Lola Beltrán
Encyclopedia
Lola Beltrán was a Mexican
film
actress and one of the most acclaimed Mexican
ranchera
singers, nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great").
studies while she participated in singing competitions. She then moved to Mexico City, never to return to Rosario, working as a secretary at Mexico's number-one radio station, XEW
, where she was professionally discovered by radio announcer Raul Mendivil.
She was married to matador
and film actor Alfredo Leal and had two children with him: a daughter, singer María Elena Leal, and son José Leal. She entered the world of film in 1954 in El Tesoro de la Muerte. After appearing in dozens of films, most of them musicals, she obtained a starring role in the telenovela
Mi rival with Saby Kamalich
. From 1976 to 1984 she also hosted the musical shows Noches Tapatías and El Estudio de Lola Beltrán respectively.
Beltrán is still considered one of the most successful ranchera
artists of all time. She gave concerts before various world leaders: President Charles de Gaulle
of France
, the leader of Yugoslavia
Josip Broz Tito
, Soviet minister Andrei Gromyko
, Premier of the Soviet Union
Leonid Brezhnev
, King of Spain Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia
, Queen Elizabeth II
, American Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower
, John F. Kennedy
, Lyndon B. Johnson
and Richard Nixon
and Presidents of Mexico
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines
and Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
She was the first ranchera singer to perform at the Palacio de Bellas Artes
(Palace of Fine Arts), the premier opera house and concert hall in Mexico. She also sang in the Olympia Music Hall
in Paris
, the Tchaikovsky Hall
in Moscow
and the Conservatory
of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg
) in the former Soviet Union.
Beltrán was honored in 1995 with her inclusion into a series of commemorative postage stamps, issued by her native Mexico, honoring 'Popular Idols of Radio'. This was done in recognition of her lifetime achievement in the realm of popular music and her success in spreading an appreciation of Mexican culture throughout the world.
and Amalia Mendoza
"La Tariácuri" (produced by Juan Gabriel
) she died of a massive pulmonary embolism
at Ángeles Hospital in Mexico City. Her body lay on display in the rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City in order to give her countrymen a chance to say goodbye. Only the most acclaimed artists, recording artists, poets, writers and actors are accorded this honor.
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
actress and one of the most acclaimed Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
ranchera
Ranchera
Ranchera is a genre of the traditional music of Mexico originally sung by only one performer with a guitar. It dates to the years of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. It later became closely associated with the mariachi groups which evolved in Jalisco. Ranchera today is also played...
singers, nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great").
Biography
In her native town of Rosario, Beltrán completed secretarialSecretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
studies while she participated in singing competitions. She then moved to Mexico City, never to return to Rosario, working as a secretary at Mexico's number-one radio station, XEW
XEW
XEW is the callsign of the following broadcast stations in Mexico City, Mexico:*television station XEW-TV, channel 2*radio station XEW-AM, 900 kHz*radio station XEW-FM, 96.9 MHz...
, where she was professionally discovered by radio announcer Raul Mendivil.
She was married to matador
Matador
A torero or toureiro is a bullfighter and the main performer in bullfighting, practised in Spain, Colombia, Portugal, Mexico, France and various other countries influenced by Spanish culture. In Spanish, the word torero describes any of the performers who actively participate in the bullfight...
and film actor Alfredo Leal and had two children with him: a daughter, singer María Elena Leal, and son José Leal. She entered the world of film in 1954 in El Tesoro de la Muerte. After appearing in dozens of films, most of them musicals, she obtained a starring role in the telenovela
Telenovela
A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...
Mi rival with Saby Kamalich
Saby Kamalich
Saby Kamalich is a Peruvian-born Mexican film and television actress. Her father Antonio Fantoni was from Italy, and her mother was from Croatia...
. From 1976 to 1984 she also hosted the musical shows Noches Tapatías and El Estudio de Lola Beltrán respectively.
Beltrán is still considered one of the most successful ranchera
Ranchera
Ranchera is a genre of the traditional music of Mexico originally sung by only one performer with a guitar. It dates to the years of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. It later became closely associated with the mariachi groups which evolved in Jalisco. Ranchera today is also played...
artists of all time. She gave concerts before various world leaders: President Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the leader of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, Soviet minister Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the...
, Premier of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
, King of Spain Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia
Queen Sofía of Spain
Queen Sofía of Spain is the wife of King Juan Carlos I of Spain.-Early life and family:Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark was born in Psychiko, Athens, Greece on 2 November 1938, the eldest child of the King Paul of Greece and his wife, Queen Frederika , a former princess of Hanover...
, Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
, American Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
and Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
and Presidents of Mexico
President of Mexico
The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines was President of Mexico from 1952 to 1958, representing the Institutional Revolutionary Party he was one of the oldest presidents of Mexico...
and Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
She was the first ranchera singer to perform at the Palacio de Bellas Artes
Palacio de Bellas Artes
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is the most important cultural center in Mexico City as well as the rest of the country of Mexico...
(Palace of Fine Arts), the premier opera house and concert hall in Mexico. She also sang in the Olympia Music Hall
Paris Olympia
The Olympia is a music hall in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Located at No. 28, Boulevard des Capucines, its closest métro/RER stations are Madeleine, Opéra, Havre – Caumartin and Auber....
