Concepción Papa Díaz

Born in Havana, the comic soprano and actress CONCHITA BRANDO. Artist of Merit.

She became involved in theater as an amateur at a very early age, in an Italian society that presented operettas —Scugnizza— and later in the chorus Cantares de España, from the CMQ Circuit. It was in 1938 when she integrated acting, singing and dancing in the comedies and operettas that were performed there.

Shortly thereafter, for a five-year period, Conchita became a student of the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory and from then on, her life was divided between the Performing Arts and related specialties in the media and singing in theaters and shows, although to please her father, she graduated from Commercial Secretarial School (1943) and from teaching English (which she currently alternates with Portuguese and Italian) and enrolled in the Institute of Secondary Education. By 1943, she and her sister managed, for two years, to have Anna Marianni teach them Ballet for free, at the Farelly Bovi Academy (owned by Arturo Bovi and Tina Farelly), where they also studied Music.

Already in 1945, her journey of singing and acting through the Principal Theater of Comedy, The Patronato del Teatro, the National Theater (today Garcia Lorca) and the groups Nuestro Tiempo and Farseros, gave her the 90 performances (Singing or acting) required by the Association of Havana Artists for her professional evaluation, and that same year, she joined as a singer of the CMQ Radio Chorus (Monte and Prado, directed by Antonio Palacios) and sang in the programs CANTARES DE ESPAÑA (where she also dialogued) and ESSO RINDE HONOR AL MERITO (Zarzuelas).

Between 1947-48 she acted in the theater, with MUJERES, by Lecuona, directed by Miguel de Grandy, in the premiere at the Auditórium Theater, alongside Maria de los Ángeles Santana, Zoraida Beato, Zoraida Marrero and many more singers.

Those who are not so young remember that when the Radiocentro building opened in 1948, the theater room of the complex was named WARNER and exhibited films from that American Company there, presenting works and giving performances.

Conchita was one of the artists who participated in the show held for the inauguration of the Radiocentro building in 1948, from then on the headquarters of the CMQ empire and it is in that era when she abandoned her high school studies and became a comic soprano with the Zarzuelas and Operettas Company of Miguel de Grandy, with which she acted for a month in Venezuela.

In 1950, she repeated with that Company this time, only in operettas, the tour through Venezuela and the trip to Puerto Rico. In it, among other works, they presented MARAVILLA, alongside Spanish actress Pepita Embil, but she also joined the Operettas Company of Mario Redondo for the tour through Central America and became secretary to the manager of WARNER BROTHERS in Havana, closely linked to CMQ.

She was a founder of Channel 6 (CMQ-TV), where she debuted in the SHOW CRISTAL, and REVISTA DEL DOMINGO, sponsored by a cigar company (Directed by Mario Martinez Casado) and EL GRAN TEATRO LIRICO ESSO, where Antonio Palacios called her to act and sing in zarzuelas and operettas (by then she already had 32 operettas and 3 zarzuelas in her repertoire), which did not prevent her from continuing in the show and in the Theater, joining the opening show of the América Theater, prior to the exhibition of the American film GILDA and taking on her first serious roles as a professional theater actress in the Company of Mexican Magda Haller and in ADAD.

Television had a surprise reserved for her. Although all signs suggested that her life would lean toward Bel Canto or Lyric Theater, Conchita Brando made her first humorous performance in contemporary themes (away from Bufo and Vernacular) in UNIVERSIDAD DEL AMOR, a program with audience in the studio, where in addition to acting, she hosted and sang alongside Armando Bianchi (That magnificent Cuban actor and singer who died tragically decades later) the musical numbers inserted in the space. Ramon Irigoyen was also in the cast.

As was usual in the media practice of the time, she also became a commercial announcer, advertising among other products SABANAS PALACIO, sponsor of the program Momentos Musicales Sabanas Palacio.

