Beautiful Argentine actress Lolita Torres 1930-2002

Beautiful Argentine actress Lolita Torres

More than one generation of Soviet spectators sang songs from the movie “The Age of Love”.
Lolita Torres in those days was, was literally the national heroine of the Soviet Union. Such films as “Love at first sight”, “The Bridegroom for Laura” and “The Age of Love” people watched and reviewed several times. She herself was amazed at her popularity, but the journalists explained to her such a success. In particular, the country, which suffered so much hardship and suffering, in the post-war period, really needed holiday spectacles. A cheerful, beautiful, with an amazing figure and dimples on her cheeks, Lolita Torres, like no other, pleased Soviet spectators. People of the older generation remember the above three films by heart.
Released in 1954 on Soviet screens Argentine film “The Age of Love” gathered 31 million viewers, and songs from it sounded throughout the country. The main role in it played a young singer Lolita Torres, the most famous Latin American star of the sixties.

Three years ago, she starred in the film “Rhythm, salt and pepper” and according to the script, one of the scenes supposed to kiss the beloved. The director long persuaded Lolita to decide on a kiss:

– It’s just a movie … You’re an actress … Just one kiss, you will not melt away from it … Lolita was obstinate, but the director insisted.

With actor Ricardo Passano they nevertheless kissed. The next day, Lolita’s father Pedro, who was controlling everything that was happening on the set, having looked through the material shot yesterday, gave a grand scandal. Papa Torres demanded on to cut out that scene immediately. Lolita with the director persuaded him for a long time, but her father remained firm:

“Sooner or later you will be married.” Would your spouse be pleased to see you kiss a strange man?

Although the kiss in the film was still left, but Ricardo Passano was the only man who kissed Lolita Torres on the screen.

Meanwhile, during the filming “The Age of Love”, she celebrated her 24th birthday. Director Julio Saraseni arranged a holiday with champagne and a huge cake. When the film crew saw that the cake with written “We love you, Lola!”, everyone applauded. But Lolita was sad – the first real love in her life was coming to an end, and she did not want it at all …

They met at a cafe and ordered a strawberry cake, and Juan Carlos Mareko met after filming and presented a huge bouquet of white roses … Thanks to the spies, the father knew everything that happened between them, and demanded that the daughter no longer meet with him. He did not care about the fact that Mareko, the first comic actor of the country, left his wife because of Lolita. Her father prohibited their relationship completely, and, celebrating her 24th birthday, Lolita was not happy with the cake. It was necessary to smile, but tears choked her. Lolita sadly accepted congratulations, tried to joke, but thought about how unhappy, in fact, she was.

This morning, the day of her birth, her father forbade her to meet with Mareko. An hour ago she told him about it on the phone. Beloved said that he does not know how to live further: maybe he will try to reconcile with his wife, and maybe hang himself … Then Juan Carlos stopped responding to her calls.

Nine years ago, in 1945, Lolita went with her parents to the Mar del Plata resort. The girl was filming, while father intended to spend a sea vacation with his wife. The shooting ended, and Lolita spent a lot of time with her mother, Donia Angelika – in those days they were close. A few months later, Lolita was fifteen years old, she was about to become a bride, and her mother often gave advice to her. She said that the most important choice in her life a decent girl makes only once. So, it’s important not to make a mistake.

They were sitting with her mother in a café “Belen” on Jasmina Street, drinking orange juice with ice and eating ice cream. Lolita remembered every word – because that day her family’s life changed forever. After the cafe they went to the embankment, from the city beach they moved to the wild shore, dotted with high cliffs. At first they took pictures, posing at the stones, and then Lolita wanted to take a picture of her mother at the very top: she would climb up, and she would take a photo. Angelika agreed – later, remembering this day, Lolita could not understand why her mother agreed: the height always scared her. She got to the middle, slipped, cried out and flew down on the sharp stones. Senora Torres fell on her back and stayed alive, breaking her legs and ribs, and beating off her kidneys.

Her mother died three months later. And father turned gray one night. He did not blame Lolita, but she always had a feeling of guilt. After the funeral, Pedro closed in himself, and the girl at first thought that they were moving away, but soon the father and daughter became closer, like never before. Pedro took care of his daughter as best he could, then an unmarried sister began to help him. One day Aunt Angelika told her niece that her father had decided never to marry again.

The gentleman whom Pedro Torres approved, appeared in her life a year later. Lolita with her father and uncle’s family went to the Italian club for the autumn holiday of immigrants – the Day of Tradition. At the next table sat four decently dressed young people, and they all looked at the pretty girl.

Then the guys argued about who of them has enough spirit to invite her to the dance. There was a fan of rock and roll, a short, smart young man, and he came up to their table.
“Senor Torres, I congratulate you on your beautiful daughter.” My name is Rodolfo Santiago Buroastero, my father is one of the oldest members of the Italian club, I also belong to it. Would you allow me to invite Lolita to a dance?
Pedro allowed, Santiago led Lolita to dance tango.

The next day, Santiago Burastero flew into the house of his married sister Beatriz and demanded that she give him all the records of Lolita Torres.
– I met her, she is wonderful, clever, unusually pretty. And how Lolita dances! I will marry her this year …
Santiago visited the house of Torres very often, and made her an offer in less than three months. By this time she was already in love, and her father liked the new cavalier.

After talking with the elder Burostero, Torres remained pleased. In the office of their family agrofirm, eighteen clerks worked, the Burastero family owned vast vineyards … Fathers struck hands and appointed a wedding on September nineteenth. The wedding should take place at the Church of Our Lady on Echeverrija Street.

