Matutina — from voice actress to TV star

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UNLESS you drop her screen name, no one will sure be able to know who Evelyn Bontogon is — the loud-mouthed house help in the 70s iconic sitcom "John en Marsha: Matutina."

Resourcefulness got the better of broadcast journalist Julius Babao who was able to trace the whereabouts of Matutina, one of his latest vlog subjects.

At 78, the comedienne who began her career as a voice talent in many a soap opera over RPN 9 is wheelchair-bound.

Despite having been diagnosed with osteoporosis, Matutina manages to put on an ebullient front, with a memory as prodigious and retentive as ever.

Proof is how the comedic icon perfectly remembers how she got the part as the housemaid of Doña Delilah (played by Dely Atay-Atayan).

"TV director Ading Fernando was scouting for a talent to play the housemaid, so he went around asking friends. It was a friend of mine who recommended me to him"

Matutina owes her TV stint to her humble beginnings in radio.

Broadcast journalist Julius Babao with his interviewee, former actress Matutina. PHOTO FROM INSTAGRAM/ JULIUSBABAO

"I got discovered on TV because of radio," she tells Julius, "where I would do a number of voices: man, woman, boy, girl, elderly. Name it!"

The eldest in seven children, Matutina drew from her radio earnings the money with which to send her siblings to school.

She must be generating a hefty pay, Julius surmises.

On the contrary, Matutina only earned a paltry P11 per script: "But multiplied by five to six voices, my mom was already happy with the money I'd give her!"

Her better-paying radio job had secured all her siblings' college education: "It was I who never went to college, but I took up a vocational course."

Her radio stint eventually swung other career doors open.

Her screen name Matutina actually was her idea: "I told director Ading I wanted to go by that name. It was also my idea that I sound that loud to differentiate my voice from the ones I did on radio."

Already a mainstay of the 20-year-old sitcom that starred 'Comedy King' Dolphy and Nida Blanca, Matutina's career even scaled greater heights. She started getting offers to do TV commercials.

"There was this producer who gambled on me, but it bombed at the tills," Matutina shares referring to her first and last movie "Matutina."

Needless to say, of the cast members of John en Marsha — which ran from 1972 until 1992 — Matutina is the last (wo)man standing.

"It pains me that Tito Dolphy is already gone, so is Nida. Also, Rollie Quizon, Tita Dely...I sincerely thank God that He's still keeping me alive although I feel that I'm being punished."

Dismissing it as a joke — or punchline — Matutina shifts gear: "I can still do the things i used to except walk. Someone always has to help me sit on the toilet bowl, get up, lie in bed, arise. My eyesight is also not as good as well as my sense of hearing. But everything else is okay," she assures.

Quite jokingly, Matutina even cajoles Julius to offer her a job of a dubbing coach: "I cannot do voices anymore, but coaching I can!"

Himself huge fan of John en Marsha, Julius wraps up his interview by handing Matutina an "iconic" set prop to always remember her by: a broom.

In a number of episodes, Matutina's maid character would always sweep the carpet-covered floor of Doña Delilah's palatial abode with dollar bills stashed on it.

"'I thought you'd give me money," she teases Juliua.

In seconds, Julius handed over P50,000 in 1,000-peso bills to Matutina for her basic needs, especially her medications and thrice-weekly hemodialysis.

Matutina's face also lit up when her John en Marsha co-star Maricel Soriano (who played Shirley) sent a heartwarming message.