LOLITA SOLIS, A WOMAN MISUNDERSTOOD

Today, I grieve for another friend, who just passed July 2. Highly misunderstood by the public for her frankness, might and feisty attitude, Lolita Solis was a force of nature, a super typhoon, like a weather disturbance (of the peace). She provided controversy, color and splendor to the entertainment industry where she reigned as gossip queen her entire career, which started in the late 1960s.

And how could she not be the woman of strength that she was until she passed at 78? Look at that name of hers, a combination of two very strong drama queens, Lolita Rodriguez and Charito Solis. Like the two legendary actresses, Lolita Solis led a life that was full of drama, comedy, action and suspense, and so much more in-between.

She was fun in person, as a friend, as a commentator and storyteller. Little is known of her kind heart, how she would go the extra mile to help a friend, including the relative of a friend’s friend in securing a visa to some foreign land. Lolita was no consul, but she knew how to keep entire consulates as her close friends.

I shall miss laughing at her jokes and funny asides, including her self-deprecating humor. Long ago at a presscon, a month or so before Christmas, she was telling the reporters at our table to go easy on our reporting.

Why? We asked her.

With a naughty look towards the late Mario Bautista, whose column then was called Puna at Puri, she admonished that since Christmas was fast approaching, Mario and the rest of us should stop writing ‘Puna’ and more of Puri, so that actors and actresses would be happy and will remember us with gifts and money bags on Christmas. Hahaha.