Rosita Fornés

Rosita Fornés was born in New York City on February 11, 1923. She was taken to Cuba by her Catalonian-Spanish parents when she was two. Her birth name was Rosalía Lourdes Elisa Palet Bonavia. Fornés became her surname at age 15 at the request of her step-father, who helped raise her from the age of 2. Fornes first won critical acclaim as a singer after winning the best prize at a widely-known Cuban talent contest (La Corte Suprema del Arte) in 1938. After this, Fornés became one of Cuba's most prolific performers, both admired and maligned. She was at the center of certain personal and political controversies. Her visit to the United States from May to September of 1996, for instance, generated politically heated press overage in Miami. She was for many years regarded as a sex symbol, as the unchallenged blonde goddess of Cuban show business, although her true weapons in this field were a spell-binding stage presence, unbending professionalism and a beautiful singing voice. In her twenties, already famous in Cuba, she traveled to Mexico where she became an overnight and lasting sensation. Rosita Fornés was labeled in Mexico as "La Primera Vedette de las Américas". In the 1940s and 1950s, she toured throughout Latin America, the USA, and Europe. In the latter part of the 1950's she became Spain's most popular stage diva, rivaling Spanish stars such as Celia Gamez and Sarita Montiel. In Cuba, her sold-out theatre performances and countless TV appearances made Fornés the country's top female superstar. Fornés has received numerous artistic awards in Cuba and abroad. She declared herself apolitical and a devout Catholic, and has remained in Cuba despite and since the 1959 Revolution. At the peak of the AIDS crisis in Cuba (when AIDS sufferers where forcibly isolated into a state-run health institution), she would visit the sick and perform for them freely. In several occasions, she has regarded her film career as an "accident", and has declared in no uncertain terms that she deplores her earlier filmography, which she considers too flawed and commercial. Fornés's first husband was Mexican actor Manuel Medel with whom she had her only child, Rosa María Medel, who is also an actress. Her second husband, Cuban actor Armando Bianchi, died in 1981 in a drowning accident after 28 years of marriage. Fornés is associated throughout the Hispanic world with other great Latin names of the period: Jorge Negrete, Emilio Tuero, Libertad Lamarque, Antonio Aguilar, María Victoria, Dolores del Río, María Félix, Agustín Lara, Ernesto Lecuona, Adolfo Guzman, and Cantinflas. No longer exploited as a sex symbol, Fornés remained an active, commanding and venerated presence in the Cuban stage scene. She still got top billing and sang at the closing of every important variety show that took place on the island. Always considered to be the non plus ultra of glamour in Cuba's artistic circles, it was not uncommon to watch people "ooh"ing and "aah"ing at the sight of Fornés making her way through the crowds in a party or taking center stage. In the late 1990s, she performed a series of concerts in Havana (July 1997), starred in a comedy play (Nenufares en el techo del mundo), and was part of the international jury at the International Film Festival in Bahia, Brazil (October 1997). She cared for her elderly mother, Lupe. Asked whether age worried her, her response was always the same: "Age is a state of mind". And she proved it.