Joey de Leon
Joey de León | |
|---|---|
| Born | José María Ramos de León |
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) |
José María Ramos de León, better known simply as Joey de Leon (born October 14, 1946) is a Filipino comedian/TV host who is known for his sarcasm and one of the popular hosts of the long-running noontime variety show Eat Bulaga!. He is a member of the famous comedy trio Tito, Vic and Joey that has made several hit comedy movies and TV shows. Also known as a songwriter, Joey has penned some Filipino hit songs deemed as classics including "Ipagpatawad Mo" (Forgive Me), "Awitin Mo, Isasayaw Ko" (Sing and I Will Dance), "Boyfriend kong Baduy" (My Geeky Boyfriend), "Iskul Bukol" (School is Tough), and many more.
Personal life
Off camera, Joey is husband to Eileen Macapagal, with whom has three children, Jocas, Jako and Jio. He also has two children from actress Daria Ramirez: TV host/actor-comedian Keempee de Leon and Cheenee de Leon. Joey has 4 grandchildren also, one from Keempee and 3 from Cheenee.
Pre-showbiz Life
Joey spent his early childhood in Sampaloc, Manila with his mother. His father, Jose Suwani de Leon (of Spanish descent), never lived with them. Instead, the elder de Leon sent financial support (through his pension at USAFFE) to Joey's mother so that his son would be able to attend school.
Joey's early childhood ranged from the traumatic to comical moments. His most traumatic experience occurred at age 4 when he almost drowned during a family beach outing. Because of the incident, he developed a phobia for bodies of water. Among his funny childhood experiences were playing pranks on his female classmates when he was in Grade 4.
During his teen years, Joey and his mother lived with his mother's relatives. His aunt and his godmother shouldered his high school expenses. But when he took up architecture at National University, his father's pension at USAFFE completely covered his college fees. After two years, Joey quit architecture (because he wasn't keen on Math) and took several odd jobs. Soon after, upon the prodding of his cousin and best friend Freddie Villareal, they went to a radio station to meet up with Karina Afable but instead of meeting her, they chanced upon an audition for radio announcers. Joey wasn't interested at first but his cousin secretly enlisted his name at the auditions. Soon after, Joey was hired after passing the auditions.
Early Showbiz Exposure
He started out his showbiz career in the 1960s as a radio DJ (disc jockey) for some of the top FM stations mostly owned by pre-martial law ABS-CBN. Some of his radio colleagues and contemporaries included the late Inday Badiday, Ike Lozada, Johnny de Leon (no relation) and Helen Vela. In a span of five years, he sat down on 12 FM stations while doing other jobs as gag writer and songwriter. His first big break on TV was IBC's gag show OK Lang which starred him alongside the Sotto brothers (Tito, Vic and Val), Ricky Manalo, Jr. and the APO Hiking Society.
Tito, Vic and Joey
In 1975, Joey became a co-host of GMA Network's early afternoon variety show Discorama hosted by Bobby Ledesma (of Student Canteen fame). At that time, the show hardly had any viewers and ratings were bad. While Bobby was on vacation, he told Joey to take care of the show. Joey invited his former co-stars at OK Lang, brothers Tito, Vic and Val Sotto, to join him at Discorama. Only Tito and Vic accepted Joey's invitation. The newly-formed trio started to do comedy newscast segments interspersed with hilarious interpretations of Top 40 hit songs using made-up lyrics written by Joey. Thus the trio Tito, Vic and Joey was born. Discorama was given a new lease in life and was saved from the axe of GMA Network executives. The new trio was also included in Bobby's noontime show Student Canteen and also released 12 Tough Hits albums based on their Discorama Tough Hits segment.
Although Tito, Vic and Joey started their trio via Discorama and Student Canteen, it was the sitcom Iskul Bukol that gave them nationwide fame as comedians. Soon after, other TV and movie producers came knocking on the trio's door. In 1979, Tito, Vic and Joey started hosting for the noontime show Eat Bulaga! which was pitted against the more established Student Canteen hosted by their former colleague (and now competitor) Bobby Ledesma. Not long after, Eat Bulaga! toppled Student Canteen in the ratings.
