Lola Flores

María Dolores Flores Ruiz (Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, January 21, 1923-Alcobendas, Madrid, May 16, 1995), known as Lola Flores, was a Spanish actress, dancer and singer.

Within music, he began in the copla genre and also sang rumbas and rancheras. As an actress, she has starred in more than 35 films, many of them set in Andalusian folklorism. She was one of the first women in post-war Spain to speak freely of topics considered taboo such as violence against women, extramarital affairs and sexual intercourse. prostitution.

As an artist, he became a symbol and a cliché of an era in Spain in the XX century. He also He gained recognition in Mexico for his participation in films such as Reportaje (1953), ¡Ay, pena, penita, pena! (1953), La Faraona (1956), and Los Tres Amores de Lola (1956). These also earned her recognition as one of the actresses who were part of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.

Biography and career

Childhood and youth

Flowers in 1925.

María Dolores Flores Ruiz was born on January 21, 1923 in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), at number 45 Calle Sol, in the neighborhood of San Miguel with a great flamenco tradition and a few meters from where the great singer Antonio Chacón. She was the eldest of the three children of the marriage formed by Pedro Flores Pinto (1897-1973), a native of La Palma del Condado, and María del Rosario Ruiz Rodríguez (1901-1989), originally from Sanlúcar de Barrameda. His sister Carmen Flores (b. in 1936 in Jerez de la Frontera) also dedicated herself to show business. Her brother Manuel de ella (b. In 1933 Seville) died at the age of fifteen of peritonitis. Professionally, she cultivated the gypsy flamenco image with which she felt identified, her calé (gypsy) ancestry came from her maternal grandfather, Manuel, who was a street vendor.

In his family, although there was not enough money, it cannot be said that they suffered great needs. His father ran a tavern in Jerez, La Fe de Pedro Flores , and his mother was a seamstress. When she was five years old, she moved with her family to live in Seville, where her father worked in several bars and restaurants and started some businesses. There she went to the school of the nuns of Santa Teresita and in this city her brother Manuel was born to her. A few years later, around 1934, they all returned to Jerez where their grandparents continued to live.

Flowers, c.1930.

She studied dancing in Jerez with the artist María Pantoja, in whose studio she also met the guitarist Sebastián Núñez, and later attended the academy of maestro Realito in Seville, where prestigious dancers such as Antonio and Rosario were also trained. Her references from that time, which she tried to emulate, were Imperio Argentina and Estrellita Castro in the cinema and Pastora Imperio in dance.

From a very young age, he began to sing at baptisms, private parties and in some minor shows. His official debut came after the end of the Civil War, on October 10, 1939, when he was sixteen, in the show Luces de España with the Custodia Romero company, at the Villamarta theater in Jerez de la Frontera. In official advertising she appeared as & # 34; Lolita Flores Imperio de Jerez: young canzonetist and dancer & # 34;.

Shortly after her presentation at the Villamarta, the film director Fernando Mignoni, who was in Jerez looking for a young actress for his film Martingala, hired her after a small casting, in in which the actress recited a monologue from the movie Morena Clara. She traveled to Madrid for the shoot for which she received 12,000 pesetas, quite a considerable amount for a debuting actress at the time. In her early forties, after some shows in Andalusia, he and his whole family left for Madrid for good in search of the artist's success.

Zambra and Manolo Caracol

Arriving in Madrid, he attended Maestro Quiroga's academy and toured the north of Spain. In 1942, she was hired as the opening act for the Mari Paz Company of Spanish Songs and Dances, at the Fontalba Theater in Madrid. She sang "El Lerele" there, which was a success that allowed her to lead the cast and sing five numbers in a show derived from it that was later mounted.

