For three decades, the 40s, 50s and 60s, Carmen Sevilla was the brightest star that illuminated the black and white Spain of the Dictatorship: singer, dancer and actress -she came to film up to 70 films-, she could succeed in Hollywood but she preferred decline the contract offered by one of the big studios. She was very young then, it was about other times and in Spain she had everything she needed to be happy. All this is collected in the biography Carmen Sevilla, the girlfriend of Spain, by the photojournalist Alfredo Sánchez, published in November 2021 and republished a few weeks ago.
She was born as Carmen García Galisteo, in the Sevillian neighborhood of Heliópolis, on October 16, 1931. They read well. Her Wikipedia file is not correct and what the media have been saying for a little over 24 hours is inaccurate: Carmen herself died yesterday in Madrid at the age of 91. She would have turned 92 in October. The information is collected by Alfredo Sánchez in his well-documented biography: not only was he a witness to Carmen’s confession; He also told Manuel Román, who was editor-in-chief of Semana magazine.
“They all took years off. As far as I know, Carmen was the only one who got older to be able to have the card of the National Spectacle Union before. She started at the age of 13 and the law set 14 as the minimum age. She then she forgot. Actually, she never gave it importance and that is why her biographies list 1930 as the year of her birth. It didn’t matter to her. The normal thing, she took for granted, is that folkloric women take years off ”.
Alfredo Sánchez recounts the examples of Lola Flores and Rocío Jurado: “Lola gave an express order in the Jerez court and in the parish of San Miguel, where she was baptized, not to provide her birth certificate. I’m telling you because I was expressly looking for information for her biography. And Rocío Jurado asked that her fictitious age appear in marble in her mausoleum, although it was later corrected and today her real age appears ”.
For his part, Manuel Román, author of books such as Los grandes de la copla: A history of the Spanish song and Songs of our life: from Antonio Machín to Julio Iglesias, expressed himself this way for Europa Press, using the words of Carmen herself : “When I started as a young girl, sponsored by Estrellita Castro, I was a minor and to be a professional I had to get my union card, so I had to take another year. And of course, the thing continued, it was rolling and it was no longer possible for me to rectify. But I tell you very clearly, that I came into the world in 1931!