Joey as solo artist
Although Joey continued to do movies alongside his showbiz team mates Tito and Vic, he started doing solo performances for other TV shows. He topbilled Joey and Son in the '80s, a sitcom on RPN where he played father to a very young Ian Veneracion (who later metamorphosed into a teen heartthrob and action star in the '90s). He was also one of the gag performers on TODAS where his other co-stars included Jimmy Santos and Val Sotto. Other TV shows that Joey did as a solo host/comedian included Apple Pie, Patis, Atbp., The Sharon Cuneta Show, Let's Go Crazy and many more. Soon after, he was launched by Viva Films as a solo comedian in She-Man: Mistress of the Universe, a parody of the foreign animated series He-Man. The movie was a big hit, and Joey went on to do more movies alone, mostly with his favorite sidekick Rene Requiestas. He also tried his hand at directing movies like Romeo loves Juliet and Small, Medium, Large.
Joey topbilled movies that are mostly spoofs of foreign movies or takes at American and Filipino pop culture. When Starzan became a box-office hit in 1989, he did two more sequels on that same year with tremendous box-office results. Because of the phenomenal box-office standings of the 3 Starzan movies that he made, he was named Box-Office King for that year. He also earned the title Sequel King because most of his movies (Barbi, Elvis and James, Long Ranger en Tonton) each spawned sequels.
When Rene Requiestas went solo with his movie career (and later died in 1993), Joey concentrated on TV. He did several TV shows for major networks, mostly with GMA and ABC. In 1995, Joey made a movie comeback via the comedy "Bangers" for Viva Films, which teamed him up with (the late) comic legend Chiquito and rapper/comedian Andrew E.. This was later followed up by a series of comedy films that had him topbilled alongside other comedians like Leo Martinez (Pipti-pipti) and Dennis Padilla (Ang Tipo kong Lalake and Takot ako sa Darling Ko). However, with the Philippine movie industry slowly losing its grip on the audience, Joey decided to concentrate on TV again, although he still appears in movies every now and then. Currently he still hosts Eat Bulaga which is now the longest-running TV program in the Philippines, and appears in other shows like Mel and Joey, Startalk, Nuts Entertainment and just recently started a new show for ABC, Teka Mona, which replaced Wow Mali, his long-running TV show on the same network. Another show is in the works for Joey this time on GMA's sister station Q. He started hosting "Takeshi's Castle" with Ryan Yllana. He is also the resident judge of the annual reality-based star search StarStruck and writes the entertainment column De Leon's Den once a week in the Philippine broadsheet Manila Bulletin.
In December 2006, Joey returned to recording with a novelty single he wrote entitled "Itaktak Mo" (Shake it off). Unlike most of his previously recorded songs where the melodies were based on past and contemporary hits, "Itaktak Mo" had a unique melody that can pass off as either a pop dance hit or a ballroom song. Seen by critics as his answer to the other wildly popular hit, "Boom Tarat Tarat" (written by Lito Camo and sung by Joey's rival host Willie Revillame), "Itaktak Mo" was softly launched on "Eat Bulaga" shortly before the Christmas season. On January 2007, the song was launched in Joey's album, "Joey to the World 2" and gained airplay in most FM stations in a short span of time. "Itaktak Mo" has also become part of "Eat Bulaga"'s segment "Taktak Mo o Tatakbo" that replaced "Laban o Bawi", and is also one of the official dances of the 4th batch of the reality talent search "Starstruck".
After "Itaktak Mo" became one of the most requested dance tunes this year, Joey followed it up with "Kagat Labi Song", which was launched on "Eat Bulaga" on September 22, 2007. The "Kagat Labi" dance craze was already sweeping the whole country by storm before Joey wrote it.
