La Abadia de Berzaro
By
Ignacio Bilbao
June 25, 2022
[Continued from Part 1 posted July 5, 2022]
With
Eduardo Manzanos he made what would be his second film, Cabaret (1953)...
Yes,
with Fernando Rey and Nati Mistral. But I had no luck with this man
[Manzanos], who married me. Actually, he didn't like movies or many other
things that I liked and he didn't share. So, a couple, if they don't get
along in certain things... It seems that they don't, but it's important to be
comfortable, stabilized and think about the same thing. However, when they
hired me, he only caused problems. When Las petroleras
/ Les pétroleuses / Le pistolere (1971) was shot in Spain,
Grimaldi, the Italian producer, who had already made several films with me,
including Río Guadalquivir / Dimentica il mio passato(1957), for which I
received very good reviews, came. Since they knew each other, the first
thing she did was go to Eduardo's office. I was going down the Gran Vía
and, the things that happen, I meet him face to face and he tells me:
"Mari Luz, you're lost" "How am I lost?" “I come from
Eduardo's office. That won't let you do anything. You are going to
spend your life in your house with a rag cleaning the dust. That's what I
think he wants." When I told Eduardo, he replied that that was
nonsense. Total, that was the thing, and I spoke with Grimaldi to tell him
that he played the role that he had offered me. But then he told me that
it couldn't be, because he had already closed the contract with Brigitte Bardot
and the Cardinale.
From
what I've read, the next movie he made after Cabaret is his
favorite among those he made. I am referring to the adaptation of the play
by Jacinto Benavente Señora ama (1955)…
Oh,
that movie is beautiful! It has some frames… It was made by Julio Bracho,
a Mexican director and what a director… I was amazed. He liked the beauty,
the beautiful framing and if you were a little cramped he asked you to
stretch. It was a very successful movie. Bracho liked the plot and
brought Dolores del Río, who played my sister, and I fell in love with her
husband, who was José Suárez. However, the husband does not pay attention
to me or anything. It was a very nice argument, and with a wonderful photo
that I think was taken by Guerner [1] , one of the
greats.
How
was your relationship with Dolores del Río, who by then was already an
established star with a long career in Hollywood?
Dolores
del Río was a diva. She was nice and charming, but when she was going to
roll as if she heard that they were nailing a nail or someone was talking, she
became a despot. "I can't like that! I said I don't want to hear
anything!” she yelled in anger. “But how can that bother you?” she was
saying to myself. But she did well. Everyone has their shapes,
although it didn't bother me at all that they were driving a nail. I
remember that Bracho, who was very nice, told me: "Mari Luz, my daughter,
are you ready with the sandwich?" Sure, I was a kid
then. "Yes... But there is a long way to go until we
shoot." “What is missing a lot? Right now you have to be
rolling!” I was scared. "Well, don't make that face," she
reassured me. "You do this scene well, and then I'll tell someone
from the production to bring you twenty sandwiches of whatever you
want." And I threw the rest, because I also liked the paper. It
was one of those roles that have meat, that are not of a silly girl, like the
one she had done inCabaret , because there are roles where you
think: "This, me, how do I save him, if I say nothing but nonsense in the
script?" And I already say that I have made several films like this.
After Lady
loves the wheel what is perhaps his most famous film, The Evil
Carabel , directed and starred by Fernando Fernán Gómez…
Fernando
Fernán Gómez was a gentleman from head to toe. He was a perfect gentleman,
pleasant... All that is said about him is little. When I made The
Evil Carabel I was left with how nice he was. He didn't get
involved in anything, nor did he say anything to me. The same thing I told
him to repeat a take because he thought he could do it better and he always
answered that it was fine that way. The only thing was that, in the
script, he said that in the end my character came out in a
nightgown. Total, we shot it and then Fernando told me: “And now comes the
kiss”. There I was still very young and I responded like a fool that
no. “There is no kiss. The script doesn't put any of
that." “But I, who am the director, are you going to give me the
orders?” So he called someone from the movie. "Bring me a
whiskey, because I can't stand these things" (laughs ). "Forgive
me," I apologized, "but I didn't know about
this." "No, no, no, there is a kiss here," he settled the
issue. Also, he had a reputation that he was the best kissing actor.
After
working with actors of the stature of Dolores del Río and Fernando Fernán
Gómez, a couple of years later he starred alongside Vittorio De Sica and Walter
Chiari in the co-production with Italy Una mujer para Marcelo / Gli
zitelloni (1958)…
You
know all my movies! As you say, A woman for MarceloI did it
with Walter Chiari, who was very nice, he was very funny, he was always joking,
but he was a golfer. Ava Gardner was going there to look for him and
everything. And the director [Giorgio Bianchi], who was a strong and
handsome man, was also another one you don't see. He was always with one
and with another. And I, although I don't seem like it and am shy, I also
had my character. So one day Walter Chiari comes and when the director
tells him: “Let's see…”, he responds with great bravado: “Let's see what? Bring
me a coffee with milk, without coffee with milk I do nothing.” While they
serve her a huge cup of coffee with milk, the director says to me: “Mari Luz,
now Walter Chiari is going to kiss you. But you are not going to separate. I
have to say "cut". Then I see Walter Chiari come to drink coffee
with milk. Total, they shout "action", he grabs me, kisses
me, and that he did not withdraw. So I picked up and walked
away. "Why? It was good! Why are you retiring?” the
director yelled at me. "Because I don't like to have breakfast at
seven in the evening," I replied.(laughs) These kinds of
things are better taken as a little joke. You're not going to get mad at
that nonsense. Man, if they want to take away your role or that you appear
in the credits in smaller letters than those that correspond to you, then yes,
because that is another type of thing. But otherwise, I've always gotten
along very well with all the actresses and actors I've worked with.
