For thirty years she was one of the great actresses of our country with great successes behind her and sharing the screen with internationally renowned performers such as Charlton Heston. However, “the bride of Spain”, as society baptized her at the time of her, has gone down in history for her iconic stage as a television presenter.
María del Carmen García Galisteo, better known as Carmen Sevilla, made a place for herself on the small screen and, above all, in the hearts of millions of viewers thanks to her self-confidence, sympathy, good humor and forgetfulness that, today, are already they are part of our history. Today we remember the best moments of her, following her death this Tuesday at 92 years of age.
Carmen Sevilla will always be remembered as the main star of films such as Jalisco sings in Seville, Filigrana, La hermana de San Suplicio, La Venganza, Don Juan, Violetas imperiales or Cleopatra y Marco Antonio, but also for her foray into the advertising world thanks to to Spanish folklore.
In fact, her interpretation of the flamenco yeyé to sell Philips televisions with her song Philips Family still resonates in the memory of that generation. It is also worth noting when Carmen Sevilla brought Coca Cola to Spain, starring in its first advertisements. However, she will always be remembered for her stage as a television presenter from the nineties of the last decade.
From then on, he participated in programs on both public and private channels. One of the most famous shows that she presented together with Agustín Bravo was El Telecupón on Telecinco. From 1991 to 1997, the Seville woman delighted viewers with her witticisms, oversights and blunders.
The images of Carmen wearing her house slippers in full direct are mythical (an oversight that was widely parodied by humorists of the time); the mistakes that led the presenter to confuse an adult with a child; the fits of laughter when she almost dropped her skirt on air; and, of course, her mythical allusions to her endearing little sheep.
Carmen Sevilla became one of the family to the point of making El Telecupón one of the most watched programs on Telecinco. And that it was about publicizing the winning numbers of the ONCE draw, a space that currently has a minute of broadcast and that, at that time, was a format with its own identity. In fact, they came to include the famous Zodiac Game.
From that moment, the fame of the actress skyrocketed and she began to participate in other programs with her own section. For example, in Take a breath, by Laura Valenzuela and Agustín Bravo, Carmen had a sentimental office to talk to viewers. Her spontaneity in her advice was devastating.
It is also worth mentioning his meeting with Charlton Heston, an international actor with whom he starred in the films Cleopatra and Marco Antonio, and with whom he met again in the also historic Surprise, Surprise; and, of course, the moment she was given a stuffed sheep at the premiere of Querida Carmen.
If you have to highlight iconic moments of Carmen Sevilla on television, you cannot miss the day that the Andalusian came to smoke a cigar with the also actress and singer Sara Montiel in a program on Antena 3. However, Carmen, very little used to this task, she ended up choking on the smoke: she was smoking it as if it were a cigarette, a rookie mistake that Montiel ended up reminding her of.
The mythical Tómbola, one of the first heart programs on television and broadcast on Canal Sur, was attended by Carmen Sevilla. The confrontation she had with the journalist Karmele Marchante will always be remembered.
In the television newspaper library, the versatile actress also appears in the second edition of ¡Mira quien baila!, presented by Anna Igartiburu in 2005; or giving the Campanadas on TVE with Ramón García on New Year’s Eve in 2003 and 2004. Lastly, and for the next six years, Carmen hosted Cine de Barrio on La 1 with great audience success, replacing José Manuel Parada.
However, his constant confusion in front of the cameras led him to leave the sets and also television. A year later, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and since then, television has been orphaned and missing one of her most affectionate and authentic presenters.
Carmen Sevilla is the history of Spain, she has contributed with her work to enlarge the television newspaper library and thanks to her personality she will always have an important place in the memory of all viewers.