In 1943, together with the businessman Adolfo Arenaza, he started the show Zambra, together with Manolo Caracol, who was already a prestigious cantaor, whom the businessman had hired for 500 pesetas a day. It premiered in Valencia at the end of that year and was presented in Madrid on February 18, 1944, at the Teatro de la Zarzuela. With minor variations, the show ran for several years with great success. Zambra was decisive for the career of Lola Flores, a great theatrical and musical event –copla and flamenco, fundamentally– very careful in all its elements, for which they chose the trio of composers and poets Quintero, León and Quiroga, whose culminating number was La niña de Fuego and from which “La Zarzamora” also came out, one of the songs most associated with Lola. The success and originality of this show came from the combination and superimposition of different theatrical worlds. The technical production model was based on the representations of Concha Piquer in the American Broadway style, the musical contents were inherited from flamenco opera provided by Caracol himself, a set design created by the Huelva painter José Caballero, relatively inspired by symbolist painting. by Julio Romero de Torres and above all, the theatrical claw of its protagonists, which was highlighted by all the critics.

The collaboration of the couple, who maintained a relationship beyond the professional, a fact that was reflected on stage, was very successful, which led them to become their own entrepreneurs. They also made two films together Embrujo (1947) and La niña de venta (1951). In 1951, the artistic and sentimental separation of the couple began and they began to work separately.

Contract with Suevia Films

In 1951, the Spanish production company Suevia Films wanted to consolidate a star-system typical of Spanish cinema, which would expand to America. For this, its owner Cesáreo González decided at the end of 1951 to hire Lola Flores. He signed an exclusive agreement with Lola for three years and five films, for an amount of six million pesetas; contract that included cinema, television, theater and also a tour of America.

The signing of the contract, which took place at Bar Chicote in Madrid in front of the NO-DO cameras, was a great publicity event.

That contract imposed a great work rhythm on Lola with the shooting of the new films and their promotional campaigns. Among those films are La niña de la venta, with Ramón Torrado, (1951) and Ay, pena, penita, pena!, (1953), with Miguel Morayta. In total during that decade she shot 18 films.

On April 23, 1952, he left for Mexico with his family, where he received a great reception. There, the owner of Sala Capri invented the nickname La Faraona for her. She from Mexico she went to Havana, Rio de Janeiro, Ecuador, Buenos Aires and New York.

Marriage

The 1950s marked the definitive period for the construction of the myth that Lola Flores represented in Spanish society and internationally. With a very intense artistic activity, multiple trips around America and great sentimental turmoil. In 1954, she presented a new show in Madrid entitled Copla y Bandera , in which she collaborated, among others, as singer Beni de Cádiz. In 1955, she traveled again to Mexico, where she shot three films in one year and also made a tour that took her to Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Cuba and Chile. Upon her return to Spain, she premiered her next show in 1957 Spanish Art with Rafael Farina as singer. After having some well-known romances with some prominent Spanish soccer players such as Gustavo Biosca or Gerardo Coque, Lola got married on October 27, 1957 at the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, with the gypsy guitarist and composer Antonio González El Pescaílla (1925-1999) constituting the visible head of a long saga of artists. With her three children, all three singers, Lolita Flores (Dolores González Flores) (1958), Antonio Flores (Antonio González Flores) (1961-1995) and Rosario Flores (Rosario González Flores) (1963), make up one of the families of most famous artists in Spain. In addition to being the sister of Carmen Flores, Lola was the aunt of former soccer player and coach Quique Sánchez Flores (1965), grandmother of actress Elena Furiase and Guillermo Furiase (Lolita's children), actress Alba Flores (Antonio's daughter) and Lola Orellana and Pedro Antonio Lazaga (children of Rosario).

Decline of the copla in the 1970s

In February 1960, he sang at the Olympia theater in Paris. During that decade she continued presenting new shows and frequenting film sets with various productions such as El balcón de la luna (1962), where she shared the bill with the other great divas of the Spanish scene Carmen Sevilla and Paquita Rico. But it was already beginning to be noticed that the public's preferences for the so-called folkloric films in the cinema were not the same as before. The sixties meant for Lola, the consolidation of her as a popular figure, with abundant presence on television, magazines and galas. In 1966, she presented what would be the last of her great shows with Quintero, León and Quiroga at the Calderón Theater in Madrid.

After Franco's death, during the transition, the copla genre went through a rough patch and Lola Flores was able to reinvent herself and adapt to that changing period in public preferences. In film and television he had some outstanding performances in roles far removed from the folkloric framing that had always accompanied him, such as in the films Truhanes (1983), Los invitados (1987) or the series Juncal (1989).

