Obelia Blanco Labañino

Cuban actress in radio and television. Recipient of the National Television Prize 2020 and the Merit Artist distinction from ICRT. Although she began her career in theater, she is also a radio announcer and was part of the collective for the "Nosotras" program on Radio Progreso. She belongs to the Association of Film, Radio and Television (UNEAC). Founder of Radio Taíno.

Obelia was orphaned at a young age, mixed-race and poor, raised without love by a cruel stepmother, but endowed with uncommon intelligence, daring, talent and passion to face adversity, shyness and her fears, until she built a career (when opportunity knocked on her door) and became one of the great actresses of the Cuban stage.

From childhood she wanted to be an artist (singer, dancer, actress, painter…) recalls Professor Manuel Ángel Márquez in ballet classes, who after much practice and corrections would tell us: "Look how Obelia undulates her arms." And she did it so well and so smoothly that she certainly seemed like a seagull in full flight. She also remembers the purity, sonority and the "gold" of her laughter as Obatalá in El algodón ciega a los pájaros, a work with which she said goodbye to the Santiago stage and with which she began her professional career.

Her first steps in the arts were with the Conjunto Dramático de Oriente. Later she joined Radio Progreso in 1968, already in Havana, where she has developed important work as the protagonist of novels, stories and serialized programs.

Obelia Blanco has won many awards as an actress and announcer at Radio Festivals, at Caricato and Caracol.

In Cuban Television she worked in Aventuras, such as "El león de Damasco," "El corsario negro" alongside Carlos Gilí; novels like "El viejo espigón," "Médico de guardia," "La dama de blanco"; stories, plays, series like "Sector 40."

She also had the opportunity to work in "Mambises," where she played the sister of a character played by Limonta who was one of the Verdecia family, who were the Maceos, "La guerra de los palmares," that was an adventure from the 70s that people remember. In "El corsario negro" she developed the character of Yara which marked her for life, it is as if her beginning had been in "El corsario," and before the corsair there was a long story, including a Santiago de Cuba with a Telerebelde, which is now TeleTurquino, but she is a founder of Telerebelde in Santiago de Cuba where they competed with Cuban Television, with an incredible programming from Santiago, live and with few resources, aided by the people.

Another of her works on Television was in the novel "Cuando el agua regresa a la tierra," "La dama de blanco" for Obelia was a very beautiful novel, she had a character of the kind that every actress wants to play and which is why she keeps a wonderful memory, just as she does of Maité Vera, "Lengua de pájaro," which was about the history of Nickel in Holguín, a memorable series.

Obelia Blanco's solid training at the Theater Academy, in the early 60s of the last century, has been an essential platform for her subsequent projection upon entering the professional world, interpreting complex characters in works from the universal repertoire.

According to Obelia, when she reads a work, the character may or may not reach her, it doesn't mean she has lived that experience, for a character to connect, it must be written in a way that is felt, and from there she begins to work from the inside out, she studied the Stanislavski method, has studied others but continues to be guided by that one, it is her way of working, with faith and a sense of truth. And she approaches all characters from within, from the heart.

Obelia, in addition to being an actress, is a high-quality artisan, a craft she started spontaneously as a teenager out of creative curiosity. She learned to weave and sew by watching, asking only the essential questions, until much later she was able to attend a handicrafts school to perfect herself. And what began as an intense need to develop her skills, ended up becoming a way of life that has brought her personal enjoyment, benefits and the pride of being a member of the Cuban Association of Artisan Artists.

Obelia creates handmade objects, especially dolls, for her the making of dolls is, more than a commercial or creative act, a peculiar way of doing art. This actress, who for a long time has dedicated herself to this craft work, believes that the craft of doll-making holds within itself a high artistic and sentimental value.

Within her catalog of creations is extensive work in the making of wallets and baskets of all sizes and shapes made only from dyed fiber. In much commercial demand, Obelia's offering also emphasizes wallets made from tinted fibers. Other materials such as corn husks are very used by the actress to manufacture these articles.

Today Obelia Blanco together with Alden Knight recreates in 27 minutes on Radio Taíno, Monday through Saturday starting at nine in the morning, the main traditions, customs, stories, popular characters and profiles of the country in pleasant dialogue. She is also an announcer for the "Mujer" program on Habana Radio. Furthermore, the Cuban people enjoyed her in 2020 in the telenovela "Bajo el mismo Sol."

Thus she has been building an ascending career that has given her the possibility of communicating, based on the talent, discipline and rigor with which she has assumed her multiple roles, to gain admiration and respect among her professional colleagues and the public, television viewers or radio listeners, who still enjoy her performances.

But not everything has been wonderful in those passages of Obelia's life. Moments of sorrow also count. Especially when, victim of discrimination in the television industry, by virtue of "new policies" right in the full maturity of her career between her 50s and 60s, she found herself set aside with all the confusion and uncertainty about the future, without understanding how in earlier moments she had to be made up many times to play characters who exceeded her in age and, paradoxically, when she could assume them better, because she had accumulated experience and the physical appearance for it, she was not offered the opportunity to play them.

Nevertheless, she was able to bear with dignity all that burden and rise, sheltered by her temperament and her comprehensive training as an actress. The magic of radio, which she had discovered in Santiago de Cuba and practiced in national stations, giving life through her voice to characters of any age, psychology, social stratum, and which had brought her so much satisfaction and recognition, again took a leading role in her career, dedicating herself with equal passion, until she decided to retire 11 years ago, when she began to feel a certain rarefaction in the creative atmosphere, which no longer fulfilled her expectations.

With more than seven and a half decades of life, Obelia is still a woman who dreams. Discouragement has never been able to defeat her nor remove from her existence the desire to create. Fortunately, in the second decade of the twenty-first century the attention has turned to her again to "rediscover" the great actress, to return her to the screen in the novels Cuando el amor no alcanza, La sal del paraíso and En fin el mar, Bajo el mismo sol. The children's program Tren de Maravilla features Obelia's narration and we can enjoy every week the incomparable timbre of her voice in Elogio de la Memoria. Some film ventures also count among these opportunities for the actress's rebirth to continue increasing her greatness.

In 2020 Obelia received the Annual Prize for Radio and Television for this woman who learned the art of chef with cooking recipes taken from magazines and then invented her own; who likes good music and enjoys fully the intimacy in her small family, where her daughter has always held the highest place and now doubles with the arrival of her granddaughter, who already recognizes in her grandmother that exceptional being who sings for her, laughs and still dreams, with the inner energy of those days, when still so small, she imagined that wonderful world of art, which she was able to reach through courage, with the talent and passion that identifies the great Cuban women, who in the most difficult circumstances have not let utopia die.

Awards and Recognition
National Television Prize 2020
ACTUAR Prize for Life's Work 2018
Raúl Gómez García Distinction
Distinction for National Culture
Alejo Carpentier Medal, 2002
José María Heredia Plaque, 2008
"Merit Artist" Distinction, 2008
85th Anniversary Seal of Cuban Radio