Tuesday, September 18, 2001
A never-before-published, personal remembrance story of fabulous J.Lo
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Everyone has to leave the Bronx sooner or later, whether it is the Bronx of my youth or that of Jenny Lopez, fifty years later. That is the price of progress. But there are certain small-town values that the Bronx leaves with you, those being practical, of taking care of your parents, of marrying instead of playing the field, of staying with your own and not getting stuck up. When I read or hear of people dissing Jennifer Lopez for multiple marriages, for getting too bigtime for her britches, I feel that I have to speak up. That is not the woman that I knew, however peripherally, as a young child, that is not the solid Puerto-Rican family that I heard about from her father over the years, as she developed as a dancer, then actress, then singer. What we see and hear in the media is a movie persona, created by press flacks for appeal to the youthful. Now that her lover and husband-to-be, Ben Affleck, has left her at the altar, there's badmouthing going on, and jealous snickering, and one has to speak up.
As a young child, once a year Jenny would come to the offices where her father and I worked, arriving every Christmas holiday season, along with many other of our youngsters, to visit Daddy's or Mommy's workplace. They would be treated with candies which we kept in our desks for the occasion, play computer games which the Data Processing people (her father, David, was one of them) put on the mainframe just for the day, and have lunch with ice cream in the company cafeteria. Jenny was a cheerful child, with lots of body language. She was the oldest of three talented daughters (Leslie, a housewife, sings opera, and Lynda is a radio DJ and TV correspondent), an outstanding athlete in Catholic school. Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story was an early inspiration for her acting and singing, and Mama Lupe recognized her talent and took her to music and dancing lessons after school , from age 5 on, and, subsequently, to mass auditions for various shows. The effort was painful and demeaning, and Jennifer at 18 was getting discouraged, started attending Baruch College and accepted an office job, but her mom persisted.
Finally, a new TV series, In Living Color, a comedy series (with Keenan Wayans and James Carrey) needed dancers, and Jenny won her first job, in 1990. It lasted two years. She was outstanding and memorable, agents and other job offers followed and she moved to California. I was kept abreast of her successes by David, a sometime lunch companion. She danced in Janet Jackson's entourage and had startup roles in movies.
The movie Selena (1997), of the life of a young tejano singer slain by her chief groupie, gained her world-wide recognition. I remember that during a sales convention which brought representatives from all parts of the country to New York, several Texans and other Southwesterners came looking for David, shake him by the hand, praise his daughter and take home his autograph for their children. As for Jennifer, she bought a Cadillac for her father, which he declared as being too much car for the family, and took them to Texas for the filming.
The subsequent movie, Out of Sight (1998), came with an apology to the family about "having had to show too much skin," I was told. There had also been an investment in a restaurant, Madre's in Pasadena, and she married her Cuban chef, Ojani Noa, in 1997. Dad, walking her down the isle, looked not too pleased. Subsequently there were four more movies, three successful music CDs (the first a six-time platinum seller), a divorce, and a two-year episode with singer -musician- designer/entrepreneur Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, ending when the couple became involved in a nightclub shooting incident. She was married to dancer-choreographer Cris Judd briefly, in 2001-2.
The romance with actor-writer Ben Affleck of Good Will Hunting (1997) fame, her junior by two years, brought on much gossip. Jennifer, now known as J.Lo, who does not drink alcohol and plans everything, was bruited to be controlling and known to attempt managing Affleck's spending habits. Having lost touch with David, who retired and moved to California (there was also a reputed marital separation), I have no recent information, but would suspect a clash of two natures, the cautious, solidity-seeking, and the profligate. The abysmal failure of their "together" movie, Gigli, with a role which the practical Jennifer should never have accepted, would surely bring on recriminations. Be that as it may, there is some doubt that the split is permanent. What David says about this, I don't know, but I can guess.
