Empowered and folkloric diva from Spain. María del Carmen García Galisteo, better known as Carmen Sevilla, will always be remembered as one of the first women who, in Franco's times, put herself ahead of men and with a steady hand built her own history.
Nicknamed "The Bride of Spain", Carmen Sevilla was one of the great classical beauties of the time who conquered the entire country with her talent for singing and acting. Her face and her spontaneity crossed the screen, an aspect that won her public favor from the beginning.
She embodied that idea of purity and chastity of the time – she confessed that she was a virgin at marriage – although over the years she showed that she would not let herself be broken by anything or anyone. In terms of style, she was also a pioneer in many aspects. Curiously, she was one of the first to put a scarf on her head, as she did in the 1962 movie 'El balcón de la luna', and as the chulapas would later do to celebrate San Isidro.
He flirted with the uncovering, when censorship was very present, and he was one of the sex symbols of a Spain that was beginning to awaken. She came to star in several films with other divas of the moment, such as Ágata Lys, in 'Sex or no sex', 'A cabaret woman' or 'English striptease'. In addition, he eliminated borders between singers and actresses.
At the end of the 60s and in the 70s, he already represented the style of the Spanish woman with psychedelic prints or his memorable jacket suits with skirts.
Sevillian aesthetics and tradition were always very present throughout her career and she would dress as a flamenco dancer on many occasions, in fiction and in real life.
Carmen Sevilla wore clothes before anyone else, pieces that today are even a trend. The 'cut-out' dresses, that is, with strategic openings at the waist, were some of her fetish garments. She can be seen in a photograph of her together with Lola Flores, where the actress wears a white strapless dress with a pronounced neckline, and in another capture that she is seen dancing with Raphael in a short black suit.
Many men in her life wanted to dominate her; lovers, husbands and even her own co-stars. In the fifties, her first love and her boyfriend, the Mexican bullfighter Carlos Arruza “el Ciclón”, proposed to her in exchange for one of her conditions: she had to abandon her acting career. To which she flatly refused Carmen.
She retired from the cinema, as she claimed, like Greta Garbo: "young, pretty and thin", exactly as she wanted to be remembered. Today she says goodbye to her, leaving behind her a legacy and a risky, suggestive career, but above all, very vindicable.
