Eloísa Álvarez Guedes

Eloísa began as an amateur actress in Unión de Reyes, Matanzas. From Unión de Reyes, one morning, a figure appeared in the Havana capital who would become one of the most beloved Cuban artists of all time. Eloísa Álvarez Guedes never forgot her homeland for two reasons. One, is that no one with a heart forgets the land of their first cry to account for their presence in this world. And second, because that is where her love for theater began.

With affection, in every conversation, she remembered a Spanish couple, Jesús Peval and his wife Pilar, who awakened in her heart the love for the stage. This couple even formed, with the help of the population, the first female Symphony Orchestra in Unión de Reyes, of which there is any record.

She is a noble Cuban country woman, honest, very wholesome, but strong-willed, coming from a family of extreme poverty. Simplisia makes people laugh, but she is very dramatic because her life has been one of hardship and she herself only learned to read and write when she was already a woman.

For Eloísa, acting held no secrets, however, still in her mature age she was very disciplined with the study of her characters and above all she read much Cuban and universal literature, she was interested in music, the plastic arts... and in sources of general knowledge.

Her first steps were not in art but as a worker in an indigo factory and later in another of clothing manufacturing. With a shyness that disappeared only when she stepped on stage, as an impediment she remembered how many times she thought of working at the 1010 radio station, but that only remained an intention because she never dared to carry it through.

Also, she worked as a typist-stenographer at the newspaper Hoy, of which work she held a great memory because she had always felt attracted to communist ideas and there she found camaraderie and solidarity, while at the same time contributing her grain of sand in favor of those ideals.

At Paco Alfonso's Teatro Popular, she participated in some rehearsals of the work Sancho Panza en la Ínsula Barataria, but was unable to perform because work problems prevented her.

Her beginning was at Cadena Roja. Later she worked at Radio Progreso and both jobs, at first, she did without charging a cent for her performances.

Her humanity and unlimited love are evident when she began making puppets with papier-mâché to give them to a children's center as a way of contributing to society given her inability to participate in agricultural work. "I love children very much," she said, "and I try to act for them and get close to them because I fear that all of us adults don't always manage to understand them well."

Her characters of country women, Simplicia and Valeria, will always be remembered for being human and simple.

She also worked for many years at Radio Progreso where she combined dramatic and humorous roles. In 1982, after 25 years of absence, she returned to theater to represent Amparo de Una Casa Colonial, by playwright Nicolás Dorr.

FILMOGRAPHY

1967
El bautizo . Dir. Roberto Fandiño.

1979
Retrato de Teresa . Dir. Pastor Vega.
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AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
Distinction for National Culture, granted by the State Council of the Republic of Cuba.