Celebrity Biographies
Asuncion Balaguer
Admitted a week ago to the Fuenfría hospital in Cercedilla, after suffering a stroke, the veteran actress Asunción Balaguer, who just 15 days ago had turned 94, died this morning.
Asunción Balaguer was born in November 1925 in Manresa (Barcelona) into a wealthy family of the Catalan bourgeoisie. Her vocation to her interpretation manifested itself at a very early age, since as a teenager, in the middle of the Spanish civil war, she went up on stage to participate in a theatrical performance about Santa Teresa de Jesús. When she moved to Madrid, she met at the Lope de Vega company who would be her lifelong love, more than fifty years of marriage, until her death, we are talking, of course, about Paco Rabal . They both married in 1951 and had two children, Benito and Teresa , who, like their grandson Liberto , also expressed a preference for theater and cinema.
Although she developed her acting career while married, when she became a widow at the age of 75, not only did she not retire, but on the contrary, she propelled it with new verve, also on stage, which earned her the Max award in 2013 for her performance. intervention in the musical “Follies”.
From his first film stage, with minor roles, titles such as El camino (1963), the adaptation of the novel by Miguel Delibes, or Las melancólicas (1971), which he did with Paco Rabal, stand out. Family collaborations led him to Loca por el circo (1973), with her daughter Teresa de ella, while it was Benito who directed him and her husband in El hermano bastardo de Dios (1986). Fernando Trueba made El sueño del mono loco (1989) with her, while Jaime de Armiñán would rely on her for La hora bruja (1985) and El palomo cojo (1995). Among the women directors who worked with her, in addition toAna Mariscal and Josefina Molina , stand out Ana Belén with Cómo ser mujer y no morir en el intent (1991) and Pilar Miró with El pájaro de la felicidad (1993). The last outstanding work of hers on the screen was Barcelona, winter night , an ensemble film by Dani de la Orden , from 2015, in which she was one of the protagonists.
On television, her first major role was in the mythical series Teresa de Jesús (1984), but years later, well into the 21st century, she would be recruited in Gran Hotel , Merlí and Olmos y robles , among others.