Wally Dobelis claims to feel equally strongly about the press over-abusing Martha Stewart, no matter what her faults
Everyone has to leave the Bronx sooner or later, whether it is the Bronx of my youth or that of Jenny Lopez, fifty years later. That is the price of progress. But there are certain small-town values that the Bronx leaves with you, those being practical, of taking care of your parents, of marrying instead of playing the field, of staying with your own and not getting stuck up. When I read or hear of people dissing Jennifer Lopez for multiple marriages, for getting too bigtime for her britches, I feel that I have to speak up. That is not the woman that I knew, however peripherally, as a young child, that is not the solid Puerto-Rican family that I heard about from her father over the years, as she developed as a dancer, then actress, then singer. What we see and hear in the media is a movie persona, created by press flacks for appeal to the youthful. Now that her lover and husband-to-be, Ben Affleck, has left her at the altar, there's badmouthing going on, and jealous snickering, and one has to speak up.
As a young child, once a year Jenny would come to the offices where her father and I worked, arriving every Christmas holiday season, along with many other of our youngsters, to visit Daddy's or Mommy's workplace. They would be treated with candies which we kept in our desks for the occasion, play computer games which the Data Processing people (her father, David, was one of them) put on the mainframe just for the day, and have lunch with ice cream in the company cafeteria. Jenny was a cheerful child, with lots of body language. She was the oldest of three talented daughters (Leslie, a housewife, sings opera, and Lynda is a radio DJ and TV correspondent), an outstanding athlete in Catholic school. Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story was an early inspiration for her acting and singing, and Mama Lupe recognized her talent and took her to music and dancing lessons after school , from age 5 on, and, subsequently, to mass auditions for various shows. The effort was painful and demeaning, and Jennifer at 18 was getting discouraged, started attending Baruch College and accepted an office job, but her mom persisted.
Finally, a new TV series, In Living Color, a comedy series (with Keenan Wayans and James Carrey) needed dancers, and Jenny won her first job, in 1990. It lasted two years. She was outstanding and memorable, agents and other job offers followed and she moved to California. I was kept abreast of her successes by David, a sometime lunch companion. She danced in Janet Jackson's entourage and had startup roles in movies.
The movie Selena (1997), of the life of a young tejano singer slain by her chief groupie, gained her world-wide recognition. I remember that during a sales convention which brought representatives from all parts of the country to New York, several Texans and other Southwesterners came looking for David, shake him by the hand, praise his daughter and take home his autograph for their children. As for Jennifer, she bought a Cadillac for her father, which he declared as being too much car for the family, and took them to Texas for the filming.
The subsequent movie, Out of Sight (1998), came with an apology to the family about "having had to show too much skin," I was told. There had also been an investment in a restaurant, Madre's in Pasadena, and she married her Cuban chef, Ojani Noa, in 1997. Dad, walking her down the isle, looked not too pleased. Subsequently there were four more movies, three successful music CDs (the first a six-time platinum seller), a divorce, and a two-year episode with singer -musician- designer/entrepreneur Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, ending when the couple became involved in a nightclub shooting incident. She was married to dancer-choreographer Cris Judd briefly, in 2001-2.
The romance with actor-writer Ben Affleck of Good Will Hunting (1997) fame, her junior by two years, brought on much gossip. Jennifer, now known as J.Lo, who does not drink alcohol and plans everything, was bruited to be controlling and known to attempt managing Affleck's spending habits. Having lost touch with David, who retired and moved to California (there was also a reputed marital separation), I have no recent information, but would suspect a clash of two natures, the cautious, solidity-seeking, and the profligate. The abysmal failure of their "together" movie, Gigli, with a role which the practical Jennifer should never have accepted, would surely bring on recriminations. Be that as it may, there is some doubt that the split is permanent. What David says about this, I don't know, but I can guess.
Wally Dobelis claims to feel equally strongly about the press over-abusing Martha Stewart, no matter what her faults
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 10:57 AM 