Controversies
Pepsi Paloma case
In 1982, Joey de Leon along with Vic Sotto and Richie D'Horsie made headlines when underaged actress Pepsi Paloma accused the trio of gang raping her. The case was settled out of court and the trio made a public apology to Paloma, which apparently led to her committing suicide by hanging herself in 1985.
When the Wowowee scam erupted in August 2007, Willie Revillame criticized de Leon for his frequent attacks of his show and claimed that even if he was charged with sexual harrassment de Leon was charged with something else that Revillame implied was much worse. Revillame did not say and elaborate what the charge was. Many believed Revillame was alluding to the rape case filed by Pepsi Paloma in 1982.[1]. In his Startalk interview, Joey maintained his innocence and challenged Revillame to specify the case that he was alluding to in his show. Revillame subsequently apologized to de Leon for his speech attacking de Leon.
Suspension
Joey has been suspended by the MTRCB (the Philippine censorship board) twice from hosting Eat Bulaga!. His first suspension was in 2003 for one month, after uttering a joke related to birds during the question and answer portion of the kiddie pageant That's My Boy.
His second suspension was in 2004 after uttering a Filipino slang word for fellatio during the TKO portion. The second suspension was supposedly for two months but after reportedly suffering from emotional and health problems brought about by the suspension, he was allowed by MTRCB to go back on the air after a month.
Since then, Joey has cleaned up his act although he still retains his 'pilyo' (naughty) ways when he makes people laugh with his jokes.
Word War with Willie Revillame
On August 29, 2007, Joey was the subject of Willie Revillame's ire after the latter aired his so called - sentiments in the ABS-CBN noontime show, "Wowowee". At that time Joey was still on vacation in Hong Kong with the cast and staff of "Eat Bulaga!". On August 30, 2007, Joey answered Willie's tirades against him by advising his erstwhile colleague in a 10-minute speech, "Explain before you complain". On that day, Senator Manuel Roxas II, chair of the Senate trade and commerce committee, announced that he will propose an inquiry into the alleged game rigging on ABS-CBN Network's "Wowowee" after getting information from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and concerned parties (after Joey de Leon, host of rival show "Eat Bulaga" of GMA TV jokingly called upon lawmakers to conduct a probe).[1]
Not for long, the Senate had decided to back out and wash their hands, on being part of the unending lurking Joey dilemma that was fostering, and in most cases, debilitating GMA's standing and rating world wide. Many considered it a waste of time, money and effort. Meanwhile, scrupulous rumors, suggest the backing out on Willie might be due to future campaign benefits for some senate candidates and parties, because of his staggering presence and popularity on TV world wide.
Gag order allegations and self-regulation
On September 15, 2007 Joey took a leave of absence from GMA's Saturday talk show "Startalk" after MTRCB allegedly issued a directive to GMA Network to prevent him from further commenting on the "Wilyonaryo Scam" of rival noontime show "Wowowee". Some unnamed executives of GMA were also reported to have told Joey to refrain from wearing t-shirts with printed references to "2-0", "Explain before you complain" or "Cheating is..." or making hand gestures in reference to the said scam. On September 19, 2007 in his "De Leon's Den" column in the Manila Bulletin, Joey jokingly wrote that he might go back to radio to continue commenting on the "Wilyonaryo" scam but has vaguely declared a close book on it.
