Singer, Actress and Television Presenter. Lola Beltrán is and was one of Mexico's most acclaimed singers of Ranchera and Huapango music. She made collaborations with other acclaimed Mexican music stars such as Amalia Mendoza, Juan Gabriel and Lucha Villa. She was internationally renowned for her interpretation of the songs "Cucurrucucú paloma" and "Paloma Negra" as well as sang before many world leaders. She was nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great"). On cinema, she made her film debut on El cantor del circo (1940) an Argentine film. She also shared credits with famous and important Mexican movie stars such as Emilio Fernández, Ignacio López Tarso, Katy Jurado, María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz in La Bandida (1963). Her last film appearance came at Una gallina muy ponedora (1982) sharing credits with Columba Domínguez and Emilio Fernández. As a television presenter, she hosted the programs Noches tapatias (1976) and her own television program entitled El estudio de Lola Beltrán (1984), programs in which she received stars such as Cornelio Reyna, Juan Gabriel, La Prieta Linda and Luis Miguel. On 24 March 1996, Beltrán died of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 64.∼María Lucila Beltrán Ruiz, better known as Lola Beltrán, was a Mexican singer, actress, and television presenter.
Beltrán was one of Mexico's most acclaimed singers of Ranchera and Huapango music
She was internationally renowned for her interpretation of the songs "Cucurrucucú paloma" and "Paloma Negra" as well as sang before many world leaders. She was nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great").
Beltrán is still considered one of the most successful ranchera artists of all time. She gave concerts before various world leaders: President Charles de Gaulle of France, the leader of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito, Soviet minister Andrei Gromyko, Premier of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev, King of Spain Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, Queen Elizabeth II, American Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon and Presidents of Mexico Adolfo Ruiz Cortines and Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
She was the first ranchera singer to perform at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts), the premier opera house and concert hall in Mexico. She also sang in the Olympia Music Hall in Paris, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and the Conservatory of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in the former Soviet Union.
Beltrán was honored in 1995 with her inclusion into a series of commemorative postage stamps, issued by her native Mexico, honoring 'Popular Idols of Radio'. This was done in recognition of her lifetime achievement in the realm of popular music and her success in spreading an appreciation of Mexican culture throughout the world.
She made her film debut on El cantor del circo (1940) an Argentine film. She also shared credits with famous and important Mexican movie stars such as Emilio Fernández, Ignacio López Tarso, Katy Jurado, María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz in La Bandida (1963). Her last film appearance came at Una gallina muy ponedora (1982) sharing credits with Columba Domínguez and Emilio Fernández.
As a television presenter, she hosted the programs Noches tapatias (1976) and her own television program entitled El estudio de Lola Beltrán (1984), programs in which she received stars such as Cornelio Reyna, Juan Gabriel, La Prieta Linda and Luis Miguel.
She moved to Mexico City , working as a secretary at Mexico's number-one radio station, XEW, where she was professionally discovered by radio announcer Raul Mendivil.
Beltrán married matador and film actor Alfredo Leal and had a daughter with him, singer María Elena Leal.
Soon after recording Disco del Siglo (English: Album of the Century) with Lucha Villa and Amalia Mendoza "La Tariácuri" (produced by Juan Gabriel) she died of a massive pulmonary embolism at Ángeles Hospital in Mexico City. Her body lay on display in the rotunda of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City in order to give her countrymen a chance to say goodbye. Only the most acclaimed artists, recording artists, poets, writers and actors are accorded this honor.
(Wikipedia)
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
Lola Beltran, Singer, Dies; Mexico's Adored 'Grande'
By Larry Rohter
March 26, 1996
Lola Beltran, the soulful Mexican singer whose achingly emotional renditions of mariachi ballads made her known as Lola the Great to generations of Latin Americans, died on Sunday night in Mexico City. During a career that spanned five decades, she made a point of refusing to discuss her age, but she was believed to be in her mid-60's.
The cause was a stroke, her daughter, Maria Elena Leal, said in newspaper reports.
Among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, Lola la Grande was held in high esteem for her ability to capture and reproduce in her music what they consider the melancholy essence of life. Song after song found her confronting suffering, loneliness, abandonment or loss with an equanimity that her millions of listeners in the Spanish-speaking world found inspiring and deeply moving.
