Celebrity Biographies
Pilar Barden
Contrary to what her best-known film, which gave her the Goya, asserts, many are talking about Pilar Bardem when she is dead. The actress born into a well-known family of comedians has died in a Madrid clinic at the age of 82 due to a lung disease.
Perhaps the tobacco did not forgive, and in fact the actress had previously faced colon cancer and another lung cancer. Although the smoke also contributed to forge her particular and very recognizable hoarse voice.
Pilar Bardem was born in Seville in 1939, the year the Spanish Civil War ended. Her parents were the actors Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro , and her brother Juan Antonio Bardem would become an important film director. Also her three children – a fourth died at a very young age – dedicated themselves to acting, Javier Bardem with Oscar included, and also Carlos Bardem and Mónica Bardem. Her nephew Hers Miguel Bardem also became a director. It remains to be seen if Javier’s children with Penélope Cruz , still very young, will continue the family tradition.
Pilar Bardem made her screen debut with The World Goes On (1965), one of Fernando Fernán Gómez ‘s most celebrated films as a director. At the beginning of the 70s, she was in comedy classics such as La novicia rebelde ( Luis Lucia , 1971) or Las Ibéricas FC ( Pedro Masó , 1971). But she also appeared in prestigious literary adaptations, La Regenta ( Gonzalo Suárez , 1975) and El libro de buen amor ( Tomás Aznar and Julián Marcos , 1975).
She was a prolific actress, both in film and on television, here she was present in various theatrical adaptations of the program “Estudio 1” and in series such as Los gozos y las sombras (1982) and Lorca, death of a poet (1987). On the big screen, she worked for filmmakers such as Bigas Luna – Las edades de Lulú (1990)–, Enrique Urbizu – Todo por la pasta (1991) and Cachito (1995)– and Julio Medem – Vacas (1992). Although without a doubt her glory came with the social thriller Nobody will talk about us when we have died (1995), where she shared the bill with Victoria Abril and Federico Luppi , the film with which Agustín Díaz Yanes made his directorial debut, won him the Goya for best supporting actress.
From that moment on, the roles rained down on him and he did, for example , Airbag ( Juanma Bajo Ulloa , 1996) and Tremulous Flesh ( Pedro Almodóvar , 1997), in this one working with his son Javier. With the new millennium he continues to work, although lowering the piston a bit, also in the quality of the films, and is in titles such as Sin noticias de Dios (2001), where he repeats with Díaz Yanes, and has brief appearances in films and series.
At this time his political activity intensifies, which follows the family tradition, Juan Antonio Bardem had been a well-known communist although he had carried out his work as a director in Spain during the Franco regime. He was one of the most emblematic faces of the “No to war” movement when the Iraq war broke out, positioning himself against the position of the José María Aznar government along with many other filmmakers. A politicization of cinema that would give rise to a reaction of disaffection from a part of the public, who would refer to this sector of artists as “those with the eyebrows”.