Pilar Pubillones

Her name was Pilar Pubillones, daughter of one of the owners of the Havana circus Pubillones.

She began singing in Havana and continued in Spain. She recorded numerous cuplés, as well as Spanish American and Spanish songs for Columbia records. She performed in various cities.

She was called "The Queen of the Cuplé". She resided in Los Angeles from 1940 onwards.

It was said that she had a beautiful voice, presence, charm and grace. She was a cuplé singer who, like others, included tangos in her repertoire.

Coming from a family linked to the arts, Pilar had a good education, studying music at the Madrid Conservatory, graduating in solfège at the age of fifteen. Not long after, her father passed away and the family settled in New York.

In 1917, she married Guillermo Arcos, from whom Pilar took her surname, a guitar professor and also an actor —when the opportunity presented itself— who would have participated in the film "Cuesta Abajo" with Carlos Gardel.

In 1919, she made her debut as a Spanish genre singer. Thus began a successful career leaving many recordings for Columbia and Victor labels. She toured Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico, sang as a duet with artists such as Rodolfo Hoyos, José Moriche, Julita Comín, Carlos Mejía or Juan Mario Oliver. Her time on stages and radio is remembered with affection.

Fortunately, this performer left an interesting amount of recordings with diverse repertoire; she left records of cuplés, fragments of zarzuelas, foxtrots, songs, waltzes and tangos.

As examples we can mention the cuplé "La cocaína" (1927), the tangos "Mama, yo quiero un novio" and "Mamita", which she recorded in the United States with Fresedo's orchestra (1930), "Sendero de amor", song by "Espinos de los Monteros" (the medley of the Regal record features a song by Conchita Piquer), the foxtrot "El claxon", by Ricardo García de Arellano.

She was the aunt of actress Luana Alcañiz, daughter of her sister Marina Pubillones. In a statement that Luana made to the Spanish magazine Cinegramas, to journalist Florentino Hernández Girbal, in 1933, she gave an account of the artistic world that always surrounded the family: «As you can see, I belong to a family of artists; there you have my parents doing cinema; my aunt Pilar Arcos, with great success in America as a singer; her husband Guillermo who plays the guitar and has also wanted to act before the camera, but a small role he performed for Fox was cut out in the final edit. And first, before us, there was my grandfather Santiago, who together with his brother was the founder of the Pubillones Circus of Cuba, famous in all Spanish American countries. For what I have said, since I was very young I found myself surrounded by an artistic atmosphere, toward which I felt inclined».

Pilar visited Spain in the year 1935, with the aim of further developing her career, but when the Civil War began she returned to the United States where she tried her luck in cinema, although without great results, only participating in secondary roles in Spanish-language films.

She died at an advanced age in the city of Los Angeles.