In a tribute to Ms. Beltran written in 1994, the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes declared that "passion and desire, joy and risk, tenderness and the cry for existence are the wings of this dove that is the voice of our lady Lola Beltran." Like most Mexicans, he added, "I have spent my life living and writing and loving and traveling with the voice of Lola Beltran close to me, on records, over the airwaves, but above all in the soundtrack of memory."
Ms. Beltran suffered a heart attack on March 16 and had been hospitalized, but she vowed to keep singing "as long as the body holds up." Revived by doctors after her heart had stopped beating for a reported seven minutes, she remarked, "I fought death with all my might, and God in His infinite compassion has let me live for a little while longer."
Though Ms. Beltran's devotees ranged from presidents to peasants, she was especially admired by her fellow musicians. Her remarkable sense of phrasing, inflection and drama influenced a whole generation of younger vocalists, both men and women, inside and out of Mexico.
"Singers don't come any more real than Lola Beltran," Linda Ronstadt said in 1988 after releasing an album that included several songs associated with Ms. Beltran. "She's a world-class singer, up there rubbing shoulders with Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf."
In both her private and professional life, Ms. Beltran played the role of diva to the hilt. She dressed extravagantly, was fond of furs and ornate jewels and relished the deference her admirers showered on her. She consequently earned a second nickname, "La Reina," or "The Queen."
Onstage, whether performing for Mexican immigrants at county fairs in Texas or at state dinners for Dwight D. Eisenhower, Charles de Gaulle or the King of Spain, her bearing was indeed regal. She would halt her orchestra in mid-measure with an authoritative wave of the hand, or in moments of great emotion clutch the rebozo, or shawl, that was her trademark.
Her origins, however, were modest. Maria Lucila Beltran was born in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, where her father, Pedro Beltran, was a mine manager. Her mother, a housewife who liked to sing around the house, exposed her daughter both to the hits of the day and older standards.
In her early years, Ms. Beltran sang at family gatherings or to the Carmelite nuns who educated her. But in 1953, with her mother, Maria de los Angeles Ruiz, in tow as her chaperone, Ms. Beltran moved to Mexico City with hopes of entering show business. She took a secretarial job at XEW, a radio station known throughout Mexico as the home of the Mariachi Vargas, the most popular group of the genre.
Ms. Beltran later would tell how she pestered the group until they gave her a chance to show off her vocal skills. The purity of her voice and her masterly technique immediately won them over, and within a year she was the star of her own program and the most popular female mariachi singer in Mexico. "Even now, every time I go by the station, I make the sign of the cross," she said in a 1988 interview, as a gesture of gratitude for good fortune.
Through the Mariachi Vargas, Ms. Beltran also met Tomas Mendez, the songwriter who would go on to compose many of her most successful songs. Several of those numbers, "Cucurrucucu Paloma" and "Tres Dias" in particular, became hits everywhere -- the United States included -- and made Ms. Beltran a star throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
"When I hear a song, I want it to tell me something," Ms. Beltran said in the same interview. "It can tell the story of a great love or of a tremendous sadness, but it has to have emotion and truth. The song has to make it worth my while to sing it."
Though many of Ms. Beltran's contemporaries have long since faded from the scene, she maintained her appeal among those who consider themselves hip and contemporary. The Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar, for instance, used Ms. Beltran's version of "Soy Infeliz," or "I Am Unhappy," as the opening theme of his 1988 hit, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."
All told, Ms. Beltran recorded more than 100 albums, with total sales estimated in the tens of millions. She also appeared in more than 50 movies, most of them Mexican musicals of indifferent quality that owed their commercial success to her remarkable popularity and her dark, keening voice.
Ms. Beltran is survived by her daughter, born of her marriage to the bullfighter and actor Alfredo Leal.
Beltrán was one of Mexico's most acclaimed singers of Ranchera and Huapango music
She was internationally renowned for her interpretation of the songs "Cucurrucucú paloma" and "Paloma Negra" as well as sang before many world leaders. She was nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great").
Beltrán is still considered one of the most successful ranchera artists of all time. She gave concerts before various world leaders: President Charles de Gaulle of France, the leader of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito, Soviet minister Andrei Gromyko, Premier of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev, King of Spain Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, Queen Elizabeth II, American Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon and Presidents of Mexico Adolfo Ruiz Cortines and Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
She was the first ranchera singer to perform at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts), the premier opera house and concert hall in Mexico. She also sang in the Olympia Music Hall in Paris, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and the Conservatory of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in the former Soviet Union.
