Uncover the forgotten story of vaudeville star Juanita Antido and her fall from grace.
In the world of showbiz, fame and controversy always go hand in hand, just like
the story of famed vaudeville star of the flapper era, Juanita Antido. Before
there were telenovelas and hit Netflix shows for our own guilty pleasures,
Filipinos were entertained by the vaudeville, or bodabil, as everyone called it
then.
In the 1920s, the vaudeville scene was vibrant and colorful, with Juanita as its brightest star. In fact, she was so famous that she toured from Penang to Shanghai and her exploits even brought her to Hong Kong, where she filled theaters with adoring fans. She was famed for her flamboyant jazz dance move, which they called the "Shimmy Shake."
Newspapers of the day, from the Hong Kong Telegraph to the South China Morning Post, have published stories and ads headlining her act. The roaring 20s showcased her flapper spirit with bold fashion and liberating performances that gained her fans and enemies alike since her personal choices often pushed the envelope of what is socially acceptable in a conservative society.
The Vaudeville Scene in the Roaring 20s
By the late 1910s up to the 1920s, the nightlife scene in Manila (as well as Cebu) was alive with bodabil variety shows, which blended song-and-dance, comedy, and acrobatics (a Filipino spin on American vaudeville). Luis “Borromeo Lou” Borromeo, for example, “introduced classic-jazz music into the Philippines” and formed the first local bodabil troupe, Borromeo Lou & Co., Ltd. Clubs and theaters in Manila regularly featured jazzy numbers, ballroom dances, and burlesque skits. This cosmopolitan entertainment culture – especially jazz and swing music from the US – helped create a new “modish” generation of Filipino performers and audiences.
The Cebu Exposition of 1913-14 brought a whole new world of entertainment as people outside the province came in to attend that big event. That meant trending dances and plays from Manila would end up in Cebu theaters and auditoriums as well. Juanita may have been introduced to these types of entertainment early in her life and professional career.
It was also the Carnival Queen era, where beauty pageants were held that showcased women representing their provinces, often wearing elaborate and colorful costumes. They act out like they're real-life queens and princesses all with all the trappings of a royal household.
Years after the end of the Great War (World War I) and just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the culminating Great Depression, it was the Roaring 20s. As an American territory, the Philippines was exposed to trendy and modern Western fashion and dances that titillated young people back then. Think about the crazy dance craze we see on TikTok these days. Young socialites and performers often imitated the "flapper" style - bobbed hair, shorter skirts, and energetic dances. Jazz dance crazes like the shimmy caused a stir.
One Cebu newspaper reader lamented that the shimmy was “igwad-igwad sa lubot” or “swaying of the butt,” calling it a “lewd dance”. Even older people of the conservative type called it a dance with the devil. Bag-ong Kusog even praised Juanita Antido as “hawod sa sayaw nga paikid ikid,” literally “an expert in dancing while wiggling the body”. Such commentary shows how offstage morals clashed with onstage modernity: what flappers saw as emancipation, conservative society saw as scandal.
Although the United States saw women voting for the first time during this decade, with the 19th Amendment becoming part of the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920, the Philippines didn't see women voting until years later. On April 30, 1937, a plebiscite affirmed the Filipino women's right to vote, with 47,725 out of 500,000 votes.
Early Years
Juanita Antido was born to a well-to-do Cebu family. According to contemporary reports, her strict and overbearing was trying to protect her virtue. In 1924, the Cebuano weekly Bag-ong Kusog (New Force) reported that Juanita had been “arrested by detectives and confined at the Convent of the Good Shepherd because she is still young and yet her father neglected her education”.
In other words, church authorities took Juanita into a convent school to “make her respectable.” However, Antido resisted this sheltered life: she escaped the convent, eager to return to her performance career. The reports imply her family hoped the convent would prevent her from talaud (“leading a loose life”), but Juanita evidently chafed under those restrictions.
A Colorful Career
In the early 1920s Juanita Antido enjoyed a flamboyant career as a singing and dancing star. In July 1922 Hong Kong’s Hong Kong Telegraph promoted her Kowloon Theatre engagement with a headline advertisement: “Juanita Antido – Queen of Oriental Jazz and the only Philippine girl in Moving Pictures – will sing and dance”. She appeared there with dance partner Conchita Blus.
 |
| An ad for the Kowloon Theatre introducing her signature act for the first time |
 |
| She also had her tamborine act as well |
 |
| She is said to have made a cameo on the silent film "White Hands" |
That same month, the Telegraph described a forthcoming “Shimmy Shake” dance show at Kowloon Theatre featuring the two Filipina performers. The newspaper noted: “Kowloon Theatre is going to host a dance show starring Miss Conchita Blus and Miss Juanita Antido from Singapore performing ‘Shimmy Shake’ tomorrow night”. This special program ran nightly as a lively “prelude to the picture entertainment,” often accompanying the screening of the film White Hands. Indeed, it was remarked that Juanita “also appeared in the film White Hands, which was being screened at the Kowloon Theatre when she was performing”. If that was the case, then Juanita may have been one of the first few Filipinos to have starred in a foreign film, and even pre-dating the first Filipino Hollywood actress Elena Jurado.
