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In Grateful, the veteran actress looks back on a career spanning entertainment, family, public service and advocacy
Boots Anson-Roa-Rodrigo has spent more than six decades in Philippine entertainment, but her memoir, Grateful, presents a life shaped as much by family, public service and industry advocacy as by film and television.
Born Maria Elisa Cristobal Anson on Jan. 30, 1945, she was the daughter of pharmacist Belen de Leon Cristobal and Oscar Gamboa Anson, better known as Oscar Moreno, a prominent postwar matinee idol and Sampaguita Pictures leading man.
Her own career began while she was a senior studying Speech and Drama at the University of the Philippines, when she was invited to host the television program Dance-O-Rama. There she met broadcaster Pete Roa. They married in 1964, had four children and remained together until his death in 2007.
Anson-Roa moved into film in the late 1960s. Her performance in Lino Brocka’s Wanted: Perfect Mother earned her a FAMAS Best Actress nomination. She later shared the FAMAS Best Actress award with Vilma Santos, winning for Tatay Na si Erap while Santos was honored for Dama de Noche. It marked the first Best Actress tie in FAMAS history.
Her screen career continued through films including May Minamahal, Mano Po, Blue Moon and Caregiver, while her work expanded beyond entertainment.
From 1982 to 1986, she served as press attaché, cultural officer and special assistant to the ambassador at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. She later remained in the United States with her family before returning to the Philippines in 1993 and resuming her acting career.
She also taught communication and media-related subjects at the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University.
Her public-service work has also included a long association with the Movie Workers Welfare Foundation, or MOWELFUND, which supports workers in the Philippine film industry. She has served the organization in several capacities, including chairman, and proceeds from Grateful have been designated for the foundation.
In 2014, Anson-Roa married lawyer Francisco “King” Rodrigo Jr., a longtime family acquaintance who was also widowed.
At 81, she remains active on screen in a role that places her in comparatively uncommon territory for mainstream Philippine cinema.
In Brillante Mendoza’s Until She Remembers, Anson-Roa-Rodrigo plays Catherine, a woman living with Alzheimer’s disease and the former love of Concha, played by Charo Santos-Concio. Barbie Forteza plays Concha’s granddaughter Angel, who sets out to find Catherine as her grandmother faces terminal cancer. The film reveals that Catherine and Concha had shared a same-sex relationship decades earlier before circumstances separated them.
What distinguishes the film is not simply that it depicts a lesbian relationship, but that it places two women in their 70s and 80s at the center of that love story. Philippine screen portrayals of LGBTQ relationships have more often focused on younger characters; Mendoza’s film instead examines same-sex love, aging, memory and mortality through veteran actresses whose characters carry an unresolved relationship across decades.
The role marked a departure from the maternal and family characters Anson-Roa-Rodrigo has often portrayed. She has said that playing Catherine took her outside her comfort zone and challenged her as an actress, particularly in portraying a same-sex relationship while exploring aging and memory loss.
Asked how she hopes to be remembered, Anson-Roa-Rodrigo has used one word: “Serviam” — “I serve.”