In 1952 she acted in UN PROGRAMA HALLICRAFTERS FRIGIDAIRE (Tuesday 9:30 p.m., also alongside Bianchi). In October of that year, Conchita was one of the actresses who acted in the Telenovela SENDEROS DE AMOR, the first in the weekly continuity format in Ibero America (where Armando Bianchi was the lead) which earned her, along with other performances, to be elected Best Newcomer Actress by the Union of Theater and Daily Radio Critics (UCTRD).

In 1953 she had active participation in EL HUMO DEL RECUERDO, a space that, in the cycle of Carlos Robreño, reproduced the works of the Alhambra, acting among others alongside Margarita Balboa (National TV Prize 2003) and Angelita Castany and it is precisely the year when she won the Talia Prize as Best Female Performance for her work in the productions of the Patronato del Teatro.

In 1953 she also acted for Channel 2 (TELEMUNDO) in its first stage, in spaces such as HISTORIAS DE LA CALLE (With Magda Haller) and as a vedette in REVISTA POPULAR (Hosted by Lolita Berrio and Mexican Carlos Amador) and LA CANCION CUENTA SU HISTORIA; she was hired as an exclusive CMQ artist acting among others in FAB POR EL MUNDO (Wednesday 8:15 p.m.), where each week an imaginary tourist tour was made through a different country with dramatizations and songs from that country and contests were held.

1954 made her Secretary of Culture of the Cuban Association of Artists, Queen of Cuban Radio and TV in an election by the Newspapers Mañana and Avance, and as a tourist she traveled to the USA, Spain and France and became an artist for the soap company CRUSELLAS (subsidiary of Colgate Palmolive), when CMQ negotiated her contract with their advertising agency, to act in the humorous CASCABELES CANDADO, and make the commercial voiceover for CANDADO soap. She also acts in the Program EL CHINO with Marta Jiménez Oropesa (Artist of Merit of Cuban Radio 2004).

Despite her television activity, Conchita did not forget the show and during 1955, for six months, she devoted herself to the show at the Montmatre Cabaret.

The following year she appeared singing the jingle for the national campaign of the TIDE detergent (from the competitor Sabates, subsidiary of Procter & Gamble) and from then on she devoted herself to Television singing and acting in spaces such as MUSICA Y ESTRELLAS, EN EL AIRE and RECITAL, directed by Manolo RIFAT (National TV Prize 2003).

Between the 1960s and 1980s, acting definitely stole her away from Bel Canto and Conchita Brando matured in the Performing Arts that forged in her a truly Creole humorist and a dramatic actress who moved us with El Tábano in the TEATRO ICR, in the mid-60s.

She ventured into various dramatized genres in that period, among them, QUE DICE AQUI, an educational program, Television adventures such as El hijo del rey sol, Rebelión, El halcón, El Corsario negro and LAS FAMILIAS HONORABLES, directed by Sirio Soto in December 1979.

In the 1980s her dramatic talent impacted us in the serials EN SILENCIO HA TENIDO QUE SER and ALGO MAS QUE SOÑAR.

Jumping chronologies, there is a television space where for many years her presence became daily, as one of the protagonists of DETRAS DE LA FACHADA, that paradigmatic program that remains so dear in the memory of Cubans.

One year before retiring from work, in 1987, Conchita did her last theatrical work, LA CORTE DEL FARAON which she combined with acting in various radio and television programs of that decade.

Cinema, by the whims of life, came to her in the 1990s, with GALLEGO, GUANTANAMERA, LOS ULTIMOS DIAS DE LA VICTIMA and SABOR LATINO, perhaps that is why she affirms:

"Cinema is for me, my last love. I love it."

Conchita Brando traveled through Theater, Radio, Television and Entertainment in the Americas, displaying art and versatility, but she was very popular in Cuba, thanks to Television, where in recent decades she devoted herself to humor that earned her the affection of her audience.

Seven decades into her artistic journey, she confesses:

"I wanted to be a writer, I never set out to be an actress. Acting was something I did without proposing it to myself, but I loved it and enjoyed it. For me, the most important thing is that in the street, ordinary people recognize you and give you their affection."