Beltrán was honored in 1995 with her inclusion into a series of commemorative postage stamps, issued by her native Mexico, honoring 'Popular Idols of Radio'. This was done in recognition of her lifetime achievement in the realm of popular music and her success in spreading an appreciation of Mexican culture throughout the world.
She made her film debut on El cantor del circo (1940) an Argentine film. She also shared credits with famous and important Mexican movie stars such as Emilio Fernández, Ignacio López Tarso, Katy Jurado, María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz in La Bandida (1963). Her last film appearance came at Una gallina muy ponedora (1982) sharing credits with Columba Domínguez and Emilio Fernández.
As a television presenter, she hosted the programs Noches tapatias (1976) and her own television program entitled El estudio de Lola Beltrán (1984), programs in which she received stars such as Cornelio Reyna, Juan Gabriel, La Prieta Linda and Luis Miguel.
She moved to Mexico City , working as a secretary at Mexico's number-one radio station, XEW, where she was professionally discovered by radio announcer Raul Mendivil.
Beltrán married matador and film actor Alfredo Leal and had a daughter with him, singer María Elena Leal.
Soon after recording Disco del Siglo (English: Album of the Century) with Lucha Villa and Amalia Mendoza "La Tariácuri" (produced by Juan Gabriel) she died of a massive pulmonary embolism at Ángeles Hospital in Mexico City. Her body lay on display in the rotunda of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City in order to give her countrymen a chance to say goodbye. Only the most acclaimed artists, recording artists, poets, writers and actors are accorded this honor.
(Wikipedia)
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
Lola Beltran, Singer, Dies; Mexico's Adored 'Grande'
By Larry Rohter
March 26, 1996
Lola Beltran, the soulful Mexican singer whose achingly emotional renditions of mariachi ballads made her known as Lola the Great to generations of Latin Americans, died on Sunday night in Mexico City. During a career that spanned five decades, she made a point of refusing to discuss her age, but she was believed to be in her mid-60's.
The cause was a stroke, her daughter, Maria Elena Leal, said in newspaper reports.
Among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, Lola la Grande was held in high esteem for her ability to capture and reproduce in her music what they consider the melancholy essence of life. Song after song found her confronting suffering, loneliness, abandonment or loss with an equanimity that her millions of listeners in the Spanish-speaking world found inspiring and deeply moving.
In a tribute to Ms. Beltran written in 1994, the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes declared that "passion and desire, joy and risk, tenderness and the cry for existence are the wings of this dove that is the voice of our lady Lola Beltran." Like most Mexicans, he added, "I have spent my life living and writing and loving and traveling with the voice of Lola Beltran close to me, on records, over the airwaves, but above all in the soundtrack of memory."
Ms. Beltran suffered a heart attack on March 16 and had been hospitalized, but she vowed to keep singing "as long as the body holds up." Revived by doctors after her heart had stopped beating for a reported seven minutes, she remarked, "I fought death with all my might, and God in His infinite compassion has let me live for a little while longer."
Though Ms. Beltran's devotees ranged from presidents to peasants, she was especially admired by her fellow musicians. Her remarkable sense of phrasing, inflection and drama influenced a whole generation of younger vocalists, both men and women, inside and out of Mexico.
"Singers don't come any more real than Lola Beltran," Linda Ronstadt said in 1988 after releasing an album that included several songs associated with Ms. Beltran. "She's a world-class singer, up there rubbing shoulders with Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf."
In both her private and professional life, Ms. Beltran played the role of diva to the hilt. She dressed extravagantly, was fond of furs and ornate jewels and relished the deference her admirers showered on her. She consequently earned a second nickname, "La Reina," or "The Queen."
Onstage, whether performing for Mexican immigrants at county fairs in Texas or at state dinners for Dwight D. Eisenhower, Charles de Gaulle or the King of Spain, her bearing was indeed regal. She would halt her orchestra in mid-measure with an authoritative wave of the hand, or in moments of great emotion clutch the rebozo, or shawl, that was her trademark.
Her origins, however, were modest. Maria Lucila Beltran was born in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, where her father, Pedro Beltran, was a mine manager. Her mother, a housewife who liked to sing around the house, exposed her daughter both to the hits of the day and older standards.
