Actress and singer Sara Montiel died on Monday at her home in Madrid. Arriving at her home to revive her, her personal physician found her dead. Montiel, who was 85 years of age, was accompanied by her daughter Thais. The body of the actress will be transferred to the morgue this afternoon San Isidro, confirmed by the mayor of Campo de Criptana, her hometown, Santiago Lucas-Torres.An actress in more than fifty films and numerous albums, Montiel was a sexual and artistic icon of Spanish culture in the second half of the twentieth century.
Born Maria Antonia Abad Fernández in a hotel in Toledo, Sara Montiel was one of the first Spanish actresses to set foot in Hollywood, appearing in films like 'Veracruz' (1954), Robert Aldrich, 'Yuma' (1957), Samuel Fuller, and ' Serenade / Serenade Two '(1956), Anthony Mann. With this last director she was also married for four years, from 1957 to 1961. Some of the actors she worked with during this time were Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Charles Bronson and Vincent Price.
In the land of music she was noted for her interpretation of the traditional repertoire of poems and couplets, revisited with her characteristic voice. She sang classics like ‘Besame mucho', 'La violetera' and 'Amado mío''. Respected and idolized by the younger generations, she collaborated with musicians such as Joaquín Sabina, Jose Maria Cano, Javier Gurruchaga and Fangoria.
She received the Gold Medal for Merit in Work in 2008, and also received the Gold Medal of the Fine Arts (1958), the National Guild Awards Show (1959) and Writers Circle Film (1959), the title of Actress of the Year (1959) and the Gold Disc (1959.
The Film Academy in 1997 awarded her its Gold Medal and, among other awards, the Golden Eagle of Hollywood (1986, the Spanish Oscar), the Order of Arts and Letters French (1982) Circle Award Cinema Writers (1999), and a Silver Biznaga - 'The Gold Film' at the Malaga Film Festival (2007).
Her eventful love life included four husbands. After her marriage in 1957 with the American director Anthony Mann, in 1964 she married the producer José Vicente Ramirez Olalla and in 1979, after nine years together, with the Spaniard Pepe Tous. The latter was, according to his own Sara, "the love of his life," died in 1992 and with whom she adopted two children: Thais and Zeus.
In 1993 she married Tony Hernandez, a Cuban then 39, a declared admirer of the artist and of dubious reputation, who split in 2003. Among her shameful loves, "The Queen of couples’ always quoted five men: the Nobel Prize winner Severo Ochoa, the poet Leon Felipe, Miguel Mihura playwright, filmmaker and director Mario Camus and Ernest Hemingway.
MONTIEL, Sara (Maria Antonia Alejandra Vicenta Elpidia Isadora Abad Fernandez)
Born: 3/10/1928, Campo de Criptana, Ciudad Real Castilla-La Mancha, SpainDied: 4/8/2013, Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Sara Montiel’s westerns – actress:
Little Love of My Life – 1952 (Rosita)Vera Cruz – 1954 (Nina)
Run of the Arrow – 1957 (Yellow Mocassin)