Nida Blanca

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Nida Blanca

Dorothy Jones (January 6, 1936–November 7, 2001), or more popularly known by her stage name Nida Blanca, was a Filipino actress. She has starred in over 163 movies and 14 TV shows and has received over 16 awards for movies and 6 awards for television during her 50-year film career.

She was stabbed to death in a parking lot in Manila on November 7, 2001. Her gruesome murder remains unresolved to this day.

1 Biography
2 Death
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External Link

[edit] Biography

Younger Nida

Born Dorothy Jones to a US soldier father and a Filipina mother, she appeared in her first film at age 14. Nida was screen tested on October 6, 1950 by LVN Pictures where she reigned as queen for more than a decade, doing mostly comedies opposite the late Nestor de Villa. In the movies, she has played everything from a guy-punching tomboy to a nun. She also starred in the hit TV comedy series John En Marsha where she played the wife who sticks by her poor husband despite her rich mother's constant harping.

Blanca was married twice. She separated from her first husband, Victorino Torres when their daughter Kaye was only two years old. She later married her second husband Roger Lawrence Strunk, an American actor in Las Vegas in 1979 and the couple moved and relocated to Manila. They were childless.

[edit] Death

On November 7, 2001, Blanca was found murdered, beaten and stabbed 13 times in the back seat of her Nissan Sentra in the parking lot of Atlanta Center in Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila where she worked for MTRCB.

The prime suspect was Blanca's husband Rod Strunk whom the prosecutors said had hired a hitman to kill her because Strunk was upset with his wealthy wife over property and money.^[1]^[2] The case rests on the statements of witnesses and Philip Medel, a self-confessed killer who told them that Strunk had hired him to kill Blanca. Strunk was in the U.S. in 2003 to help care for his sick mother when he was charged with the murder of Blanca.^[3] He's currently fighting off extradition to the Philippines to face trial for the murder charges. ^[4]^[5]

[edit] Trivia

Nida Blanca competed in the 1952 Miss Philippines contest (the winner represented the country in that year’s Miss Universe Pageant) where she finished one of the 12 semi-finalists
That same year, Nida was named Best Supporting Actress by the FAMAS for her performance in the LVN war-drama Korea (directed by Lamberto Avellana) which was written by a young Manila Times reporter named Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino who gamely carried Nida’s makeup kit because he was courting her.
She was an active member of the Movies and Television Regulatory Classification Board (MTRCB), attending screenings and rating movies twice a week, at the time of her death.