Filipinos of Arab Descent - Rosa Rosal (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Florence Danon Gayda (born October 16, 1931), better known as Rosa Rosal, is a FAMAS award-winning Filipino film actress dubbed as the "original femme fatale of Philippine cinema". She is also known for her work with the Philippine National Red Cross. For her humanitarian activities, she received the 1999 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, an award widely considered as Asia's Nobel Prize. She is the mother of TV host Toni Rose Gayda. Rosal was born Florence Danon in Manila. Her mother hailed from Pampanga, while her father was of French, Egyptian and Jewish descent. Her half-brother, Don Danon, once acted as a stand-in for the Hollywood actor Rudolph Valentino. During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, Rosal worked as a newsreader in a Japanese-run radio station. Shortly after the end of the war, Rosal worked part-time at the San Lazaro Hospital. One night, she was passing by a film shooting as she was walking home, and she was spotted by the film's producer, Luis Nolasco. She was offered a film contract by Nolasco, who headed his own outfit, the Nolasco Brothers Studio. The Nolasco Brothers Studio cast Rosal in Fort Santiago (1946). Her screen name was taken from the Tagalog words for "rose" and "gardenia". In 1947, Rosal was cast opposite Leopoldo Salcedo in Kamagong (1947). Her performance drew the attention of the other major film studios, and she was signed to a contract with LVN Pictures by the studio head, Doa Sisang de Leon. She was cast by LVN Pictures in her first starring role in the 1949 film Biglang Yaman. Throughout the 1950s, Rosal starred in costume dramas such as Prinsipe Amante sa Rubitanya (1951), and in such neo-realist dramas as Lamberto Avellana's Anak Dalita (1956), Tony Santos's Badjao (1956), and Ma... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=15860364