The actress Charo López, on February 28 at the Film Academy. /
The actress’s life changed when Gonzalo Suárez called her to star in ‘Ditirambo’ and left her job as a teacher in her native Salamanca
Charo López does not like to talk about herself, as she confesses in the documentary ‘It costs me to talk about myself’, directed by Chema de la Peña, screened at the last edition of the Valladolid Seminci and which can be seen on the RTVE platform Play. The actress has been for several decades the muse of a generation of Spanish artists, an elegant and modern muse, who went from being a teacher to becoming a solvent actress in both theater and cinema.
Charo López, real name María del Rosario López Piñuelas, was born in Salamanca on October 28, 1943. While studying Philosophy and Letters in her hometown, she participated in several university theater performances, discovering her vocation as an actress. But her first jobs were as a teacher. When she worked as a teacher in her native Salamanca, she met the filmmaker Gonzalo Suárez, who suggested she shoot ‘Ditirambo’ (1967) with him, and her life changed.
Married to the writer and film critic Jesús García de Dueñas, she soon became the muse of the intellectual groups her husband frequented. After ‘Ditirambo’ she worked on ‘El perro’, by Antonio Giménez Rico in 1967, and from there she skipped the dramas on Televisión Española. Her collaboration with Gonzalo Suárez continues in ‘The Strange Case of Doctor Fausto’ (1969), ‘La Regenta’ (1974) or ‘Parranda’ (1977).
His time in the cinema at the beginning of the 1970s was reduced to spaghetti westerns (‘The Sun Under the Earth’, ‘El Bandido Malpelo’…) and films with little projection that only highlighted his photogenicity and his resounding beauty. Luis Buñuel wants her to embody the Virgin Mary in ‘The Milky Way’ (1969), but when the actress was already in Paris rehearsing with the filmmaker from Calanda, the French actors’ union prohibited her participation ‘because she was an unknown actress ‘. Television is her salvation, working on series such as ‘Los truckers’, by Mario Camus or ‘El pícaro’, directed by Fernando Fernán Gómez.
Video.
Trailer of the documentary about Charo López ‘It’s hard for me to talk about myself’.
In 1980 comes another of his sweetest moments, thanks to the television series ‘Fortunata y Jacinta’, by Mario Camus, and especially with the character of Clara Aldán in ‘Los gozos y las sombras’, a successful series based on the novel namesake of Gonzalo Torrente Ballester.
Subsequently, he chained works relevant to the cinema: ‘La colmena’ and ‘La vieja musica’, by Camus; ‘The Lost Paradises’, by Basilio Martín Patino; ‘Time of silence’, by Vicente Aranda and ‘Lo más natural’, by Josefina Molina. Gonzalo Suárez directs her again in the series ‘Los pazos de Ulloa’ and in the films ‘Epílogo’, ‘Don Juan en los infernos’ and ‘El detective y la muerte’. Although he did not accept the role that Pedro Almodóvar offered him in ‘Matador’ (1986), he appeared in ‘Kika’, by the director from La Mancha, in 1993. He also appeared in ‘Ánima’, by Titus Leber, or in ‘Plenilunio’, by Imanol Uribe.
His repercussion in Latin America skyrocketed at the end of the 1980s, when he toured the Argentine stages with ‘Una día particular’ and ‘Hay que undo la casa’. In Spain, her greatest impact on stage comes with ‘Let’s have sex in peace’, based on the text by Darío Fo, and with her monologue ‘Ojos de agua’, based on ‘La Celestina’.
Charo López in her unforgettable role as Clara Aldán in the series ‘Los joys y las sombras’; in ‘Kika’, by Pedro Almodóvar, and with the Goya as supporting actress in 1998 for ‘Secretos del corazón’.
In 1997 she premiered ‘Secretos del corazón’, a film by Montxo Armendáriz nominated for a Hollywood Oscar for which she won the Goya Award for best supporting actress for her dazzling character as María. She then has a brief appearance in ‘Tiempos de Azúcar’, by Juan Luis Iborra, and stars in ‘Knots’ and ‘La Soledad Era Esto’. She and she did not abandon the theater, with works such as ‘Wild laughter’, performed at different times since the 1990s, ‘The Bridges of Madison’, ‘Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt’ and ‘The Other Side’.
Charo López has numerous awards, including, in addition to those already mentioned, the Fotogramas de Plata for his entire career, the Nacho Martínez Award at the Gijón Festival and the San Jordi Award for Cinematography in 2010. In 2020 he received the Spike of Honor from the Valladolid International Film Week. Likewise, he has many other awards for his work on television. The actress has been married twice, to the critic, writer and filmmaker Jesús García de Dueñas (1965-1971) and to the journalist Carlos Gabetta (1988-1993).
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