Aurora Bautista

Aurora Bautista was born on October 15, 1925 in Villanueva de los Infantes, Valladolid. It was the feast of Santa Teresa de Jesús, and her parents could not imagine that 36 years later the role of the Saint of Ávila would be one of the many that she would interpret with enormous talent. She was under the orders of Juan de Orduña , the director who made her known in the cinema, in Teresa de Jesús . Indeed, at the orders of the Madrid director, she gave life to the daughter of the Catholic Monarchs who was not in her right mind Locura de amor (1948), and was accompanied on screen by Fernando Rey and a young girl Sara Montiel . Through the mythical producer Cifesa Orduña and Bautista they repeated their collaboration in Pequeñeces(1949) and Agustina de Aragón (1950), as can be seen in all three cases, addressed historical cinema.

Despite her place of birth, Aurora moved to Madrid when she was only 15 days old, and studied there at the Instituto Escuela before the outbreak of the civil war. During the fratricidal conflict she was in Archena (Murcia) and later lived in Barcelona, ​​where she trained as an actress at the Instituto del Teatro with Guillermo Díaz Plaja and Marta Grau. Her stage debut came with “La malquerida”, the work by Jacinto Benavente , in 1944. Her acting skills immediately stood out and Cayetano Luca de Tena hired her for the Teatro Español in Madrid where she did the Shakespearean “One Night’s Dream”. summer”.

Manuel Mur Oti directed her in the jealousy drama Condemned (1953), and she was the wife of Alberto Sordi in El marido (1958). With Juan Antonio Bardem she made Sonatas (1959), where she repeated with Rey and coincided with Francisco Rabal , although this adventure film is not the best of her director. Where she did an immeasurable job, perhaps the highlight of her filmography, was in La tía Tula (Miguel Picazo, 1963), her contribution was decisive for the translation to the screen of Miguel de Unamuno’s vision of the provincial Spain.

Of course, her dedication to the cinema made her compatible with the theater, where she did not lack fascinating female characters in “Antígona”, “Medea”, “Yerma” or “Cat on a zinc roof”. She would also make the Americas, reaping great success in Mexico –there she made Ella el derecho de nacer (1966)–, or filming Las ratas (1963) in Argentina , according to the work of José Bianco. And it is seen that being Juana la Loca was not enough for her, she played her mother Isabel la Católica in the television miniseries Cristóbal Colón (1967). Luis Lucia directed her in Pepa Doncel (1969), based on the work by Jacinto Benavente co-scripted by Antonio Gala .

It is difficult to be completely exhaustive in his long career, where he did not miss a job with Paul Naschy in The Passengers (1975). After an absence of almost 10 years in the cinema, he meets with Picazo in Extramuros (1985) and makes an incursion in Valle Inclán with Divinas palabras ( José Luis García Sánchez , 1987). José Luis Cuerda required her for Amanece, que no es poco (1989), and in small roles Basilio Martín Patino for Octavia (2002) and José Luis Garci for Tiovivo c. 1950 (2004), her last film performance.

An authentic race actress, with a lot of character and deservedly multi-awarded, she was married twice: to the Mexican Hernán Cristerna, with whom she had a son, Hernán; and with the Cuban businessman Luis de Luis.