Filmography
- Enteng Kabisote 3: The Legend Goes on and on and on (2006)- Shintaro Gokoyami
- Enteng Kabisote 2: The Legend Continues (2005)- Panggay
- Enteng Kabisote: Okay ka fairy, the legend (2004)- Mulawit
- Fantastic Man (2003)- Doc
- Pakners (2003)- Pickpocketer
- Lastikman (2003)- Elmer
- Kabayo kids (1990)- Pando/Yellow Banana
- Ganda babae, gandang lalake (1990)- Special Participation
- My Funny Valentine (1990)- Panday spoof character
- Sam And Miguel
- Elvis and James 2 (1990)- Elvis Presto
- Small, Medium en Large (1990)- credited as Director
- Hotdog (1990)- Pedro
- Romeo Loves Juliet... But Their Families Hate Each Other! (1989* Elvis and James, the Living Legends! (1989) - Elvis Presto
- Starzan 2: The Adventure Continues (1989)- Starzan
- Long Ranger & Tonton: Shooting Stars of the West (1989)- Davie Bowie aka Long Ranger
- Starzan: Shouting Star of the Jungle (1989)- Starzan
- Starzan III: The Jungle Triangle (1989)- Starzan
- Smith & Wesson (1988)
- Barbi (1988)- Bartolome/Barbi
- Sheman: Mistress of the Universe (1988)- Pandoy
- Shoot That Ball (1987)
- Ready aim Fire (1986)
- Super wan, tu, tri (1986)
- Working Boys (1986)
- Ma'a May We Go Out (1985)
- Mama Said, Papa Said, I Love You (1985)
- Doctor, Doctor We Are Sick (1985)
- Ride on Baby (1985)
- Naku ha! (1984)- Billy Jean
- Give Me Five (1984)
- Magtoning muna tayo (1981)
- Palpak Connections (1981)
TV Shows
- Slingo (2007) ABC
- Just Joking (2007) GMA Network
- Takeshi's Castle (2006) Q/GMA Network
- Teka Mona (2006-2007) ABC
- Wow Maling Mali (2006) ABC
- Wow Mali!(1995-2006) ABC
- Startalk (2005-Present) GMA Network
- Mel and Joey (2004-present) GMA Network
- StarStruck (2003-2006) GMA Network
- Nuts Entertainment (2003-present) GMA Network
- Sana ay Ikaw na Nga (2002-2003) GMA Network
- Korek na korek ka Diyan (2001) GMA Network
- Mixed Nuts: Numero Unong Terrific Show (1993-1995) GMA Network
- GMA Telecine Specials (1992) GMA Network
- Rock n' Roll 2000 (1992) ABC
- TVJ on 5 (1992) ABC
- TVJ (* Si Malakas at si Maganda (1990) IBC - Special Participation
- Let's Go Crazy (1987)- ABS-CBN Gag show (co-starring Ms. Maricel Soriano)
- The Sharon Cuneta Show (1986) IBC (later transferred to ABS-CBN)
- Apple Pie, Patis, Atbp. (1986) RPN
- Joey and Son (1980) RPN
- Eat Bulaga Holy Week Drama Specials (RPN (1979-1989) /ABS-CBN (1989-1995)/GMA Network (1995-present)
- Eat Bulaga! (1979-present) TAPE-produced noontime variety show (RPN (1979-1989) /ABS-CBN (1989-1995)/GMA Network (1995-present)
- TODAS (1978-1988) IBC
- Friends (1977) MBS
- Iskul Bukol (1977) IBC- Joey Escalera
- C.U.T.E. (Call Us Two for Entertainment) (1977) IBC
- Student Canteen (1976) GMA Network
- Discorama (1975) GMA Network
- OK Lang (1975) IBC
Commercial endorsements
Albums/Singles
- Joey to the World 2 (2007)- Sony BMG Music (featuring "Itaktak Mo")
- Joey to the World (2004)- Sony BMG Music
- Halukay Ube (2004)- Duet with Sexbomb Girls from the album: Double Threat (Sony BMG)
- Ispageti (2003)- Duet with Sexbomb Girls from the album: Round 2 (Sony BMG)
- Mga Pakyuuuut ni Joey de Leon (1999)- EMI Music Philippines/PolyEast Records
- JoeyRassic (1993)- MCA Music, Inc.
- TVJ Tough Hits series (12 albums) 1976-1978 Vicor Music Corp.
External links
- Joey de Leon at IMDb