Remembering Nora Aunor: actress, ‘rebel’ and the Philippines’ ‘Superstar’

Filipino screenwriter Ricardo Lee pays tribute to Aunor, who spent her career fighting stereotypes and giving voice to the marginalised

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To generations of Filipinos, Nora Aunor was not just a film star – she was the embodiment of their hopes, hardships and quiet resilience.

Celebrated as the Philippines’ one and only “Superstar”, the diminutive actress with a golden voice and uncommon charisma rose from poverty to become a national icon – not for her glamour, but for her ability to portray the unvarnished lives of ordinary Filipinos.

“She was full of contradictions, simple yet complicated,” said screenwriter and long-time collaborator Ricardo Lee, who delivered one of the most poignant tributes following Aunor’s death on April 16 at age 71.

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Aunor was laid to rest on Tuesday with full state honours at the Heroes Cemetery in Manila. But as Lee stressed in his eulogy, it was not the pomp and circumstance of her funeral that defined her – it was her bond with the people she portrayed, especially the marginalised.

Nora Aunor, who died on April 16, was celebrated as the Philippines’ one and only “Superstar”. Photo: Facebook/Janine Gutierrez

One moment stood out for Lee: in 1993, while in Hong Kong for a staging of his play D.H. – short for “domestic helper” – with Aunor in the lead role, they visited the city’s Central District, where she warmly embraced Filipino migrant workers gathered in the park.

“Hundreds of DH were there,” Lee recalled. “Guy” – the nickname her fans lovingly used – embraced nearly each one and asked about their problems, as if this was the most normal thing for superstars to do.

“When we were leaving, I glanced behind and saw over 10 DH weeping while running after our van,” he said. “Why were they crying? I know why. Because they see Guy in themselves. They are Guy.”

Defying the norm

Born Nora Cabaltera Villamayor in 1953, Aunor shattered barriers in an industry long dominated by Eurocentric ideals. Filipino writer Nick Joaquin once said she “has broken the colour line in Philippine movies”, defying conventions that favoured fair skin and sharp features.

“Though neither fair nor statuesque, Nora has bloomed into a beauty all the more fascinating because it’s not standard … her complexion shows a fine gold tint, her features reveal a delicacy of outline and her large liquid eyes are lovely.”

Aunor grew up in poverty in the Philippines’ eastern Camarines Sur province and had to sell water and peanuts at the railway station to help make ends meet. She once told Joaquin that she sometimes had to look through garbage for scrap metal to sell for pennies to help feed her four siblings.

She also recalled on national TV a fond memory of being scolded by her mother for spilling the rice she had obtained “on credit” from a neighbourhood store while on the way home.

Filipino actress Nora Aunor in a still from “Bona”. Photo: NV Productions

Aunor was not discovered by a talent scout. Rather, she made the nation discover her when she entered local singing contests starting at age 14.

On her 17th birthday, her husky, golden voice led to her first starring role and film contract, paid to her in advance by Tower Productions with a 400-square-metre house and lot in suburban Manila.

Initially, she agreed to be part of an on-screen love team called “Guy and Pip” with Tirso Cruz III, who hailed from a famous Philippine clan of musicians. Fans lapped up their “romance” and their life-size doll, Maria Leonora Teresa, and their films became box-office hits.

Despite the early success, Aunor was not willing to rest on her laurels.

“Guy was a rebel,” Lee said of the actress, who spent her career fighting against the status quo. Across more than 170 films over 70 years, she led the charge in defying societal preferences for tall, fair-skinned celebrities that had been a result of four centuries of Spanish and American colonisation.

In 1973, Aunor took her career a step up by establishing NV Productions, which allowed her to produce the films she wanted to star in and pick her movie directors.

A still of Nora Aunor in the 1982 film “Miracle”. Photo: Experimental Cinema of the Philippines

Lee noted that in her films, she ran the gamut of roles and was at her best portraying women living on the edge of society whose voices needed to be heard.

Notably, she was a nun in Fe, Esperanza, Caridad, a convict in The Flor Contemplacion Story, and a lesbian in T-Bird at Ako. She also gave voice to characters such as a communist rebel, an overseas Filipino worker, a movie fan, and a Muslim woman.

Violeta Bartolata, a 66-year-old cleaning lady in suburban Manila, proudly identified herself as “a Noranian” who had kept albums of clippings of the actress until they were swept away by a flood.

“I like her because she remained simple and humble” despite the success, she told This Week in Asia on Thursday.

Aunor’s choice of roles did not always win approval. The Philippine government apparently frowned upon her portrayal of Flor Contemplacion, who was hanged in Singapore in 1995 after being convicted of killing a fellow domestic helper.

Her 1990 work, Andrea, Paano ba Maging Ina, fell afoul of organisers of the state-sponsored Metro Manila Film Festival for its ending that featured the lead character Andrea, a communist rebel, being shot in the head by government soldiers.

Lee, who had written the script, said Aunor refused to change the ending to give the soldiers a reason to kill her, despite pressure from the organisers.

The festival eventually relented and Aunor won acting accolades for her performance at several Philippine film awards.

Nora Aunor at the 69th Venice Film Festival in September 2012. Screenwriter and long-time collaborator Ricardo Lee described her as “full of contradictions, simple yet complicated”. Photo: AFP

The real Nora

Fearless in her film roles and known nationwide as the only “Superstar”, Aunor remained surprisingly shy and lacking in confidence in real life.

She was “always smiling but riddled with self-doubt”, Lee said of the actress. “Extremely shy but the centre of attention. Elevated on a pedestal by her fans and yet so approachable. She was one extraordinary ordinary person. During the nearly seven decades of her life, she made us, ordinary human beings, also extraordinary.”

Lee on Wednesday shared his fondest memory of Aunor with This Week in Asia. “In the early 1990s, I stayed at Guy’s house for more than a month. I remember whole nights when I was interviewing her for a biography I was going to write. She was talking from the heart, from the soul.”

He said she confided in him the most intimate details of her life.

“I remember her face while talking. It was not the face of an actress but of an ordinary person narrating how she grew up in poverty, how she triumphed in her career, and her attempts to be a good mother.”

Despite her on-screen fame, Aunor’s personal life was not as smooth.

Her marriage to actor Christopher de Leon lasted only three years after bearing him a son, Ian, and adopting four children. Two years ago, she confessed during a talk show that she had been “crazy in love” with Cruz, her “Guy and Pip” co-star, but he did not reciprocate. Cruz later said it was “a compliment”.

Nora Aunor in a still from the film “Pieta” in 2023. Photo: Alternative Vision Cinema

Caught at the Los Angeles airport with 8 grams of methamphetamine hydrochloride and a glass pipe in 2005, she pleaded guilty in exchange for her sentence to be struck off after six months of rehabilitation.

In 2010, she lost her voice after a botched surgery in Japan.

In 2014, the government cited Aunor’s drug conviction as the reason for rejecting her nomination for the Order of National Artists of the Philippines – an honour bestowed by the president on those who had made significant contributions to Philippine art.

Despite this, she received the National Artist honour in 2022, a fitting recognition of the impact her long and illustrious career had on Philippine cinema.

Cruz on Monday paid his respects to his former co-star. “Your contribution to the industry will always be remembered,” he wrote on Instagram.

But Aunor’s legacy, Lee told This Week in Asia, went beyond the arts.

“Her greatest contribution to us, I think, is her meaning – what she stood for, for all of us, then and now. And even in the future.”