Sara Montiel


María Antonia Abad Fernández MML, known professionally as Sara Montiel, and as Sarita Montiel, was a Spanish singer and actress. She has been called a "sexual, feminist, and gay icon for Francoist Spain."
Montiel was born in Campo de Criptana in the region of Castile–La Mancha in 1928. She worked in Europe, Latin America and United States. Her films The Last Torch Song and The Violet Seller netted the highest gross revenues ever recorded for films made in the Spanish-speaking movie industry during the 1950s/60s.
She was portrayed in the Pedro Almodóvar film Bad Education by a male actor in drag as the cross-dressing character Zahara, and a film clip from one of her movies was used, as well.

Acting career

Montiel started in movies at 16 in her native Spain, where she appeared in a secondary role in her first movie, Te quiero para mí in 1944, immediately followed by a leading role in Empezó en boda also in 1944. In April of 1950, accompanied by her mother, she moved to Mexico, starring in a dozen films in less than five years. It was in Mexico that she first learned how to read and write, taught by the poet Felipe Leon. Hollywood came calling afterwards, and she was introduced to United States moviegoers in the film Vera Cruz, directed by Robert Aldrich. She was offered the standard seven-year contract at Columbia Pictures, which she refused, afraid of Hollywood's typecasting policies for Hispanics. Instead she freelanced at Warner Bros. in Serenade, directed by Anthony Mann, and at RKO in Samuel Fuller's Run of the Arrow.
In 1957 she returned to Spain and starred in El último cuplé , which was filmed with a very low budget, became a worldwide megahit, and made Montiel a film and singing superstar. After The Last Torch Song, she combined filming, recording songs in five languages and performing live.
Almost all of her films earned high box office results. Among the films during the 1960s and early 1970s were The Violet Seller, Carmen, la de Ronda, Mi Último Tango, Pecado de Amor, La Bella Lola, Casablanca, Nid d'espions, Samba, La Femme Perdue, Tuset Street, Esa Mujer, Varietes and others. By then she had become dissatisfied with the movie industry and what she saw as overt nudity in films. Montiel's film Variety was banned in Beijing in 1973.
In 1974, Montiel announced her retirement from movies but continued performing live, recording, and starring on her own variety television shows in Spain, including MTV
In November 2009, the performer Alaska, from the Spanish pop group Fangoria, invited Montiel to record a track sharing vocals with her for the re-release of the band's album Absolutamente. They recorded the title track "Absolutamente" as a duet. The music video for the song was released on 18 December 2009. Well into her 80s, he had no plans to retire, and continued working in various projects. In May 2011, after almost 40 years without making a movie, she performed in a feature film directed by Óscar Parra de Carrizosa. The film title is Abrázame'' and was shot on location in La Mancha.
She is considered "one of the most important actresses in the history of Spain", and has been described by Spain's press as a "myth of Spanish cinema." Montiel has also been characterized as "the most beautiful woman of 20th century Spain." She appeared in nearly 50 films and recorded around 500 songs.

Personal information

Montiel was born María Antonia Abad Fernández in 1928 in Campo de Criptana, Spain. She entered films after winning a talent contest at age 15.In her first movie, she was credited as "María Alejandra" a shortened version of her real name. For her next film, she changed her name to Sara, after her grandmother, and Montiel after the Montiel fields in the Castile–La Mancha region of her birth. She was married four times, and was ex-communicated by the Catholic Church in Spain for the civil-wedding ceremony of her first marriage:
In 2000, Montiel published her autobiography Memories: To Live Is a Pleasure, an instant best seller with 10 editions to date. A sequel Sara and Sex followed in 2003. In these books, Montiel revealed other relationships in her past, including one-night stands with writer Ernest Hemingway as well as actor James Dean. She also claimed a long-term affair in the 1940s with playwright Miguel Mihura and mentioned that science wizard Severo Ochoa, a Nobel Prize winner, was the true love of her life.
In her later years, Montiel became an iconic figure to the gay community, and noted "Cuando voy a actuar a alguna ciudad de EE UU allí están todos los gays de la ciudad". Montiel died in 2013 at her home in Madrid at the age of 85 from congestive heart failure, and was buried in the San Justo Cemetery in Madrid.

Filmography

Discography