VICTORINA'S PENSION [archived newspaper article]

Hoyo de Manzanares

By Pilar García Martín.

July 26, 2021

Victorina Rosado Chantal's boarding house, at Calle Frontera, nº 15 in Hoyo de Manzanares, appeared in the advertising as Casa de Huéspedeand in the name of her husband, Leonardo Moreno Blasco. It was inaugurated in 1970, years after the Bar restaurant Canales, on Calle Juan Carlos I, nº 1, which opened in 1967.

It was a modest guesthouse, with six bedrooms, four doubles and two doubles. The full bathroom, with bathtub and bidet was for common use. At the front you could enjoy a terrace with its small table, chairs and sun loungers, and at the back a charming and cool garden, where guests gathered to rest and take in the mountain air among the ivy, the vine, the hydrangeas and the geraniums.

The construction of the La Berzosa Residential City, which began in 1970, was one of the events that nurtured Victorina's boarding house with customers, the other, the arrival in Hoyo de Manzanares of the Army Academy of Engineers in the decade of the 60s and 70s. From Monday to Friday the workers and other professionals who worked in the Berzosa stayed, and they had their houses in neighboring provinces or very distant towns. On Friday night they left the rooms until Monday morning when they returned to work. When the workers left, Victorina cleaned and changed the bed linen to receive her weekend guests: the cadets of the Academy of Engineers, young people who came from distant provinces such as Burgos, Barcelona, Malaga or Seville and who did not travel there, but stayed in Hoyo on the nights of Friday to Sunday. Some of the cadets left their mark on Victorina's memory. This was the case of three Andalusian brothers, sons of a soldier named Naranjo. With their guitar and their songs they enlivened the vermouth hour on the terrace of the Canales bar, while neighbors and holidaymakers came attracted by such an improvised show. One of the brothers was the father, the singer Mónica Naranjo.

The cadets had a place very close to the boarding house where they could go to have fun on weekend nights: the Golden Star Club discotheque, on Avenida Juan Carlos I, nº 15. One night there was a fire and one of Victorina's customers, with heart disease, who was there, was seriously burned on his face.

The options in the guest house were, only accommodation, half board or full board. Lunches, dinners and breakfasts were made in the bar-restaurant Canales. Several of the professionals of the works of the Berzosa, architects, quantity surveyors or workers, came to eat there. The prices were not very high and Victorina, who was the cook, had her specialties, some of which gave her fair fame, such as rabbit with garlic, chicken with chilindrón or paella. On Sundays, residents of Hoy, but especially the so-called "vacationers", ordered appetizing paellas to take away. Victorina had experience as a cook because since 1965 she had worked as such in the town of Golden City, during the filming of western films that took place in Hoyo. There she prepared meals together with her companions Anita Díaz and Nina Hernández, a stage where years earlier she had participated as an extra in films such as "Three Good Men" (1963) or "Welcome Father Murray" (1964).

Sometimes, and until the early 70s, up to a hundred people from the film crew of the westerns would gather at the Canales restaurant, for which they had to set up the terrace and place boards and donkeys on the sidewalk in front. Other times they prepared sandwiches for lunchtime if the crew went to film in La Pedriza, the day they ended up having dinner at the Canales.

Victorina's boarding house sometimes served as an improvised dressing room, when they filmed a scene in the center of the town. Regular customers of the guest house in the 70s were Mr. Cascante and his family. Every year, during the Patron Saint Festivities, he brought his portable bullring and installed it on the esplanade that served as the playground of the public schools, in the current Plaza de Cervantes. There, in addition to bullfights in which his own son participated, other activities were held such as boxing evenings, singing festivals or dance performances.

CHANTAL, Victorina Rosado [7/24/1925, San Martin de Valdeiglesias, Spain – 8/10/2024, Hoyo de Manzanares, Spain] – film actress, married to Leonardo Moreno [19??-9??] (1949-19??), mother of Elisa Moreno, Leonardo Moreno, Amelia Moreno (19??-19??).

The Terrible Sheriff – 1962 (townswoman)

Welcome Padre Murray – 1962 (Mexican)

The Implacable Three – 1963 (singer)

Gunfight at Red Sands – 1963 (Mexican)

Fistful of Dollars – 1964 (Rojo servant)