Roberto Gonzalez biography and filmgraphy

 

ROBERTO GONZALEZ - Actor, Producer, Director, Karatista

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

As the Pinoy Bonds wound down, a new craze was taking over the local action films. Karate - an essential ingredient in Japanese cinema, introduced to the West via Oddjob in Goldfinger and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. series - became wildly popular in the Philippines in the mid-Sixties. Tony Ferrer as Tony Falcon exploited the new fad to the hilt, then starred in a series of non-Falcon karate and samurai flicks. But despite Ferrer representing himself as a real life "karatista", and even captaining the Filipino team at an international tournament in South Korea, the real deal was Roberto Gonzalez – the washed-up actor I’d encountered at Tropical Hut back in 2006. "Tony Ferrer is an action star,” action star and fight director Danny Rojo told me, “so I double him, and I teach him how to do karate. But he is not a real karatista. Sorry to say." So who was the real karatista in Philippine cinema? "To tell you there truth, it’s Roberto Gonzalez. He’s a karatista."  

Roberto, brother Rolando Gonzalez and sister Magna, were giants in the martial arts world, but remained in the shadow of their father Valentino Gonzales, martial arts pioneer known as the “Father of Philippine Karate”. Valentino earnt his Hachi-dan (8th degree) Red Belt in the Fifties, and is cited as the first non-Okinawan to hold the esteemed title of "Master". His book "The Techniques of Karate" is still quoted over twenty years after his passing, and his Commando Self-Defense Karate Club on Helios Street in Santa Cruz - featured in the Dolphy-starrer Genghis Bond (1965), in which Roberto attempts to instruct the hapless Genghis - was primarily responsible for popularizing karate in the Philippines. It was only a matter of time before the Gonzalez clan graduated to action movies, and audiences decided Roberto to be the most photogenic, and for several years the film industry became karate, samurai and ninja crazy.   

All of a sudden: everybody was kung fu fighting...