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 Rosalba Vagge is all smiles with her brother Juan Carlos backstage at the John Bassett Theatre last night, home of the Miss Universe Canada pageant. (JACK BOLAND/Sun Media) |
TORONTO -- Nothing brings out the lustre of fame quite like a touch of tragedy.
Danny Gokey, for instance, started his American Idol quest barely a month after his wife, Sophia, died from complications of heart surgery.
Every time he took the stage, until he was bumped last week, you imagined he was singing for her.
PGA golfer Sean O'Hair is known less for his fine putting stroke than for his estrangement from his dad, who treated him like a dog when he was a teen.
Last week, O'Hair said, "I guess my story is compelling, so people want to know about that stuff."
We sure do. We like to know the glamour pusses of this world suffer life's pains, like we do.
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Besides, if it bleeds it leads, as any old newspaperman will tell you.
GLITZ, GLAMOUR
Even at the Miss Universe Canada pageant, which has brought glitz and glamour to Toronto all week. I'm a judge, so I've learned a few things about these young women beyond their frozen smiles and silky physiques.
Even the beautiful bear wounds. And I don't mean broken nails or split ends.
Consider for a moment Christina Walls, 25, a languid beauty from Salt Spring Island, B.C.
The gods gave her hair like burnished gold -- and cancer in her lungs.
Surgeons removed the tumours four years ago, and now she is an advocate for holistic health and a busy cancer fund-raiser.
There are three nurses among the 56 women. They can tell you as many tales of ravaged bodies, gushing blood and substance abuse as you care to hear.
But no story tops that of Rosalba Vagge, 26, of Vancouver.
"I used to be afraid to tell people about it," she tells me. "I worried they'd feel sorry for me.
"But don't feel sorry for me. Feel happy for me that I'm here."
And there she is, glorious in a red mermaid dress under lights at the John Bassett Theatre. Her stride is steady. She has modelled from China to Peru.
She was Miss Photogenic at the Miss Latina Canada 2009 pageant. She speaks three languages, including Italian from her adoptive dad.
Spanish, she learned in Mexico City. The hard way.
She was still in diapers when her birth parents left her to her fate in the dirty din of that metropolis. Her and her brother, Juan Carlos.
For four years, they were Chiclet Kids.
SOLD CANDIES
By day they sold candies, thrusting their grimy faces into car windows and smiling winningly.
By night, they huddled in the nearest nook. Their family were countless other abandoned children. Their food was pilfered from stores.
She's not sure who gave them names. Their birthdays are still a guess.
"We learned how to run fast," Rosalba tells me. "In and out of traffic, or away from police.
"We learned to fear adults."
With good reason. Some adults sold you if they caught you. Even a few crooked cops did that.
"My brother and I, we stuck together like glue," says Rosalba. "He protected me. I still remember him yelling 'Run, run' and pulling me away."
Lucky for Rosalba and Juan Carlos, the cop who grabbed them had a good heart. He dropped them at an orphanage.
They were there a year. It was no picnic either. But their lives turned.
In Rosalba's memory, faces flicker in the orphanage "viewing window." Two kind faces from Canada. There are sharper images of a warm house up north, her brother still by her side. Of cowering under a desk the first day of kindergarten. Of soccer, and track, and cheerleading. Of finally, fully, leaving the streets of Mexico City behind.
Juan Carlos, 28, is still there, in many ways.
That's him behind us judges, hollering his sister's name and swearing in Spanish. He can't help it. That's what he does when he gets excited. Four years as a Chiclet Kid can do things to you.
But later he tells her how beautiful she looked, how proud he is of her.
Maybe now, they can both stop running.
STROBEL'S COLUMN RUNS WEDNESDAY TO FRIDAY, AND SUNDAY. MIKE.STROBEL@SUNMEDIA.CA OR 416-947-2265