“Here Lies Love,” David Byrne’s “disco musical” about the life of Imelda Marcos, opens Tuesday at the Public Theater. It follows the controversial first lady of the Philippines from her teen years to 1986, when she and husband Ferdinand were ousted from the country by the People Power Revolution. Long a divisive figure due to her lush lifestyle and charges of political corruption, Marcos is presented here as a woman who feels misunderstood by history. Played by Ruthie Ann Miles, she is unbowed by her travails, even when challenged by childhood friends (one of whom she bribes) and her chief political rival, Benigno S. Aquino Jr. (who was assassinated in 1983).
There is, of course, another side to Imelda Marcos, one seen frequently by our own Cindy Adams, who counts Marcos, still active in Philippine politics, as a friend. Here’s how she remembers some of Imelda’s most remarkable moments — and they have nothing to do with shoes.
I first met Imelda Marcos in 1971, at the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire thrown by His Majesty the Shah in Persepolis, Iran. It was four days of banquets, parades and parties. Even among 600-plus dignitaries as varied as Grace Kelly and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Imelda and I found each other. She lived big. She liked to party and gossip. We had a lot in common, especially since she frequently traveled to New York City. So we stayed in touch. She came here. I visited there.
I was on TV then but also assisted the president of the Miss Universe pageant. My big idea was that this former beauty contest winner’s capital, Manila, should host the pageant.
At the time, the Philippines lacked a facility capable of holding the event, but Imelda told me: “I will create one.”
So I learned the power of President Ferdinand Marcos’ wife. In 77 days, her builders put up the huge Folk Arts Theater. With a venue seemingly wished into existence, we planned to televise the 1974 pageant in Manila’s morning to coincide with New York’s night.
Contestants, specialists and technicians arrived from the world over. One day before airing live to 500,000 viewers, an impending hurricane threatened. Bad news to an expensive, heavily sponsored CBS program with hundreds of people on site, beaming live from a theater open on three sides to accommodate airflow.
It was panic-time in New York. Cancellation options were weighed.
In the morning at Malacanan Palace, Imelda announced calmly: “I will stop the hurricane.”
Whaaa-a??
Her husband, the president, said quietly: “My wife will help God a little.”
Tiny air force planes seeded surrounding dark clouds with silver iodine bombs. The plan was that they’d float off, creating a 50-mile radius of clear sky. Winds lessened from 200 knots to 50, the storm moved 15 degrees north, burst out at sea and Bob Barker successfully crowned Spain’s Amparo Munoz.
As promised, 24 hours later, blackness descended as a giant storm enveloped Luzon Island. Locked into hotels for days, we stared out at Roxas Boulevard’s flooded main drag.
Imelda slept little, partied all night with celebrated escorts such as the pianist Van Cliburn and actor George Hamilton. Any chance she got, she sang her favorite song, “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” No matter how late she was up, she woke early every morning.
Those galas did you in. Snapshots exist of me, dressed fancy, dead asleep, my head flat on the shoulder of Ferdinand Marcos, then president of the Republic of the Philippines.
That lifestyle existed wherever she was. The top floor of her East 66th Street townhouse was a disco bar with flashing lights, records, musical instruments, banquettes. Gloria Vanderbilt was a guest.
In the ’80s, the two of us went to designer Pauline Trigere’s back dressing room. We stood in our bras and panties, trying on dresses one after another. The bill, however, somehow escaped Madame’s memory. Pauline called me. I called Imelda. That day an envelope with cash was delivered to Seventh Avenue.
In exile, Imelda and Ferdinand spent time in Hawaii, near their friend Doris Duke. Then came federal racketeering charges, allegations of financial dementia and suddenly Mrs. Marcos couldn’t remember where she’d misplaced big-time dollars.
Bring on the New York courtroom trial.
Fingerprinted. Posed with a number across her chest. On the arraignment’s icy-cold day, she wore only her filmy, butterfly-sleeve national dress. Why? “I must send to the world the message that I am a patriot. I hold my head high even at this moment of trial.”
On Tuesday, Nov. 1, 1988, I was with her in the Waldorf’s four-bedroom Douglas MacArthur suite when, unexpectedly, secretly, Doris Duke and two lawyers flew in to pay her $5 million bail. As I wrote on the next day’s front page, Imelda’s people hid me in the guest john.
I sat throughout her trial before US District Court judge John Keenan. I was there when she was rushed to the hospital after collapsing in the courtroom. I was there when, adjudged not guilty, she crawled up St. Patrick’s central aisle to the altar on her knees.
I was alongside when she said: “I love America. I loved this country even before my own. I pledged allegiance to this flag before I had a flag of my own. We were a colony. I am a daughter of America.”
This is the Imelda I know. You who see this production, tell me about the Imelda Mr. Byrne would have you meet.