Boy Villasanta, Julianito Villegas Villasanta in real life, was born in Lopez, Quezon.
He was already an aspiring writer during his elementary days when he was sending articles, especially entertainment stories, to komiks magazines and saw them printed in national publications.
It was surprising, though, he wasn’t a member of his high school campus paper when he was already making a name in the popular movie journalism in the late sixties.
During his college freshman days at the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Arts and Letters, Boy tried his hand in news reporting in a tabloid and comics strip in a komiks mag.
While he was majoring in Literature, he was Pilipino Editor of The Flame, the Journal of the Humanities of Artlets and contributor to The Varsitarian, the official student paper of UST.
In his senior year, he started writing professionally for Sports News, a daily broadsheet in the early 1970s but he soon left the beat when he realized he wanted to be a movie writer more than anything else.
After earning his Bachelor of Arts in Literature, he also published literary pieces like poetry, essays and short stories in English and the vernacular in various human interest magazines and newspapers.
He also translated in Filipino the masterpiece of Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” to “Babasaging Kristal” and mounted it at the St. Martin Technical Institute (now University of Life ) in Pasig City .
In 1976, he officially started his movie writing career by personal applying to Ninoy Sofranes, the editor of the defunct Modern Romances and True Confessions Magazine. He was assigned to do an interview and wrote his first feature story on show biz about the former censors head Ma. Rocio de Vega.
It was no stopping from thereon.
He found himself hobnobbing with celebrities and writing about entertainment events in various outlets like Bondying Movie Specials, Kislap Magazine, Jingle Extra Hot, Liwayway, Love Story and other publications.
He was also given the chance to write for a lot of tabloids and fanzines.
He is an awarded movie writer having won major awards in Deadline, a writing competition among members of the Philippine Movie Press Club.
In broadcast, he was initiated as panelist in Inday Badiday’s “See-True” and “Would You Believe?” in Channel 13 and later, did production assistance for Boy C. de Guia’s and Lolit Solis’ “Scoop,” also in Channel 13.
He was a pioneer of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation when it revived its broadcast after the EDSA Revolt. He was entertainment reporter of Channel 2’s primetime news program, “Balita Ngayon” and later as an ace field reporter for “Star News” of “TV Patrol” in 1987. He also wrote for “The World Tonight” when it had an entertainment portion.
He produced “Star Patrol” in DZMM in 1988 with Angelique Lazo and Apa Ongpin as anchors.
Meanwhile, he produced and anchored in the 1990s radio shows in DZXQ, Radyo Natin, DZME, DZEL and other AM bands. He was also a field reporter in “Lazo Files” in DWIZ
He also started the show biz news of “Action 9,” “Arangkada Extra Balita” and “Newswatch” in Channel 9.
He was involved as field reporter for DWST, an all-entertainment FM radio.
He hosted “Barangay Showbiz” in UNTV for almost a year in 2004.
He’s got a Master of Arts in Philippine Literature units from the University of the Philippines Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature in 1978 but got his full master’s degree in Drama Education and Theater Arts from the Philippine Normal University in 2000.
He has published two books from the UST Publishing House, namely “Tio Ticong Pulitika at Pelikula Vicente Salumbides,” a biographical sketch of the Second Father of Philippine Movies Vicente Salumbides in 2002 and “Expose’ Peryodismong Pampelikula sa Pilipinas (Movie Reporting in the Philippines ),” a historical development of movie journalism in the country.
“Expose’” was a nominee at the Manila Critics Circle National Book Award in 2008.
His new book, “Seksinema,” a socio-cultural-political examination of the history of sex cinema, is on its publishing stage by Atlas Publishing Company.
He currently runs columns for Bomba Balita and Saksi sa Balita and Pinoy Weekly while contributing to ABS-CBN news on line.
He’s also into film production as producer, press liaison and consultant for Outline Films.