A Gender Variance Who's Who: BB Gandanghari (1967 - ) actress.
Rustom Padilla was raised in a Filipino acting family. He did a BA in economics at St Louis University, Baguio, and studied filmmaking at University of California at Los Angeles.
Rustom became a matinee idol and then an action star in Filipino movies, making over 30 films between 1990 and 2007, and many television programmes.
In 1992 he was voted Best New Male TV by PMPC Star Awards for Television, and in 2007 he won the Gawad Urian Best Actor award.
He married actress Carmina Villaroel in 1994, but she filed for annulment after a few months.
Rustom was featured in Pinoy Big Brother:Celebrity Edition in March 2006 during which he declared himself to be a gay man, after which he played several gay roles on film and television.
In January 2009, on returning from New York, Padilla came out as transsexual and changed her name to BB Gandanghari (BB being an abbreviation of Binibining = Miss Beautiful King, and also a reference to "Be all that you can be").
In April that year BB was refused entrance to the Aruba Bar & Restaurant, Manila, which posts a sign saying no cross-dressing, even though BB was dressed as a women.
Since then BB has played a male-female dual role in the fantasy series Enchanted Garden, a trans woman torn between two lovers, a gay character in the film version of the comic book ZsaZsa Zaturnnah and , most recently, a double role in a stage version of Kiss of the Spider Woman as both Molina (William Hurt in the film) and Irena the spiderwoman (Sonia Branag in the film).
Bayani San Diego Jr. "BB wants to be known as a serious actress". Philippine Daily Inquirer, January 17th, 2013. http://entertainment.inquirer.net/76997/bb-wants-to-be-known-as-a-serious-actress.
"BB is Tarantula". PhilStar, January 18, 2012. www.philstar.com/entertainment/2013/01/18/898179/bb-tarantula.
BB Gandanghari. My Personal Blog. http://bbgandanghari.blogspot.ca.