In her early years, Ms. Beltran sang at family gatherings or to the Carmelite nuns who educated her. But in 1953, with her mother, Maria de los Angeles Ruiz, in tow as her chaperone, Ms. Beltran moved to Mexico City with hopes of entering show business. She took a secretarial job at XEW, a radio station known throughout Mexico as the home of the Mariachi Vargas, the most popular group of the genre.
Ms. Beltran later would tell how she pestered the group until they gave her a chance to show off her vocal skills. The purity of her voice and her masterly technique immediately won them over, and within a year she was the star of her own program and the most popular female mariachi singer in Mexico. "Even now, every time I go by the station, I make the sign of the cross," she said in a 1988 interview, as a gesture of gratitude for good fortune.
Through the Mariachi Vargas, Ms. Beltran also met Tomas Mendez, the songwriter who would go on to compose many of her most successful songs. Several of those numbers, "Cucurrucucu Paloma" and "Tres Dias" in particular, became hits everywhere -- the United States included -- and made Ms. Beltran a star throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
"When I hear a song, I want it to tell me something," Ms. Beltran said in the same interview. "It can tell the story of a great love or of a tremendous sadness, but it has to have emotion and truth. The song has to make it worth my while to sing it."
Though many of Ms. Beltran's contemporaries have long since faded from the scene, she maintained her appeal among those who consider themselves hip and contemporary. The Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar, for instance, used Ms. Beltran's version of "Soy Infeliz," or "I Am Unhappy," as the opening theme of his 1988 hit, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."
All told, Ms. Beltran recorded more than 100 albums, with total sales estimated in the tens of millions. She also appeared in more than 50 movies, most of them Mexican musicals of indifferent quality that owed their commercial success to her remarkable popularity and her dark, keening voice.
Ms. Beltran is survived by her daughter, born of her marriage to the bullfighter and actor Alfredo Leal.
Singer, Actress and Television Presenter. Lola Beltrán is and was one of Mexico's most acclaimed singers of Ranchera and Huapango music. She made collaborations with other acclaimed Mexican music stars such as Amalia Mendoza, Juan Gabriel and Lucha Villa. She was internationally renowned for her interpretation of the songs "Cucurrucucú paloma" and "Paloma Negra" as well as sang before many world leaders. She was nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great"). On cinema, she made her film debut on El cantor del circo (1940) an Argentine film. She also shared credits with famous and important Mexican movie stars such as Emilio Fernández, Ignacio López Tarso, Katy Jurado, María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz in La Bandida (1963). Her last film appearance came at Una gallina muy ponedora (1982) sharing credits with Columba Domínguez and Emilio Fernández. As a television presenter, she hosted the programs Noches tapatias (1976) and her own television program entitled El estudio de Lola Beltrán (1984), programs in which she received stars such as Cornelio Reyna, Juan Gabriel, La Prieta Linda and Luis Miguel. On 24 March 1996, Beltrán died of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 64.∼María Lucila Beltrán Ruiz, better known as Lola Beltrán, was a Mexican singer, actress, and television presenter.
Beltrán was one of Mexico's most acclaimed singers of Ranchera and Huapango music
She was internationally renowned for her interpretation of the songs "Cucurrucucú paloma" and "Paloma Negra" as well as sang before many world leaders. She was nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great").
Beltrán is still considered one of the most successful ranchera artists of all time. She gave concerts before various world leaders: President Charles de Gaulle of France, the leader of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito, Soviet minister Andrei Gromyko, Premier of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev, King of Spain Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, Queen Elizabeth II, American Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon and Presidents of Mexico Adolfo Ruiz Cortines and Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
She was the first ranchera singer to perform at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts), the premier opera house and concert hall in Mexico. She also sang in the Olympia Music Hall in Paris, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and the Conservatory of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in the former Soviet Union.
Beltrán was honored in 1995 with her inclusion into a series of commemorative postage stamps, issued by her native Mexico, honoring 'Popular Idols of Radio'. This was done in recognition of her lifetime achievement in the realm of popular music and her success in spreading an appreciation of Mexican culture throughout the world.