Meanwhile, Julio Cesar, one of the guys sitting with Burostero at the table in the club became the best man of the groom. Did not dare to approach Lolita, no one knew that Julio Cesar was in love with Lolita, including Lolita herself. When the girl talked to him, made him go weak at the knee …

At the end of April, Lolita and Santiago Burastero had a son Santiagito. In fact, the young husband stayed in the shadow of his famous wife, and he did not like publicity. They lived very secluded, spent all their free time at home, and only sometimes getting out into the Italian club – to meet with friends and dance. So several years passed, and in March 1959 Lolita received an invitation to take part in the closing ceremony of the film festival. Noteworthy, held in the unhappy for the Torres family of the resort of Mar del Plata. Little Santiago stayed with his grandmother, and Lolita and her husband went to the sea together by car. Santiago was an excellent driver, loved to exceed the speed and, like a real macho, did not pay much attention to traffic signs.

However, this still would not have saved them: the workers were busy on the highway all day and left, leaving a rather deep pit and forgetting to put the fence. Their car got into this pit, jumped into the oncoming lane and turned over twice. Santiago bumped his head into the windshield and then hit his head hard …
Bloodied Lolita, running out onto the highway, tried to stop the cars rushing by. She did not feel pain because of the shock. In fact, her spine was badly damaged, as turned out later.

An hour later, the radio reported the news about the catastrophe, and the donors immediately started calling the studio. This was news number one and stayed in the headlines for a week, until Santiago died during the operation and was buried in the family grave of the Burastero family.

After the funeral, Lolita closed herself in her house on Star Square and about a year refused new offers. Everything fell from her hands, and the faithful friend of Santiago, imperceptible and indispensable Julio Cesar, took care of the widow.

Julio came every other day and brought flowers – pale pink roses that Lolita loved. If the maid said that Lolita again sobs and can not accept him, he put his business card in the bouquet and returned the next day. Gradually, this quiet, inconspicuous man became something of a talisman: if Julio Cesar did not come, Lolita felt that she was missing something.

In the end, a nosy journalist from the tabloid newspaper El Espectador sniffed something. Perhaps he noticed that Julio was too often at Lolita’s. He titled the article this way: “Lolita and Lola (Julio) love each other? The neighbors of the star say that the matter is for the wedding.”

… It all started with kisses in the car, Lola and Lolita seemed to be thrown to each other.
The whole next day after the conversation with the journalist, Lolita sobbed, and the maid Esther did not let him into the house. Besides, she did not take the bouquet, which this time was scarlet, and, holding Julio Cesar to the door, asked not to return.
However, he returned three days later: Lolita’s eyes were tear-stained. She said that this morning she went to the window and saw that the buds appeared on the trees. And suddenly she felt so good! Santiago will always be with her, but she can not live past.
A few months later, Lola made a proposal to Lolita. She accepted it, and when it became known, everyone who felt sorry for Lolita burying her husband, now hated them. In particular, frenzied fans held demonstrations at Burastero’s family crypt, and the newspapers raged. Only the lazy did not recall the interview, which correspondent of the weekly La Verdad shook out of Lolita and Julio. “We’re just friends. I will never break the heart of Santiago’s mother … “.

… And while they were discussing how to be with the wedding: on what date to appoint it, where to get married, where to spend the honeymoon … And how to do it so it did not turn into a grand scandal – La Verdad published a letter of a crazy Lolita fan. She, in particular, promised to rush under the wheels machine that will take her to the wedding.

Fate measured them forty-two years of marriage. Lolita gave birth to four children. Their son Diego became famous in Latin America as a singer – for the stage he took the mother’s surname. The marriage was surprisingly happy: the tabloids were examining it through a magnifying glass, but they did not find anything. No infidelity, no hint that the couple were tired of each other. Lolita acted in film, her fame grew, and Lola spent his entire life quietly working in his shop, but did not feel at all restrained. Having grown old, Julio Cesar Caccia was returning home with the same joy and impatience, as in the first days after the wedding. He survived his wife for eight years and passed away in 2010. Behind his coffin were hundreds of aged Lolita fans who had long forgotten how much they hated him once …

Glory, the popularity of the actor! They are capricious, fickle and depend on the most unexpected circumstances. According to film critics, the usual stamps of commercial films with banal stories limited her acting talent. Films with Lolita Torres – “The Age of Love”, “The Bridegroom for Laura”, “Love at First Sight”, demonstrated in particular in the USSR, as well as the film “40 Years of Love”, shown at the III International Film Festival in Moscow, were infinitely far away from the burning issues that worried the Argentines. The absence of deep thoughts, the truth of life was abundantly compensated by white telephones, the newest brands of cars and the lucky fate of heroes. Only Lolita Torres – the performer of leading roles – has brought these pictures popularity. Her charm, unconcealed sincere kindness, musicality, and gracefulness conquer many spectators.

Once in Moscow, during the III International Film Festival, Lolita Torres told reporters:
“Generosity is the worst of the actress’s allies.” Do I like my roles? I can not say that I do not like my heroines. That would be wrong. I gave them everything I could. But although for thirteen years I have appeared in more than thirteen films, there is always a hope in me that the best of my roles are yet to come. While I prefer the heroine of the film “40 years of love.” But is this the limit? It would be unpleasant to feel that this is so. Unfortunately, I still have not experienced real creative satisfaction, the genuine inspiration from everything I have done so far. I always dream of playing a deeply tragic role. It seems to me that there would be enough forces for this. But everything is limited by the fact that we have to wait for such a role. If there was a playwright who managed to write a living, truthful scenario, with realistic and simultaneously tragic situations, with a heroine that would answer my creative desires, then such a work would undoubtedly bring me great joy.

Beautiful Argentine actress Lolita Torres

sources
magazines “Actors of foreign cinema”, 1965
Karavan of stories, 6/2013