Flor Silvestre(1930-2020)

Flor Silvestre, one of Mexico's greatest recording artists, was also a major star of classic Mexican movies from the 1950s and 1960s. She was born Guillermina Jiménez Chabolla in 1930 in Salamanca, a city in the State of Guanajuato. She inherited her talent from her parents, Jesús Jiménez Cervantes and María de Jesús Chabolla Peña, who were fond of singing mariachi music. Her mother wanted to live in Mexico City, so her father sold everything they owned in Salamanca and moved the family to the nation's capital. She made her debut at the age of 13 singing at the Teatro del Pueblo, a venue located in central Mexico City. Her first radio performances were broadcast by XEFO, Mexico's national radio station. Journalist and announcer Arturo Blancas suggested she change her stage name from La Soldadera (the title of one of her first songs and a play she was in) to Flor Silvestre (the title of a 1943 Dolores Del Río movie). She then won a singing contest sponsored by XEW, Mexico's most famous radio station, and sang in revues at Teatro Colonial. While performing at the Colonial, a showman offered her a contract to tour with his company. The company toured northern Mexico and later Central and South America. In 1950, she returned to Mexico City, where the showman gave her a contract to perform at Mexico's finest nightclub, El Patio. In short time, after producer Gregorio Walerstein invited her to become an actress, she made her film debut in Primero soy mexicano (1950), co-starring Joaquín Pardavé (who also wrote and directed the film) and Luis Aguilar. She also signed her first recording contract with Columbia Records. Her first hits include "Imposible olvidarte", "Pobre corazón", "Que Dios te perdone", and "Guadalajara". Following the success of the aforementioned film, she became one of the new, promising starlets of the '50s cinema of Mexico. Her most notable films from the 1950s are Raquel's Shoeshiner (1957), with Cantinflas; Pueblo en armas (1959), with Armando Silvestre; and The Soldiers of Pancho Villa (1959), with María Félix. In 1959, she married her recurring co-star Antonio Aguilar. Her most prominent performance is, arguably, featured in Ismael Rodríguez's The Important Man (1961), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In the 1960s and 1970s, she became a cinematic symbol of the Mexican Revolution, due to her portrayals of soldaderas in films such as ¡Viva la soldadera! (1960), Lauro Puñales (1969), and Benjamín Argumedo el rebelde (1979). Her last film appearance was in Triste recuerdo (1991). Overall, Flor Silvestre is known in Mexico, as well as in other countries, as an extraordinary singer and a prolific film actress.