Libertad Lamarque

Biography

Libertad Lamarque was born November 24, 1908 in Rosario, Argentina, the youngest of ten children of Gaudencio Lamarque, an Uruguayan tinsmith who was worked as a contortionist in her youth, and Josefa Bouza, a Spanish immigrant. Since her childhood, Libertad Lamarque demonstrated a great talent for the performance and also for the song. Her debut as actress was at 7 years old and at 12 she was pro. In 1922 the family Lamarque emigrated to Buenos Aires and she began to work in the theater. At 18, she recorded her first LP of tangos (popular music of Argentina), obtaining an immediate success and she married with Emilio Romero (the father of Mirtha, her only daughter), then she played the silent movie "Adios, Argentina" (1930) and "Tango" (1933), which was, by the way, the first sound movie filmed in Argentina, and during the next 65 years all her works were starring with her name. In 1945 Libertad Lamarque was already known as an excellent dramatic actress and singer of tangos, boleros and folkloric songs of Latin America and she was received the nickname of "La Novia de América" (The Bride of the Americas) and also she even stood out as writer (she wrote the script of "Ayúdame a vivir"). However, not everything was happiness: her first husband died after their divorce and she lived an unpleasant incident with the (in this time) actress Eva Duarte (known after as Eva Perón, the famous Argentinean First Lady know nowadays simply as Evita) while they filmed "La cabalgata del circo." So, Libertad Lamarque (like other Argentinean artists of the time), suffered a non-official veto to her movies and while she was in tour for Latin America, she and her second (and last) husband, Alfredo Malerba settled in Mexico and there continued her very successful career, although in 1960 she returned to Argentina to make a movie. During her very extensive career, Libertad Lamarque filmed 65 movies (21 in Argentina, 43 in Mexico and 1 in Spain) and 6 soap operas, recorded more than 800 songs and many musicals and made many theatrical pieces; however, she says: "I am very lazy". When she is not acting or in shows, Lamarque lives between Miami, Florida (where she resides since 1996 with her personal assistant, Irene López) and Buenos Aires, Argentina where she visits her family (daughter, son-in-law, 5 grandsons and 10 great-grandchildren). Libertad Lamarque assures that doesn't have intentions of retiring of the show business: "I will continue working while I have a good pulse to makeup myself" she said.