Interestingly, the film has Hobart Bosworth as the main actor, who happened to be the same guy who discovered Jurado, who made her a star in "A Girl in Every Port" in 1928.
Her success was not limited to Hong Kong. In June 1922, the Straits Echo of Penang praised Antido’s performance at the Penang Town Hall, reporting: “Miss Juanita Antido undoubtedly scored a big hit with her rendering of ‘The Venetian Moon’ followed by a graceful eastern dance and her Chinese Song,” and that she and Conchita Blus were “in fine vein” onstage. Audiences loved her jazz numbers, exotic costumes, and lively stage presence. By all accounts, Juanita Antido was a bona fide vaudeville queen – even if the colonial press occasionally exoticised her as an “Oriental” performer, which was common at that time as Western audiences tend to see women as such.
The Controversy and Fall from Grace
Antido’s glittering career took a dark turn when Philippine society took notice of her personal life. Back home, newspaper readers followed the saga breathlessly. The Cebu weekly Bag-ong Kusog (August 6, 1926) spelled out the scandal: after her convent confinement, Juanita had quickly married a young man named Albino Cruz to avoid being sent back.
 |
| Details about her daring escape from the convent |
The report says she “nagpakasal dayon kang Albino” (married Albino immediately) and they lived together. But soon she “nangidlap” with another admirer, a younger suitor named Benjamin Quirol.
In other words, she eloped or ran off with Benjamin, abandoning her first husband. Bag-ong Kusog implied that Albino charged Juanita with panapaw (adultery). The provincial court duly convicted both Juanita Antido and Benjamin Quirol, sentencing them to prison. They were each given a term of roughly three years (the clipping notes “silot nga tulo katuig…tungod sa saláng panapaw” for Juanita and Benjamin).
In sum, the controversy centered on Bag-ong Kusog’s revelations: Juanita had flouted social and religious norms by escaping a convent, marrying one man, and then running away with another. Her situation – a famous young “bodabilista” entangled in marriage and adultery charges – was front-page news. As the contemporary paper put it, the attractive vaudeville star, “maan-ayag nga bodabilista nga si Juanita Antido,” had fallen into scandalous circumstances.
The Exile
In 1924, Bag-ong Kusog reported that Juanita was forcibly confined to the Convent of the Good Shepherd in Manila. Detectives apprehended her under orders reportedly from Archbishop Michael O’Doherty, citing her youth and her father's neglect of her education. (“Gidakop sa mga tiktik ug gilaming dayon sa 'Convento del Buen Pastor' kay kuno batan-on pa uyamot ug ang amahan wala magtagad pagpatoon kaniya.”)
Her father, Victor Antido, contested her confinement and sought her release through the courts. Juanita even escaped the convent at one point, but was quickly recaptured. Legal action escalated when a lawyer, Vicente Sotto, filed a writ of habeas corpus on her behalf. According to The Tribune, Albino Cruz, who claimed to be Juanita’s husband, also filed a petition, arguing that the convent had no right to detain her.
Judge Carlos Imperial eventually ruled in Juanita's favor, ordering her release. Following her newfound freedom, Manila’s theaters vied fiercely for her talents, and she eventually signed with Sine Lux, earning an impressive salary of P500 a month, which was a substantial sum at the time.
But the struggles were far from over.
The Aftermath
On November 6, 1925, Bag-ong Kusog reported that Albino Cruz filed an adultery case against Juanita. By August 1926, Antido was imprisoned in Bilibid. The publication's subheadline summarized her saga in stark terms: “Mikagyo, nagpakasal, dayon unya nanapaw” — “She ran away, got married, and committed adultery.”
Details emerged that while married to Cruz, Juanita had fallen for a dapper young man named Benjamin Quirol. (“Albino was caught unaware and Juanita clung to Benjamin Quirol, another dapper young man,” Bag-ong Kusog reported.) The relationship bore a child, and both Juanita and Benjamin were convicted of adultery and sentenced to three years in jail.
 |
| The alleged affair - Juanita left Albino Cruz for Benjamin Quirol |
Public reaction was mixed. Conservative voices saw Antido’s fate as moral justice. More sympathetic observers noted that Juanita was simply “far ahead of her time” by pursuing a love outside marriage.
The iconic photograph of Juanita Antido - still beautiful, still defiant - closed the chapter on one of the most colorful, controversial, and misunderstood figures of Philippine showbiz. The world moved on, but her story remains a memorable episode of the Roaring ’20s.
A century has passed, most people have forgotten this lost love affair.
COMMENTS