She made her film debut on El cantor del circo (1940) an Argentine film. She also shared credits with famous and important Mexican movie stars such as Emilio Fernández, Ignacio López Tarso, Katy Jurado, María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz in La Bandida (1963). Her last film appearance came at Una gallina muy ponedora (1982) sharing credits with Columba Domínguez and Emilio Fernández.
As a television presenter, she hosted the programs Noches tapatias (1976) and her own television program entitled El estudio de Lola Beltrán (1984), programs in which she received stars such as Cornelio Reyna, Juan Gabriel, La Prieta Linda and Luis Miguel.
She moved to Mexico City , working as a secretary at Mexico's number-one radio station, XEW, where she was professionally discovered by radio announcer Raul Mendivil.
Beltrán married matador and film actor Alfredo Leal and had a daughter with him, singer María Elena Leal.
Soon after recording Disco del Siglo (English: Album of the Century) with Lucha Villa and Amalia Mendoza "La Tariácuri" (produced by Juan Gabriel) she died of a massive pulmonary embolism at Ángeles Hospital in Mexico City. Her body lay on display in the rotunda of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City in order to give her countrymen a chance to say goodbye. Only the most acclaimed artists, recording artists, poets, writers and actors are accorded this honor.
(Wikipedia)
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
Lola Beltran, Singer, Dies; Mexico's Adored 'Grande'
By Larry Rohter
March 26, 1996
Lola Beltran, the soulful Mexican singer whose achingly emotional renditions of mariachi ballads made her known as Lola the Great to generations of Latin Americans, died on Sunday night in Mexico City. During a career that spanned five decades, she made a point of refusing to discuss her age, but she was believed to be in her mid-60's.
The cause was a stroke, her daughter, Maria Elena Leal, said in newspaper reports.
Among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, Lola la Grande was held in high esteem for her ability to capture and reproduce in her music what they consider the melancholy essence of life. Song after song found her confronting suffering, loneliness, abandonment or loss with an equanimity that her millions of listeners in the Spanish-speaking world found inspiring and deeply moving.
In a tribute to Ms. Beltran written in 1994, the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes declared that "passion and desire, joy and risk, tenderness and the cry for existence are the wings of this dove that is the voice of our lady Lola Beltran." Like most Mexicans, he added, "I have spent my life living and writing and loving and traveling with the voice of Lola Beltran close to me, on records, over the airwaves, but above all in the soundtrack of memory."
Ms. Beltran suffered a heart attack on March 16 and had been hospitalized, but she vowed to keep singing "as long as the body holds up." Revived by doctors after her heart had stopped beating for a reported seven minutes, she remarked, "I fought death with all my might, and God in His infinite compassion has let me live for a little while longer."
Though Ms. Beltran's devotees ranged from presidents to peasants, she was especially admired by her fellow musicians. Her remarkable sense of phrasing, inflection and drama influenced a whole generation of younger vocalists, both men and women, inside and out of Mexico.
"Singers don't come any more real than Lola Beltran," Linda Ronstadt said in 1988 after releasing an album that included several songs associated with Ms. Beltran. "She's a world-class singer, up there rubbing shoulders with Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf."
In both her private and professional life, Ms. Beltran played the role of diva to the hilt. She dressed extravagantly, was fond of furs and ornate jewels and relished the deference her admirers showered on her. She consequently earned a second nickname, "La Reina," or "The Queen."
Onstage, whether performing for Mexican immigrants at county fairs in Texas or at state dinners for Dwight D. Eisenhower, Charles de Gaulle or the King of Spain, her bearing was indeed regal. She would halt her orchestra in mid-measure with an authoritative wave of the hand, or in moments of great emotion clutch the rebozo, or shawl, that was her trademark.
Her origins, however, were modest. Maria Lucila Beltran was born in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, where her father, Pedro Beltran, was a mine manager. Her mother, a housewife who liked to sing around the house, exposed her daughter both to the hits of the day and older standards.
In her early years, Ms. Beltran sang at family gatherings or to the Carmelite nuns who educated her. But in 1953, with her mother, Maria de los Angeles Ruiz, in tow as her chaperone, Ms. Beltran moved to Mexico City with hopes of entering show business. She took a secretarial job at XEW, a radio station known throughout Mexico as the home of the Mariachi Vargas, the most popular group of the genre.
