MEDIUM RARE
Johnny Litton’s fans, friends, sponsors of his long-running TV show, “Oh no, it’s Johnny!” came out in numbers to fill a ballroom and pay tribute. But where was Johnny?
We all missed seeing Johnny on stage dishing out his one-liners, especially those tainted green and pink, but there he was, large as life, seated at the presidential table with Freddie Garcia, during whose stewardship the show was the jewel in the crown of ABS-CBN’s uppercrust offerings.
Leading to Grand Hyatt’s ballroom was a carpet as red and long as deserving of the ladies and gentlemen who walked on it with aplomb. In keeping with the theme, Hollywood glitz and glamour, even the gentlemen glitzed with diamond jewelry. Bert Basilio with a gem-studded owl pinned on his clerical collar, Sonny Tanchangco’s lapel strewn with butterflies and other winged creatures. As for the ladies, oh no, Johnny, too many of them to name in this little space, they who sparkled with the joy of being in an intimate crowd of friends “missing in action” since the great lockdown.
Quoting Charisse Chuidian, it was Marissa Fenton and Roselle Rebano who put the event together, to present Gratitude Awards from the “extraordinary persons in Johnny’s life” as a TV and party host, including Freddie, Vicky Belo, Arthur Lopez, Johnlu Koa, Mellie Ablaza, Nonie Basilio, William Belo of Wilcon, and many more.
Johnny Litton – “my middle name is Longfellow” – is special to me because he sort of influenced my son into loving movies as an art form. For, as Paul would later teach his students in movie appreciation, “cinema is the new literature.” Paul was in his teens when he tagged along to a special screening in Johnny’s house in Forbes Park. Coming home from the viewing, Paul said, “I’d like to live in a house with a screening room like that.”
He did not get his wish, but in the house where he lives he has wall-to-wall TV’s in the bedrooms and living room. Neither did he become a movie distributor like Johnny during his Mever days, but eventually he became a movie reviewer, and he worked with Peque Gallaga and “Mother” Lily Monteverde in some projects. For all that and more, thank you, Longfellow!