And
how was the experience of working with Vittorio De Sica?
Vittorio
De Sica was a very calm man. He always carried a briefcase, because as
soon as he finished his dialogue, even if it was three words, they had to pay
him. And he put the money in his briefcase, which he didn't let go of at
all.
Back
in Spain, she stars in Las de Caín , translation to the big
screen of the stage play by the Álvarez Quintero brothers in which she has a
very young Juanjo Menéndez as a boyfriend…
Cain's was very
good. Very nice movie. The director was Antonio Momplet, who was
Argentine. It was shot entirely in Barcelona. While we were doing it
I got really sick. I had a pain and I went to the doctor, but they didn't
know what was wrong with me. I didn't feel like eating or anything. Later,
in Madrid, they had to operate on a polyp that had come out in my
throat. And the fact is that I noticed it. When he would get me ready
he would say to my mother: “Oh, mom, behind the bell I have something”. It
was a polyp that could have been bad, because it was making me lose my sight a
little.
Entering
the sixties, he made his last works in the cinema. Within this stage, the
curiosity of his participation in up to three films starring masked vigilantes
orchestrated by Eduardo Manzanos stands out; two from El Zorro and one
from El Coyote…
Yes,
of course, Zorro's Revenge , Zorro riding to death (sic)
and The California Avenger / Il segno del coyote (1963). The
first ones were directed by Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, who was a scoundrel ,
but with a lot of sympathy. Come on, I'm telling you because he was
hilarious. He was a man with whom you laughed a lot and he was also very
gentleman. In the air of him he said things to you of the type that he
said to me. “But what is it that you have to bring the car that you come
with that has not been washed for five days? What do you want the jewels
for? Buy yourself a nice white car with a driver and come with him, like
Brigitte Bardot did. You stars have to be like that."
Romero
Marchent what happens is that he was very daring. He wasn't afraid of
specialists jumping from a house or a rock. He had to do it and it was
done. In one of these films, for example, he put María Silva and me inside
a cabin, and they set it on fire. Then we ran out of there, I was wearing
long wool skirts that were very hot and I thought: "Now my skirts are on
fire and you'll see."
For
the second of these films, which he shot with Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, the
western town of Golden City was built in Hoyo de Manzanares. Whose idea
was it?
That
town of Hoyo de Manzanares was made by my brother José Luis with Jaime [Pérez]
Cubero. The truth is that for him it was a bargain, because they made a
fortune with that town. It was very well done, because my brother was very
good at those things. I remember that as a child the novels he liked to
read the most were from the West. So all that western world suited him
very well.
The
idea of building the town occurred to Eduardo. He talked to my brother
and explained that he had thought that if they built a town in the West like
the Americans did, he would give them a fortune, since, in addition to shooting
his movies, they could rent it. So it was. There were many directors
and a lot was shot there, even to make commercials.
And
of the third of these films, The California Avenger , directed
by Mario Caino, what do you remember?
This
was shot quite a bit in Rome. The protagonist was a very tall Mexican
actor, who they said was very attractive, whose name was Fernando Casanova, and
Paola Barbara also worked. As for Mario Caiano, he was neither seen nor
heard. It was not known who the director was. He wasn't even
noticeable walking around, come on. Quite the opposite of Primo Zeglio
[Paola Barbara's husband], with whom I shot Río Guadalquivir …
In
the Spanish copy, however, the direction of Río Guadalquivir is
credited to Manzanos…
What
was Eduardo the director of this film? No way! If I didn't even see
his face on the set. He would say that he was the manager, but he did
nothing. The Guadalquivir River ArgumentBy the way, it was a
story that later happened to me in real life, which is losing a child. The
plot followed the course of the Guadalquivir from its source in the Sierra de
Cazorla until it empties into the sea. My character went to work at a
man's house and the son fell in love with me. Total, he got me pregnant
and abandoned me. At a certain moment I lost my son when giving birth to
him, and I had to make sure he was in the clinic, in a lot of pain. Look
how well I did that the electricians gave me a standing ovation at the end of
the scene. And then after the years the same thing happened to me, that I
was pregnant and also lost the child. Coincidences.
A
curiosity: in some sources it appears that you appear in Cleopatra ( Cleopatra ,
1963) by Mankiewicz. It's true?
In Cleopatra I
have not done anything. They had already told me and it's a lie. Cleopatra was
made by Elizabeth Taylor, not me. ( laughs ) They also
said that I used a stage name, Mary Silvers, which was actually from a girl who
was an extra and who was the girlfriend of a bullfighter. I don't know why
these things are invented.
The
truth is that with the name of Mary Silvers it is as it appears accredited in
some French posters of, for example, The Revenge of Zorro …
What
do I appear with that name? That can't be, and I don't like it at
all. The bad thing is that now nothing can be done...
Resuming
his career, after approximately a decade in activity, in the mid-sixties he no
longer appears in any film. Why did she abandon her acting career?
I
didn't do anything anymore, yes. My life changed. I say everything we
have talked about so far with joy, but after leaving the cinema more problems
came to me and I had a bad pregnancy. Of course, when I was in the movies,
as I did what I liked, I was very happy, as long as you also got upset, because
in the movies there were also many gossip. But it wasn't that she left
him. In reality, what happened was that they were coercing me and making
life impossible. There was a person who had quite a lot of control and,
since I was married to him, he got involved in everything I could
do. Maybe he did it because he loved me a lot or because he didn't love me
at all, I don't know, but the fact is that it was like that.
Jose
Luis Salvador Estebenez
[Mari
Luz as the Princess of Éboli (without the patch) in "Teresa de
Jesús"]
[1] Actually,
the photography of the film is credited to another operator who had settled in
our country fleeing from Nazi Germany, Theodore J. Pahle.
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