Ms. Beltran later would tell how she pestered the group until they gave her a chance to show off her vocal skills. The purity of her voice and her masterly technique immediately won them over, and within a year she was the star of her own program and the most popular female mariachi singer in Mexico. "Even now, every time I go by the station, I make the sign of the cross," she said in a 1988 interview, as a gesture of gratitude for good fortune.
Through the Mariachi Vargas, Ms. Beltran also met Tomas Mendez, the songwriter who would go on to compose many of her most successful songs. Several of those numbers, "Cucurrucucu Paloma" and "Tres Dias" in particular, became hits everywhere -- the United States included -- and made Ms. Beltran a star throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
"When I hear a song, I want it to tell me something," Ms. Beltran said in the same interview. "It can tell the story of a great love or of a tremendous sadness, but it has to have emotion and truth. The song has to make it worth my while to sing it."
Though many of Ms. Beltran's contemporaries have long since faded from the scene, she maintained her appeal among those who consider themselves hip and contemporary. The Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar, for instance, used Ms. Beltran's version of "Soy Infeliz," or "I Am Unhappy," as the opening theme of his 1988 hit, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."
All told, Ms. Beltran recorded more than 100 albums, with total sales estimated in the tens of millions. She also appeared in more than 50 movies, most of them Mexican musicals of indifferent quality that owed their commercial success to her remarkable popularity and her dark, keening voice.
Ms. Beltran is survived by her daughter, born of her marriage to the bullfighter and actor Alfredo Leal.
Beltrán was one of Mexico's most acclaimed singers of Ranchera and Huapango music
She was internationally renowned for her interpretation of the songs "Cucurrucucú paloma" and "Paloma Negra" as well as sang before many world leaders. She was nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great").
Beltrán is still considered one of the most successful ranchera artists of all time. She gave concerts before various world leaders: President Charles de Gaulle of France, the leader of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito, Soviet minister Andrei Gromyko, Premier of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev, King of Spain Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, Queen Elizabeth II, American Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon and Presidents of Mexico Adolfo Ruiz Cortines and Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
She was the first ranchera singer to perform at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts), the premier opera house and concert hall in Mexico. She also sang in the Olympia Music Hall in Paris, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and the Conservatory of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in the former Soviet Union.
Beltrán was honored in 1995 with her inclusion into a series of commemorative postage stamps, issued by her native Mexico, honoring 'Popular Idols of Radio'. This was done in recognition of her lifetime achievement in the realm of popular music and her success in spreading an appreciation of Mexican culture throughout the world.
She made her film debut on El cantor del circo (1940) an Argentine film. She also shared credits with famous and important Mexican movie stars such as Emilio Fernández, Ignacio López Tarso, Katy Jurado, María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz in La Bandida (1963). Her last film appearance came at Una gallina muy ponedora (1982) sharing credits with Columba Domínguez and Emilio Fernández.
As a television presenter, she hosted the programs Noches tapatias (1976) and her own television program entitled El estudio de Lola Beltrán (1984), programs in which she received stars such as Cornelio Reyna, Juan Gabriel, La Prieta Linda and Luis Miguel.
She moved to Mexico City , working as a secretary at Mexico's number-one radio station, XEW, where she was professionally discovered by radio announcer Raul Mendivil.
Beltrán married matador and film actor Alfredo Leal and had a daughter with him, singer María Elena Leal.
Soon after recording Disco del Siglo (English: Album of the Century) with Lucha Villa and Amalia Mendoza "La Tariácuri" (produced by Juan Gabriel) she died of a massive pulmonary embolism at Ángeles Hospital in Mexico City. Her body lay on display in the rotunda of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City in order to give her countrymen a chance to say goodbye. Only the most acclaimed artists, recording artists, poets, writers and actors are accorded this honor.
(Wikipedia)
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
Lola Beltran, Singer, Dies; Mexico's Adored 'Grande'
By Larry Rohter
March 26, 1996
Lola Beltran, the soulful Mexican singer whose achingly emotional renditions of mariachi ballads made her known as Lola the Great to generations of Latin Americans, died on Sunday night in Mexico City. During a career that spanned five decades, she made a point of refusing to discuss her age, but she was believed to be in her mid-60's.
The cause was a stroke, her daughter, Maria Elena Leal, said in newspaper reports.
