The craft of acting is not about mastering drama or comedy. The most difficult thing is singing and dancing. Concha Velasco has been able to do everything. She has shown the breadth of her gifts more in theater and magazine than in film and television. She caught the bug at the age of seven during some catechesis courses, in which there were performances at the end. There she started singing and dancing. Her dresses were made by her mother, a devotee of Piquer, Machín and zarzuela. She knows them all by heart. Soon she studied classical ballet, singing, declamation and music at a vocational training school in Madrid. At the age of ten she performs at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in the capital and receives a prize of 75 pesetas that goes into a booklet. She joined Manolo Caracol's company as a flamenco dancer before debuting in Celia Gámez's company as a vice-tele.
The theater and the magazine occupy a good part of his artistic life, from 'Ven y ven al Eslava' (1959) to 'Las que han que serve' (1962), and titles such as 'Don Juan Tenorio' (1964) and 'Abelardo and Heloísa' (1972), among others. A milestone is 'Las arrecogías del beguinage of Santa María Egipciaca' (1977) and 'Filumena Marturano' (1979). By Adolfo Marsillach he stars in emblematic productions such as 'I'll get off next time, what about you?' (1981) and 'Mata Hari' (1983). Among the actress' greatest hits, 'Mom, I want to be an artist' (1986) and 'Hello, Dolly!' (2001). Antonio Gala writes expressly for her. She also adds Tennessee Williams and the Greek tragics, although she regrets not having been able to arrive in time with Lorca and Brecht. In 2016 she played Juana la Loca at the La Abadía theater in Madrid and in 2020 she premiered a text written by her son Manuel Martínez Velasco.
Concha believed that Teresa de Jesús, who elevated her to fame on TVE, in her own way also wanted to be an artist. I still remember her in her last performances in Barcelona in 2012 with 'I what I want is to dance'. Of course, she sang, danced, moving her elegant legs under a nightgown-miniskirt. She didn't like being a yeyé girl – just an ephemeral character in a movie and a theme by Augusto Algueró – and she hated the Stanislavski method since when she cried or laughed it wasn't her but her character. But seeing her sing and dance, she was Concha Velasco in her purest form.
