FW: ROMANCES IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY: MacARTHUR AND DIMPLES
Dapat, Sabino
MacArthur and Dimples
Romances in History
Ambeth R. Ocampo
Very few people remember a star of the Savoy Theater named Isabel Rosario Cooper. More popularly known as “Dimples,” this beautiful mestiza appeared in the movie, “Ang Tatlong Hambog” (The Three Braggarts), where she was at the receiving end (from Luis Tuason) of the first kissing scene in Philippine cinema. In a retrospective, the said scene would produce catcalls and yawns from an audience used to “bold” and “penetration” movies, so why a piece of entertainment trivia?
Dimples Cooper (Source: 
General Douglas MacArthur (Source: Well, Dimples lived a life which could still be worth a steamy movie because her paramour happened to be General Douglas MacArthur, the man whose famous line, “I shall return,” made him part of Philippine history and as much an icon for Filipinos as Uncle Sam.
William Manchester writes in American Caesar that shortly before MacArthur left the Philippines in 1930, he made arrangements for Dimples to follow him to the United States. When she didn’t, MacArthur cabled her do to so and signed the telegram “Daddy.” Upon arrival in the US, Dimples discovered that “Daddy” could not take her home because his mother was living there, so he housed her in a Washington hotel before finding her a suitable apartment.
MacArthur purchased everything for Dimples, including her wardrobe, which reveals his jealous and chauvinistic nature. He supplied her with tea gowns, kimonos and even black lace lingerie (kinky, huh?). Dimples was not supplied with many street clothes since she was not expected to go out and was to be on call every time MacArthur was in town.
After a while, Dimples grew tired of her love nest, since MacArthur was away most of the time and her only companion was a pet poodle and, of course, MacArthur’s postcards and letters. Before long, the difficulties of a long-distance relationship began to show. With the chauffeur-driven limousine supplied by MacArthur, his mistress cruised the city and ended up having affairs with prominent Washington men!
Once, Dimples asked her lover to find a job for her brother in Washington. An irate MacArthur responded by sending a help wanted page torn out of a newspaper.
In 1934, MacArthur ended the relationship with a note, plus train tickets to the West Coast and passage on an ocean liner back to Manila. In the same year, he sued Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen for $1.75 million over an item which appeared in their gossip column, “Washington Merry-Go-Round.” The suit would have pushed through, but the resourceful journalists found Dimples before MacArthur did and bought all of his love letters to his mistress; so at the pretrial hearing the defendants said they would take testimony from Dimples. Upon hearing this, MacArthur immediately dropped the suit, simply because he didn’t want his mother to find out about his affair with Dimples.
What became of Dimples is quite pathetic. With the $15,000 given by MacArthur through a Pearson agent, she moved to the Midwest where she bought a hairdressing shop. Later, she moved to Los Angeles, California, where she committed suicide with an overdose of barbiturates in 1960.
It will be interesting to read the Dimples-MacArthur correspondence. This would reveal an unknown side to General MacArthur. Hopefully those papers bought by the gossip columnists will make their way to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC for use in a future book.
Reprinted from Looking Back (Manila: Anvil Publishing, 1990)
Ambeth R. Ocampo teaches history in Ateneo de Manila University, writes a well-read op-ed column in the Philippines Daily Inquirer, and moderates a growing Facebook Fan Page.