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, the Tchaikovsky Hall
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and the Conservatory
Saint Petersburg Conservatory
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory is a music school in Saint Petersburg. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members and 1,400 students.-History:...
of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
) in the former Soviet Union.
Beltrán was honored in 1995 with her inclusion into a series of commemorative postage stamps, issued by her native Mexico, honoring 'Popular Idols of Radio'. This was done in recognition of her lifetime achievement in the realm of popular music and her success in spreading an appreciation of Mexican culture throughout the world.
Death
Soon after recording Disco del Siglo (English: Album of the Century) with Lucha VillaLucha Villa
Lucha Villa is a singer in the ranchera style, and a film actress.Born Luz Elena Ruíz Bejarano, Villa was given her stage name by television producer Luis G Dillon . She has been a constant presence in popular music and film since the 1950s...
and Amalia Mendoza
Amalia Mendoza
Amalia Mendoza was one of Mexico's most famous ranchera singers whose career lasted over 40 years. Distinguished for her special "husky" voice, Mendoza was one of the "Tres Señoras", along with Lola Beltrán and Lucha Villa.She was also known by the nickname of La Tariácuri...
"La Tariácuri" (produced by Juan Gabriel
Juan Gabriel
Alberto Aguilera Valadez , better known by his stage name Juan Gabriel , is a Mexican singer and songwriter who is one of the most famous living representatives of the Mexican ranchera, ballad, mariachi, and pop music....
) she died of a massive pulmonary embolism
Pulmonary embolism
Pulmonary embolism is a blockage of the main artery of the lung or one of its branches by a substance that has travelled from elsewhere in the body through the bloodstream . Usually this is due to embolism of a thrombus from the deep veins in the legs, a process termed venous thromboembolism...
at Ángeles Hospital in Mexico City. Her body lay on display in the rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City in order to give her countrymen a chance to say goodbye. Only the most acclaimed artists, recording artists, poets, writers and actors are accorded this honor.
Films
- Una gallina muy ponedora (1982)
- Las fuerzas vivasLas fuerzas vivasLas fuerzas vivas is a 1975 Mexican film. It was directed by Luis Alcoriza....
(1975) as Chabela, Eufemio's wife - Me caíste del cielo (1975) as Lupita
- Padre nuestro que estás en la tierra (1972) as Matilde
- Furias bajo el cielo (1971)
- Duelo en El Dorado (1969)
- Valentín de la Sierra (1968)
- Matar es fácil (1966)
- Tirando a gol (1966)
- Cucurrucucú PalomaCucurrucucu paloma"Cucurrucucú paloma" is a Mexican Huapango song written by Tomás Méndez and introduced by Lola Beltrán in the film Cucurrucucú Paloma. The song also appeared in other movies, such as Escuela de Vagabundos, The Last Sunset, Happy Together, Talk to Her, and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done...
(1965) - Los Hermanos Muerte (1965)
- Canción del almaCanción del almaCanción del alma is a 1938 Mexican film. It was directed byChano Urueta....
(1964) as Lola - El revólver sangrientoEl revólver sangrientoEl revólver sangriento is a 1964 Mexican film directed by Miguel M. Delgado. It stars Luis Aguilar, Lola Beltrán, Flor Silvestre, Emilio Fernández, Manuel Capetillo, Antonio Aguilar, and Irma Dorantes.-Plot:...
(1964) - México de mi corazón (1964)
- Baila mi amor (1963)
- El hombre de papel (1963)
- La bandida (1963)
- Camino de la horca (1962)
- Besito a papá (1961)
- La joven mancornadora (1961)
- ¿Donde estás, corazón? (1961)
- México lindo y queridoMéxico Lindo y Querido"México lindo y querido" is a traditional mariachi and ranchera Mexican song written by Chucho Monge and made famous by singer Jorge Negrete . It is widely known throughout the Spanish-speaking world for its characterization of patriotism and loyalty for the rural land of Mexico...
(1961) - Las canciones unidasLas Canciones unidasLas Canciones unidas is a 1960 Mexican film. It was directed byChano Urueta....
(1960) - ¡Qué bonito amor! (1960)
- Sucedió en México (1958)
- Música en la noche (1958)
- Guitarras de medianoche (1958)
- Donde las dan las toman (1957)
- Rogaciano el huapanguero (1957)
- Pensión de artistas (1956)
- Con quién andan nuestras hijas? (1956) as Prieta de Xochimilco
- Una movida chuecaa (1956)
- De carne somos (1955)
- Pueblo quieto (1955)
- Soy un golfo (1955)
- Espaldas mojadas (1955)
- Al diablo las mujeres (1955)
- El barba azul (1955)
- La desconocidaLa DesconocidaLa Desconocida is a 1954 Mexican film. It was directed byChano Urueta....
(1954) - El tesoro de la muerte (1954)
- Song of DoloresSong of DoloresSong of Dolores is a 1947 Spanish drama film directed by Benito Perojo, written by Francisco Madrid. It was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Alfredo Alaria* Imperio Argentina - Dolores* Lola Beltrán* Ricardo Canales - Mariano...
(1947)
External links
- New York Times Biography. Biography at Red Escolar Profile at Puro Mariachi
- Unofficial Lola Beltran Resource by Jason Jacob (includes music clips)
- Some lyrics (English)