Celebrity Biographies
Katia loritz
Katia Loritz, the Swiss-German actress who became famous in Spain thanks to “The Girls of the Red Cross”, died of lung cancer in 2015. Although she gave up acting in 1965, she was a regular on “Cinema de Barrio”, the program presented by Concha Velasco, one of her great friends.
Katia was born in 1932 in the Swiss town of Arbon. She studied Drama in Munich and then Fine Arts in Rome: an ideal training for a woman with a passion for painting and acting. After this she settled in Madrid, where she soon made her film debut. In 1957, the director José Antonio de la Loma gave her the opportunity to play it in Las manos sucias , a drama about a man who wanted to prosper at all costs.
Her face became famous among the Spanish public thanks to the mythical Las chicas de la Cruz Roja . In this film, the actress worked with Tony Leblanc and with Concha Velasco , who would later become one of her best friends. With the two of them, she would meet again on Valentine ‘s Day and in Amor Bajo Cero .
She stood out above all in the comedy genre, almost always as a secondary actress, in films like You and I are three or Robbery at three . But this red-haired, green-eyed woman decided to give up acting very soon, in 1965. She would then make a small appearance in What Have I Done to Deserve This? , by Pedro Almodóvar , but it was only a small whim.
Since he left acting, he devoted himself entirely to painting, an art he admired from a very young age. Perhaps he liked the canvas for the silence and calm that he did not have in front of the cameras. At least, this is how Katia left us: without making noise, with a lot of peace. This is what Concha Velasco said : “She suffered from lung cancer and she did not want to receive treatment. She has died peacefully”.
Despite the fact that her career in the world of cinema was short, she will always be remembered as one of the girls of the red cross.