Celebrity Biographies
Maria Galiana
She defines herself as a strong woman, dry of character and not very affectionate, but faithful, loyal and a hard worker. Mother of 6 children, this Sevillian life changed from one day to the next. She affirms that, although she has never studied or prepared to work in the world of television, she has always known that she had the skills for it.
María Galiana, born in Seville, in the Triana neighborhood on May 31, 1935, graduated in Philosophy and Letters and in History, and was a professor of History and History of Art in different institutes in Seville until the year 2000, when decided to retire. It was in that year that she won the Goya for Best Supporting Actress for her most renowned role in the cinema, in the drama Solas (1999), a story about loneliness, poverty, motherhood and lost dreams, where María played the facet of a suffering mother.
Her acting career came in the most unexpected way. It was one of her students who offered her a role in Madre in Japan (1985), a film directed by young people from Seville with hardly any budget. Galiana, who was 50 years old at the time, decided to accept the project. Thus began a new stage for her: “When I finished Madre in Japan I could never imagine what would happen to me next.” And it is that from this film she did not stop ringing the phone.
He began with tiny roles in films such as Pasodoble (1988), Malaventura (1988), El seductor (1995), El palomo cojo (1995) and Más allá del jardín (1996), among other fictions. In the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (1992), directed by Fernando Trueba , he shares the screen with Penélope Cruz , Maribel Verdú and Fernando Fernán Gómez among other celebrities.
She later participates in Yerma (1999), a film adaptation of the play by Federico García Lorca , a tragedy where the protagonist fights for her desire to be a mother. And the same year she got a role in Plenilunio , a thriller directed by Imanol Uribe based on the novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina , which tells the story of a policeman’s obsession with solving the murder of a girl.
His filmography continued to expand with small roles in Más pena que gloria (2001), Tapas (2005) and La caja (2006), a film inspired by the novel “They left us dead” by Víctor Ramírez.
But it was in the field of television where María Galiana became more known. In 2001 she was given the role of Herminia in the series Cuéntame cómo pasó , where the experiences of the Alcántara family are narrated during the last years of Francoism until the beginning of Spanish democracy. Herminia is the grandmother of the family. The series has been on the air for more than 15 years and thanks to this role, María achieved fame. No one in Spain ignores her face, her grandmotherly gestures, surly and good, with a big heart.
María combines her television and film work with the world of theater, where she has participated in different plays, such as “La casa de Bernarda Alba” (1992), “Las Troyanas” (2000) or “Fugadas” (2009).