Problems with the Treasury and Justice

In March 1987, the Prosecutor's Office filed a complaint against the artist and her husband for tax offenses for not having submitted the Personal Income Tax returns between 1982 and 1985, demanding a bond of 145 million pesetas (871,561 €). partially the Tax Law. But after the appeal of the Prosecutor's Office, she was sentenced by the Supreme Court in 1991 as the author of four crimes against the Public Treasury to two sentences of one month and one day of arrest and another two of seven months in prison, which she did not serve. an effective form. The process had great social significance as she was a very popular character and she was used by the Ministry of Finance as an exemplary case in its fight against tax fraud.

Illness and death

Tomb of Flores and his son Antonio. They are located in the cemetery of the Almudena, in Madrid, Spain.

In 1972, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, for which she underwent chemotherapy, but refused surgery on one breast to eradicate the condition. On May 16, 1995, Flores died of the disease at the 72 years of age in his residence of "El Lerele" in the urbanization of La Moraleja, located in the municipality of Alcobendas. Her funeral chapel was installed in the Cultural Center of the Villa (later Fernán Gómez Theater) in Madrid, in the Plaza de Colón. In an open coffin and shrouded in a white mantilla, all her admirers were able to come see her. She was buried in the Almudena cemetery.

Fourteen days after his death, on May 30, 1995, his 33-year-old son Antonio Flores was found dead in the family residence of "El Lerele."

Discography

Lola Flores has hundreds of recordings and songs that have remained in the public's memory. The first song of hers recorded on her record was Pescaero, pescaero . From that same period, Pepa Banderas (1946), La Sebastiana and above all La Zarzamora (1948), which accompanied her at the burial of her at her own request.

His records include: Ay Lola, España mía, Juerga flamenca, Mi mundial 82 (1982) The inimitable Lola (1990). The most remembered songs are La Zarzamora, A tu vera, Torbellino de colores, ¡Ay pena, penita, pena!.

Filmography

TV Shows

• Songs (1978)
• Juncal (1988)
• The Lola board (1992)
• Taste of Lolas (1992-1993)
• Guard Pharmacy (1993)
• The courage to live (1994)
• Thieves go to the office (1994)
• Ay Lola, Lolita, Lola (1995)

Movies

• Martingala (1940)
• A stop on the road (1941)
• Mystery in the marshes (1943)
• Joy (1943), musical short film
• A legacy in Paris (1943)
• Embrujo (1947) next to Manolo Caracol
• Jack black (1950) next to Manolo Caracol
• The girl of sale (1951) next to Manolo Caracol, by Suevia Films
• The Star of Sierra Morena (1952) by Suevia Films
• Report (1953)
• Oh, pity, pity, pity! (1953) by Suevia Films
• Bruna Clara (1954) by Suevia Films
• Dance of desires (1954) by Suevia Films
• Sister Joy (1955) Productions Benito Perojo / Suevia Films
• Limous of love (also entitled You and the clouds) (1955) by Suevia Films
• The Three Lola Loves (Lola Torbellino) (1956) Filmex / Suevia Films
• La Faraona (1956) by Suevia Films
• Gold dreams (1957)
• Maricruz (1957)
• The Great Show (1958)
• You blame me. (1959) by Suevia Films
• Mary of the O (1959) by Suevia Films
• Venta de Vargas (1959)
• The Cain (1959) by Suevia Films
• The balcony of the moon (1962) by Suevia Films
• Black (1963) by Oro Films / Suevia Films
• The gypsy and the puddle (1963) by Panamerican Films S.A / Suevia Films
• Spanish symphony (1964) (Documentary)
• A wonderful lady. (1967)
• Adventure in Hong Cong (1967)
• The Conflict Taxi (1969)
• Songs for after a war (1971)
• Casa Flora (1972)
• Songs of our (1975)
• The killer's not alone. (1975)
• Juana's crazy... (1983)
• Truhanes (1983)
• The guests (1987)
• Sevillanas (1992)
• Corage of living (1993)

Tributes

Monument to Lola Flores located in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.

