Elvira Quintana

Elvira Quintana was a Mexican actress, singer, and poet, best known for her singing and dancing performance in the movie Bolero inmortal in 1958.

Elvira Catalina Quintana Molina was born on 7 November 1935 in Bajadoz, Spain. Her father was killed in the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. When she was five, she with her mother, Alejandra Molina, and sister, Juanita, emigrated to Mexico as political refugees.

As a teenager, Quintana and her sister did odd jobs in Mexico City to help support their family. Elvira, while going to school, worked in her spare time to help pay for her education.

Quintana's acting career began when she enrolled in the Instituto Teatral y Cinematográfica de ANDA, the Mexican actors' union acting school, founded by Andrés Soler. During the three-year course, Quintana got a few small bits and extra roles in films. She also worked in radio and performed in Salvador Novo directed plays like El Presidente Hereda, Los Girasoles, and Albertina.

In 1955, she appeared in the Biblical comedy Lo que le pasó a Sansón with Ana Berta Lepe and her former mentor Andrés Soler.

Quintana's nose was rather prominent. Once she had it adjusted surgically, her acting career began to take off. In 1957, she played the lead female role in the four-film "Tigres del Ring" series, directed by Chano Urueta. The film did reasonably well, but she didn't become the star that she was until her singing and dancing performance in the 1958 movie Bolero inmortal. In the 105-minute long movie directed by Rafael Portillo, she acted opposite Ramón Gay as a famous stage performer who is romantically unfulfilled. In the acting career that followed, Quintana rarely played a role of this intensity and gravity. After Bolero inmortal, she appeared mostly in comedies, westerns, and rancheras.

Quintana's popularity continued to soar in the early 1960s and she had established herself as one of the most sought after actresses in Mexico. She became a regular on the Television show Noches Tapatías. She appeared in radio and serial dramas like "El dolor de amar," "Felipa Sánchez, La Soldadera," and "Adriana."

Throughout her life, Quintana maintained close ties with her mother and sister. She never married, as she never met the ideal man she was looking for.

In late 1967, Quintana fell ill with acute pancreatitis, which led to severe kidney problems, necessitating expensive dialysis treatments. After she was released from the hospital, she returned to work and appeared in 50 chapters of the radionovela El Hipócrita. She fell sick again and was readmitted to the hospital. She would be hospitalized on and off until her death on August 8, 1968.

Dismayed by her death, several famous people from the Mexico entertainment industry attended her funeral.

Poetry was another interest that Quintana had. She had written a number of poems, which her mother got published in 1971 - three years after Elvira's death. The book titled Poesías de Elvira Quintana contains 200 poems written by Quintana.

It was rumored that her fatal illness was due to the silicon injections she took to enlarge her breasts.

• El vendedor de muñecas (1955)
• Furias desatadas (1957)
• Tigres del Ring (1957)
• Bolero inmortal (1958)
• Dangers of Youth (1960)
• Invincible Guns (1960)
• Tres muchachas de Jalisco (1964)

I am terribly romantic. What is more: passionate. Perhaps in this time that is not good, because it makes one suffer so much. But I think practical people do not live intensely. And the main thing is that: to live intensely.