxed, though keeping her temper in check is still a struggle. “I had to adjust my way of life, my temper, my moods,” she tells me, talking about a leadership seminar she attended. “We should have a belief system. There are many things I have to believe in life. I feel that I am a loving person, and if I’m not loving, I cannot love others. I should be lovable. I want to be respected, and I want to feel that this is just the beginning of my life, that life is so beautiful.”
Different perspective
Age certainly hasn’t slowed the woman down—it has just given her a different perspective. She has accepted the reality that sometimes she needs to take a step back, especially because she has already entrusted major responsibilities to her daughter. She says she enjoys working with Roselle. “I learn from working with my children. They have a different approach. They have technology; they have a different way of judging scripts. Adjusting to it, acceptance lang yan. I have to accept, take a step back, and acknowledge the young generation.”
She commends Roselle for doing a good job, adding that they are both hardworking and strict. “Pareho kaming may character, eh. A person who has no character, walang creation, nothing to contribute.”
This character made Lily Monteverde almost as big a star as any of her Regal Babies. She is admittedly impulsive, but her track record shows she is also a very good businesswoman. One of 12 children from a pure Chinese family that made its fortune in copra, she always knew she was different. Her parents sent her to exclusive girls’ schools, but she would cut classes to meet her suitors at the Ateneo, or go to Sampaguita or LVN Studios to see her screen idols. A nun at Miriam College told her once that she would never amount to anything. She broke her father’s heart and lost her dowry when she fell in love and married Leonardo “Remy” Monteverde, a half-Chinese, half-Pinoy basketball athlete in San Beda. They’ve been married 48 years.
“I am self-made, never depended on my parents, never got a cent from them,” she told a group of entrepreneurs once. “My father could afford to give me a mansion, but I never got one from him.” She didn’t get anything either from her father-in-law, for whom she worked in the early 1960s. With her savings, she bought two popcorn machines and put them up in high-traffic locations. She made enough money to start a career in the movies, a childhood fascination.
In the 1970s and with P7,000, she bought the rights to re-issue All Mine To Give, a Hollywood film about a mother who had to give her kids away. In its month-long run, it earned half a million pesos, a tidy sum at that time. She would bring in other Hollywood films, but in 1974, armed with P400,000, she produced her first movie, Kayod sa Araw, Kayod sa Gabi. It raked in P4 million, and marked the beginning of the Mother Lily legend.
Passion
At its peak in the 1980s, Regal used to churn out close to 20 films a year. Today, with Hollywood films still getting a lot of the audience share, the easy access to pirated DVDs, the high cost of production, taxes, and a lack of support from government, Regal’s output has decreased to less than half of that. Last year, only seven movies made it to the theaters, and even if not all of them made big money, the Monteverdes are planning to make more this year. So far, they’ve already shown six. Two films are scheduled to be part of December’s Metro Manila Film Festival, and a co-production with GMA Films has a November playdate. When asked why she keeps producing films despite the bleak returns, Mother Lily only has one answer: “Because movies are my passion.”
She is more careful in choosing projects now, however, and she keeps a closer eye on the budget. But she doesn’t lose sleep over first-day showings anymore. “Kung kumita okay, kung hindi, wala na akong magagawa,” she says while we’re caught in traffic. But she will still exert her best marketing efforts, from grand press conferences to creating a publicity gimmick to inviting people herself. Just before Kulam came out in theaters in October (1996), she even agreed to take on the “Don’t Tell A Lie” segment of Showbiz Central, submitting to personal questions while wired to a lie detector. One question was if it was true she loved her stars more than her own kids. Mother supposedly said yes, and the detector confirmed it to be true.
Since Roselle is now also a producer, she has come to understand her mom more, and why Mother Lily indeed doted on her stars. Mother’s children all live with her now in her Greenhills home, including all her grandchildren, who she says are her inspiration.
“I cannot say that in the past I didn’t fulfill my duty as a mother or as a businesswoman, but as you grow old you see things that you should also consider, not only for yourself but also for others,” she says. She tries to have a positive outlook. She takes care of her health, never missing a day of jogging. She plays the piano.
But she loves to eat, and her current favorite restaurants are the Summer Palace at Edsa Shangri-La or the new Chow Garden on Annapolis. She’s not big on clothes and would rather just use the ones she already has; her weight doesn’t really fluctuate much. She’d rather shop alone. “Kasi, I move fast,” says this dynamo of Philippine movies. “If I have to wait for others, baka maloka ako. I’d go crazy!”