He was paid various tributes during his life, but the one that stands out the most is the one he was paid in Miami in 1990, with the participation of artists such as José Luis Rodríguez "El Puma", his compatriot Rocío Jurado and her friend Celia Cruz. She also shared the stage with Raphael (who presented the show ) and with Julio Iglesias, with the song Somos dos caminantes . The songs recorded as a duet with these stars came from the album Homenaje, released on those dates.^{[citation required]}

Her last tribute while she was alive was that same year, it was given to her by Antena 3, to which Lola was invited, but she did not perform; She only enjoyed the performances of her friends and family, and on the occasion of that act she said "Now I can die in peace."

The Salazar sisters, members of the Azúcar Moreno duo, performed the song Bailando con Lola, which was a tribute to the artist from Jerez.^{[citation required]}

A project is underway to build a museum in his memory in the Palacio de Villapanés, in his hometown, close to the monument dedicated to him in Plaza Cruz Vieja. The museum will house bibliography, multimedia, and personal items such as dresses and belongings of the artist. In 2019, an agreement was announced for the transfer of funds for the museum.

In 2016, the Lara and Cajasol Foundations awarded the essay Lola Flores: another history of entertainment in contemporary Spain by Alberto Romero Ferrer the 2016 Manuel Alvar Prize for Humanistic Studies.

In 2017, the Jerez City Council published a tribute album and dedicated that year's edition of the Horse Fair to her, in addition to announcing a prominent place for her in the new Ciudad del Flamenco project.

In 2020 the series I'm alive dedicated an episode to it.

On October 28, 2021, Movistar Plus+ premiered the documentary series Lola about her artistic and personal life, which includes testimonies from her daughters, her sister, her friend Juan el Golosina and artists like Tomasito, Encarnita Polo, Martirio, Rosalía, C Tangana, Miguel Poveda, Alaska, Ara Malikian, Mala Rodríguez or Nathy Peluso. Some of them knew her and others did not, but they admit to being influenced by her art. The documentary also gathers opinions from researchers Cristina Cruces, professor at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Seville, and Lidia García., predoctoral researcher at the Department of Art History at the University of Murcia.

Personality

Some of the qualifiers that for decades have been used to define the personality of Lola Flores have been racial, temperamental, genuine, passionate, overwhelming, or brilliant. It has even been said that « Lola Flores is almost a religion."

Some of his adventures and statements throughout his life have been recorded in the collective imagination of several generations of Spaniards, as confirmed by several spontaneous reactions throughout his life. One of the most remembered anecdotes of him took place in 1977 during the live broadcast and before the public of one of his performances for the Spanish television program Esta noche, fiesta , hosted by José María inigo. In a sudden turn of the dance, Lola Flores lost an earring, stopped the performance to, while she began to search the floor of the entire stage, exclaimed into the microphone: «Sorry, but I have dropped a gold earring. [...] Well, you are going to give it back to me because my little job cost me. [...] Thank you very much with all my heart but the earring, Íñigo, I don't want to lose it, eh, please».

Years later, on the occasion of the wedding of his daughter Lolita on August 25, 1983, a crowd of around five thousand people packed the church and its surroundings to follow the wedding live. The unbridled concentration of people prevented the celebration of the ceremony and faced with the desperate situation, Lola Flores, microphone in hand, implored those gathered: "If you love me, go away". The expression passed as a phrase into popular language and decades later it continued to be used.

Finally, another episode that shows the peculiar character of the artist from Jerez, was the one that occurred in 1989 when she was called to testify in court accused of tax fraud for five consecutive years. After excusing himself by claiming his ignorance of the obligation to pay taxes and acknowledging that he did not know that not doing so entailed "so much punishment", he implored before the cameras: "If each Spaniard gave me a peseta, I could pay ", a moment that also passed to posterity in the history of television.

Honorary Distinctions

• Order of Uncle Pepe de Oro (1953)
• Lazo de Isabel la Católica con tratamiento de Ilustrísima Señora (1962)
• Silver Medal of Jerez de la Frontera (1965); he was unable to open an avenue in his honor
• Gold Insignia de la Peña Uncle José de Paula (1991)
• Gold Medal to Merit at Work (1994)
• Hija Predilecta de Andalucía (2023)
• Daughter Predilecta of the province of Cadiz (2023)