Mary Carrillo

María Carrillo Moreno was born in Toledo on October 14, 1919. She demonstrated that acting was her thing very early on, since at just sixteen years old she made her debut in Hortensia Gelabert’s company with the work “El juramento de la primorosa”, by Pilar. Millan Astray. It was the year 1936, and civil war was sweeping through Spain, so the outbreak of the war took Mary with her family to Mexico. There she would meet the actor Diego Hurtado, with whom she married and had four children. The three girls would also follow the profession of actress, the famous sisters Hurtado, Paloma, Teresa and Fernanda. But for that there was still a lot of time. And in Mexican lands Spain was longed for, so that as soon as the war ended, Mary returned to her country ready to continue her career on stage, in addition to trying his luck also in the film world. In a first stage he made four films, among which stands outMarianela (1940), by Benito Perojo, adaptation of the novel by Benito Pérez Galdós . But a decade would pass in which she concentrated her best efforts on the theater, which earned her incredible prestige, placing her among the great Spanish actresses of the time, such as Amparo Rivelles and Julia Gutiérrez Caba . She went through the companies of María Bassó and Nicolás Navarro, and that of María Guerrero, until the time came, in 1948, to form her own company.

Her return to the cinema could not have been more fortunate: El pisito (1959), by Marco Ferreri, is a jewel close to neorealism, a black humor where he gave life to a bride who must accept that her fiancé is marrying an old woman beforehand, with the hope that her foreseeable death will allow them to inherit her apartment and enjoy their life together . She was also in Basilio Martín Patino ‘s directorial debut , Nueva cartas a Berta (1966). There is no shortage of light comedies in his filmography – Los chicos del Preu (1967), Las secretarias (1968), Don’t look for three feet… or (1968)… -, although it is obvious that his forte was the great dramas, as evidenced by his performance in the theater of “Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf”: the author of the original work, Edward Albee, was at the premiere of the version directed by Enrique Diosdado , and apparently he wanted Carrillo for his film adaptation, which Elizabeth Taylor would end up assuming .

But, we can never insist enough, Mary always opted for the theater, which gave her the National Award twice, in 1949 and 1961. But there were no shortage of film awards, as she won the Cinematographic Writers Circle medal on two occasions, for the films El pisito and La colmena (1982); and she still had time to win a Goya, in 1996, for Más allá del jardín . In addition to the literary adaptation of “La colmena” by Camilo José Cela , she also collaborated with Mario Camusin the television series Fortunata y Jacinta , based on the novel by Pérez Galdós, and in the adaptation of the work by Miguel Delibes Los santos inocentes (1984). Other directors she worked with were Pedro Almodóvar – Entre tinieblas (1983)- and Pilar Miró – El crimen de Cuenca (1980)-. The actress who wrote her memoirs entitled “On Life and the Stage” was still walking the stage in 1995, when she made “Last Visit” by José Luis Alonso de Santos, in which, curiously, she played the mother of her true daughter, Teresa Hurtado .