The Beautiful Otero

Agustina Carolina del Carmen Otero Iglesias, better known as Carolina Otero or La Bella Otero (Valga, November 4, 1868 - Nice, April 12, 1965), was a Spanish dancer, singer, actress and courtesan living in France and one of the most prominent characters of the French Belle Époque in the artistic circles and gallant life of Paris.

Biography

Childhood

Daughter of a single and very poor mother (Carmen Otero Iglesias, 1844-1903) she barely had access to an academic education. She had five brothers: Gumersindo, Valentín, Adolfo and Francisco. On July 6, 1879, at the age of ten, she was raped by Venancio Romero "Conainas", the town's shoemaker, as a result of which she became sterile and ran away from home a few months later, never to return home. his hometown, Valga. After the escape she decided to use her middle name: Carolina , instead of her first name Agustina .

He worked in a company of Portuguese traveling comedians. When she left the company, she was forced to perform very humble jobs to get ahead, such as working as a domestic maid, dancing in the most diverse types of venues, and even working as a prostitute.

Artistic career

In 1888 she met a banker named Ernest Jurgens in Barcelona who wanted to promote her as a dancer in France and took her to Marseille, although she immediately began to promote herself until she became a dancer known throughout France as La Bella Otero. In the promotion she emphasized her Spanish origin (very exotic in France at that time) and she presented herself artistically as Andalusian and of gypsy origin. The construction of Otero's artistic character is so full of myths that they have even lasted to this day, with biographers placing her birth in Cádiz, the daughter of a gypsy, as she stated in her autobiography.

She toured around the world as an exotic dancer and actress, achieving international fame. It is known that she performed in New York in 1890, in addition to visiting other countries such as Argentina, Cuba and Russia, coinciding in the latter with Rasputin. Otero performed for many years in Paris at the Folies Bergère, where she was the star, and at the Cirque d'Été, becoming one of the first internationally known Spanish artists.

Otero was not a professional dancer and her art was more instinctive than technical. Her dances were a mixture of flamenco styles, fandangos or exotic dances. She was also a competent singer and had quality as an actress. She represented Carmen by Bizet and plays such as Nuit de Nöel.

Portrait by Mikhail Vrúbel

Career as a courtesan

Despite her professional successes, Otero had managed to rise in the artistic world by prostituting herself and becoming the lover of influential men. It was not a strange practice for artists to act as courtesans to increase their income. In the Belle Époque it was common and the men who could pay the astronomical sums that these courtesans charged achieved prestige. Otero was one of the most famous and sought-after members of Parisian high society. She was the lover of, among others, William II of Germany, Leopold II of Belgium, Alfonso XIII of Spain, Edward VII of the United Kingdom, and Grand Dukes Peter and Nicholas of Russia; She and Aristide Briand had a close relationship that lasted until the politician's death. Otero managed to amass a fabulous fortune that, due to the gambling addiction he suffered from, he squandered in the casinos of Monte Carlo and Nice.

Death

Retired from the stage in 1910, she settled in Nice, where she lived until her death in 1965, completely ruined and alone. She lived on a pension that the Monte Carlo Casino gave her in gratitude for the millions of francs that she left behind. She never married.

He died of a sudden heart attack in his humble apartment on April 12, 1965, at the age of ninety-six. Only several dealers and the manager of the Monte Carlo Casino attended her funeral to say goodbye to her.

Several biographies have been written about his life and films and series have been made for television. Because Otero invented part of his past to hide facts such as his rape or his extremely humble origins, many biographies, films or other works about him have inaccurate data and facts that never really happened. TRUE.

Published works

• Les Souvenirs et la Vie Intime de la Belle Otero (1926). ISBN 9782402042819

Filmography

• 1918. "Otoño de amor" interprets the princess of Albaflorida
• 1954. Bella Otero, played by Mexican actress María Félix.
• 1984. Bella Otero, interpreted by Angela Molina, Spanish co-production for Italian television (RAI), directed by José María Sánchez.
• 2008. The beautiful Otero, Antena 3 miniserie starring Natalia Verbeke. His script follows Carmen Posadas' novel.
• 2013. Walk. The beautiful Otero, video creation played by the Spanish actress Noelia Toledano.