Singer Carmen Soriano could not find singing engagements in Manila in the 1970s after she was rumored to have had a child by former strongman Ferdinand Marcos and that his wife Imelda Marcos had thrown acid at her face to disfigure her.

In a face-to-face interview last Thursday night, May 20, the mother of actor Lloyd Samartino was still ravishing at 69.

"I don't know how that rumor started," Carmen Soriano said, "but I lost work because of it. I had nothing to do with the gentleman [Marcos]. Maybe, he admired me. I never found out."

She said she had met Marcos only once when she sang in an event where he and his wife Imelda were guests. She sang a duet with him,  the Ilocano song "Ti ayat ti maysa nga ubing (For love of a child)."

"That was the only time our paths crossed," she recalled.

But it led to the wild rumor. Ms. Soriano had to flee to the U.S. to save her career.

"It was very difficult for me here," she said. "Some people believed the rumor to be true, others didn't. But I couldn't find work here and I didn't want to explain so I decided to leave for the U.S. In fairness to Imelda, she never did anything to me. No acid, no threats to my life, nothing. I left because I just wanted to get away."

Abroad, Ms. Soriano sang in night spots and stayed there long enough to be an immigrant. But she returned after some time and was face-to-face with Imelda when she sang for her in Au Bon Vivant, a restaurant owned by Nora Daza.

"After singing, I went to her and greeted her," Ms. Soriano recalled. "I even kissed her on the cheek. I gave her all the respect she deserved as a First Lady."

Like Imelda Marcos, Carmen Soriano was a former Miss Manila. She earned the title in 1957 and won a trip to Hong Kong. She was only 17.

FINDING HER STYLE. While in Hong Kong, Ms. Soriano toured the clubs there and was asked to sing in one during one of these visits.

"I only knew one song, 'No Other Love,' and I thought I couldn't sing, but a musician, Celso Carillo convinced me to stay," Ms. Soriano said. "He trained me to sing, and I stayed and sang at the Winner House in Hong kong for a few months."

Back in Manila, Ms. Soriano presented herself to sing at the Manila Hotel. She wound up singing for several years at the Bulakeña Restaurant on Roxas Boulevard. This is where she developed her style as a flirtatious chanteuse with the fluid body moves.

"But whatever flirtations I had was only for the stage," Ms. Soriano remarked. "I'm really very shy."

She said she's also scared of men, and had turned this fear into a running joke in her shows.