The showbiz industry as well as the fandom of Philippine movies and the entertainment world is mourning the loss of yet another artist, Cherie Gil, Evangeline Rose Gil Eigenmann in real life, who succumbed to a rare form of endometrial cancer’ at the age of 59 on August 5.
The veteran actress who earned the ‘La Primera Contravida’ tagline was greatly admired for portaying her heavy roles with such class and power. She started in showbiz as a child actress at the age of 9 and in whole, her career spanned to nearly 5 decades.
From then ’til now, she’s hugely remembered for that most popular line in the blockbuster movie “Bituing Walang Ningning’ with the Mega Star Sharon Cuneta in 1985; “You’re nothing but a second-rate trying hard copycat!”
However, do you know that Cherie loves singing, too?
Cherie The Singer
The millennials probably aren’t aware that Cherie was an awesome singer, too, and had her fair share of fame in the music industry. Well, she’s not her father Eddie Mesa’s daughter for nothing!
Cherie entered the music scene in 1979 with her hit love song “Boy (I Love You) which stirred a lot of music lovers at the time and which can still be heard on the airwaves. It was a Tagalog cover of a Japanese song ‘Boy’ by the (Nail) Clippers of the ’70s.
In a previous interview Cherie Gil shared that she loves singing and that she started as a singer. “That time 45 pa ‘yung record eh. But my destiny is sa pag-aarte. Luckily I can do both singing and acting. So na-apply ko naman ‘yung pagkanta ko sa pag-arte. Two in one,” she said then. True enough. Browse YouTube alone and you’ll find a number of her songs and shows.
Another song of Cherie which we find so remarkable is that sentimental song “Sing Me Your Song Again, Daddy” which was written by no less than singer-songwriter Jose Mari Chan (JMC) who narrated in a Kapuso interview how the song came to life.
JMC shared that he and Cherie Gil were doing a back-to-back concert in Cebu many years ago and they got to share stories about their lives.
“During the intermission, we sat down and we began to talk about our lives. She was relating to me her relationship with her father [singer-actor Eddie Mesa]. She was special to her dad,” he said, and that he was inspired by how Cherie talked about her father.
“I told her, ‘Cherie, you inspired me so much with your story about you and your father. I think I will write a song about that and maybe you could sing it,’” he said to a surprised Cherie.
Jose Mari revealed he was so inspired that he got to complete the song in two to three days. Wow!
Hence, the song of a daughter to her Dad was born! Many were able to relate to the song while others simply adored the music and words; the message behind the song.
Now we know that the song is somehow a legacy of the well-loved and respected actress, the iconic Cherie Gil.
Her father, Eddie Mesa, a most-loved singer-actor, even had a full concert after more than 28 years which was entitled “Sing Us Your Song Again” – The Legacy of Eddie Mesa; a word play on Cherie’s song. It was held at the Meralco Theater on September 23, 2017.