Among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, Lola la Grande was held in high esteem for her ability to capture and reproduce in her music what they consider the melancholy essence of life. Song after song found her confronting suffering, loneliness, abandonment or loss with an equanimity that her millions of listeners in the Spanish-speaking world found inspiring and deeply moving.
In a tribute to Ms. Beltran written in 1994, the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes declared that "passion and desire, joy and risk, tenderness and the cry for existence are the wings of this dove that is the voice of our lady Lola Beltran." Like most Mexicans, he added, "I have spent my life living and writing and loving and traveling with the voice of Lola Beltran close to me, on records, over the airwaves, but above all in the soundtrack of memory."
Ms. Beltran suffered a heart attack on March 16 and had been hospitalized, but she vowed to keep singing "as long as the body holds up." Revived by doctors after her heart had stopped beating for a reported seven minutes, she remarked, "I fought death with all my might, and God in His infinite compassion has let me live for a little while longer."
Though Ms. Beltran's devotees ranged from presidents to peasants, she was especially admired by her fellow musicians. Her remarkable sense of phrasing, inflection and drama influenced a whole generation of younger vocalists, both men and women, inside and out of Mexico.
"Singers don't come any more real than Lola Beltran," Linda Ronstadt said in 1988 after releasing an album that included several songs associated with Ms. Beltran. "She's a world-class singer, up there rubbing shoulders with Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf."
In both her private and professional life, Ms. Beltran played the role of diva to the hilt. She dressed extravagantly, was fond of furs and ornate jewels and relished the deference her admirers showered on her. She consequently earned a second nickname, "La Reina," or "The Queen."
Onstage, whether performing for Mexican immigrants at county fairs in Texas or at state dinners for Dwight D. Eisenhower, Charles de Gaulle or the King of Spain, her bearing was indeed regal. She would halt her orchestra in mid-measure with an authoritative wave of the hand, or in moments of great emotion clutch the rebozo, or shawl, that was her trademark.
Her origins, however, were modest. Maria Lucila Beltran was born in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, where her father, Pedro Beltran, was a mine manager. Her mother, a housewife who liked to sing around the house, exposed her daughter both to the hits of the day and older standards.
In her early years, Ms. Beltran sang at family gatherings or to the Carmelite nuns who educated her. But in 1953, with her mother, Maria de los Angeles Ruiz, in tow as her chaperone, Ms. Beltran moved to Mexico City with hopes of entering show business. She took a secretarial job at XEW, a radio station known throughout Mexico as the home of the Mariachi Vargas, the most popular group of the genre.
Ms. Beltran later would tell how she pestered the group until they gave her a chance to show off her vocal skills. The purity of her voice and her masterly technique immediately won them over, and within a year she was the star of her own program and the most popular female mariachi singer in Mexico. "Even now, every time I go by the station, I make the sign of the cross," she said in a 1988 interview, as a gesture of gratitude for good fortune.
Through the Mariachi Vargas, Ms. Beltran also met Tomas Mendez, the songwriter who would go on to compose many of her most successful songs. Several of those numbers, "Cucurrucucu Paloma" and "Tres Dias" in particular, became hits everywhere -- the United States included -- and made Ms. Beltran a star throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
"When I hear a song, I want it to tell me something," Ms. Beltran said in the same interview. "It can tell the story of a great love or of a tremendous sadness, but it has to have emotion and truth. The song has to make it worth my while to sing it."
Though many of Ms. Beltran's contemporaries have long since faded from the scene, she maintained her appeal among those who consider themselves hip and contemporary. The Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar, for instance, used Ms. Beltran's version of "Soy Infeliz," or "I Am Unhappy," as the opening theme of his 1988 hit, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."
All told, Ms. Beltran recorded more than 100 albums, with total sales estimated in the tens of millions. She also appeared in more than 50 movies, most of them Mexican musicals of indifferent quality that owed their commercial success to her remarkable popularity and her dark, keening voice.
Ms. Beltran is survived by her daughter, born of her marriage to the bullfighter and actor Alfredo Leal.
Inscription
Siempre te llevaremos cerca muy cerca del corazón y algún día te alcanzaremos a donde estés cerca de Dios.
Tus hijos Ma. Elena y Jose. Tu nieto Mauricio. Familia Beltrán Ruiz y el pueblo de México.
Gravesite Details
Her tombstone has wrong birthdate, she was born on 1932 not 1935.
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