Verónica Lynn López Martínez

Prominent Cuban actress of theater, film and television. National Theater Prize. National Television Prize.

A paradigmatic artist of Cuban culture who has ventured into theater, radio, television and film in an exceptional manner, as an actress and as director of the Trotamundos project. One of the main figures of the Cuban stage deserving of awards and recognition.

I always dreamed of being an artist. I say that I am the happiest woman in the world because I managed to be what I always wanted: an actress, Verónica Lynn López Martínez has expressed.

She was born in San Diego de los Baños, Pinar del Río. Graduate of the Instituto Superior de Arte in the specialty of Theater Studies. She has taught at that institution, at the ICRT School of Actor Training and at the School for the Advancement of Art Instructors.

Her first time on stage was when she was studying at the convent school "Las esclavas del sagrado corazón," where she learned not only several skills but was also taught English.

One day the life of a saint was staged, and the actress was given a small role. The school was a semi-cloister so men were not allowed to enter, only priests, and the role she was given was precisely that of a man.

That fascinated me....... when my part ended, I removed my makeup and sat in the audience and heard a mother comment to others, - but that young man with the mustache was so good -. Oh what joy, because that was me!, Verónica recounts.

She made her television debut at a very young age. She won a contest and began to be part of Gaspar Pumarejo's artistic company. It was there she met Alfonso Silvestre, who invited her to enter the world of theater, as he needed an actress for the play Amok by Stefan Zweig. She did not receive a salary for her performances but it didn't matter to her as long as she could learn and gain experience.

The trajectory of her artistic life had its first moment of recognition when she starred in her second theatrical work, Rain, or, The Prostitute of the Islands, by Somerset Maugham, in 1954, directed by Erick Santamaría at the TEDA Theater, where she met Ángel Toraño. According to the actress's words, from Toraño she received the first notions of why a line is called a bocadillo:
...I remember that he would tell me - don't make that high comma, close it - those very elementary lessons, but they helped me a lot.

In 1956 she began taking classes from Andrés Castro who had been a student of Erwin Piscator, German director and disciple of Constantin Stanislavski - the man who had synthesized the knowledge of actors - although the actress had already begun her studies of the technique.

During the years 60 and 61 she acted in the Sala Arlequín alongside her colleague Pedro Álvarez in different works from the international repertoire, directed by Rubén Vigón. But the first transcendental success of her career came with Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja, by José R. Brene, directed by Adolfo de Luis with the Grupo Milanés.

Her Camila became the paradigm in the interpretation of this character, unsurpassable to this day. Verónica's Camila delved into the human soul, into the intimacy of the character, while projecting the gestural and external behavior of a passionate believer in Cuban santería.

Subsequently she took on the difficult role of Luz Marina in Cold Air, by the essential Virgilio Piñera, under the direction of the renowned Humberto Arenal. The irony, the sensation of confinement, the Cuban essence, imbued her role with something that characterizes her: the precise and expressive chain of physical actions that narrate and reveal the hidden emotional states of her characters.

Master of the Stanislavskian technique in Cuba, another of her great successes was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, alongside José Antonio Rodríguez, directed by Rolando Ferrer for the Grupo La rueda. That alcoholic, frustrated woman and her very complex character grew in her hands and acquired singular depth.

In her film career she has appeared in several movies, among them:
A Cuban Fight Against the Demons
Distance. 1982. Feature film in which she was the protagonist.
Transparent Women. A collection of five stories, being the protagonist in one of them.
Spinsters at Dawn. Short film whose plot revolved around three sisters; in an interview with the actress she compared the harshness of the character she had to play with another very well-known one in her extensive repertoire, Doña Teresa.
Loves. Where she stars alongside Thais Valdés in the story Pisces.
The Charm of the Full Moon Lake. Short film shown at the Chaplin cinema during a New Latin American Cinema Festival. She was accompanied by other great actors such as María de los Ángeles Santana, Reinaldo Miravalles, Asenneh Rodríguez, Tito Junco, and Alden Knight.
The Beauty of the Alhambra. She played the protagonist's mother.
...a character that I really liked because of the characterization I had to do...

And a curious detail with such a long career, she had never played two characters before. For example the first time she played a blind woman who is also a nun was in the film Loves. And also the first time she portrayed a lesbian happened in the film The Charm of the Full Moon Lake.

She is also remembered recently in Family Video and The Nights of Constantinople, always offering her recognized quality.

Among the many television programs, theaters, stories, teleplays, telenovelas or dramatic series, she justly gained fame with her Doña Teresa Guzmán from "Sol de batey" which allowed her to provide profound psychological profiles and completely dispense with the clichés that usually accompany evil characters.

In radio, Verónica worked for many years, she recounts that when she started she was so nervous that she would cut and start again at times, because she had arrived as the actress who had triumphed in theater and had already done good roles on television, and she was facing a novel written by Ely Méndez García, for CMQ, and with a very respected cast, and among them were two very admired actresses who later became her friends.

Marta Jiménez Oropesa, despite Verónica beginning in radio, gave her the opportunity to play important secondary roles for the actress. In the same way she also received work from Oscar Luis López.

Her first leading role in this medium was given to her by Erdwin Fernández in The Kingdom of This World, by Alejo Carpentier. Later she worked with Odilia Romero, with whom she did her last work at Radio Liberación.

Verónica Lynn has remained at the pinnacle of the most extraordinary Cuban actresses for more than 40 years.

In tribute to the Cuban actress, Tertulias en el Prado, by the Sociedad de Beneficencia de los Naturales de Cataluña, in La Habana, was dedicated to her. The host of the program Carmen Almodóvar highlighted the histrionic excellence of the actress in her performance in different works throughout her artistic career.

She declared herself a disciple of the acting method of the great Russian creator Konstantin Stanislavski, although she noted that every artist must have an open mind and appreciate other great masters such as Jerzy Grotowski, Eugenio Barba or Bertolt Brecht.

She said that she felt privileged because she has worked in what she always wanted to do and also thanked directors and colleagues with whom she became acquainted with the best and most varied theater of the universal and Cuban repertoire, essential sediment when undertaking any creative work.

She also remembered her husband, the prominent actor and director Pedro Álvarez, especially for the exchanges, debates and conversations with which he nourished her knowledge as an artist.

Filmography
1971 A Cuban Fight Against the Demons. Director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.
1985 Distance. Director Jesús Díaz.
1989 The Beauty of the Alhambra. Director Enrique Pineda Barnet.
1990 Transparent Woman. Director Mayra Segura.
1990 Spinsters at Dusk. Director Guillermo Torres.
1992 Loves. Director Paola Castillo
1995 The Charm of the Full Moon. Director Benito Zambrano
1996 Clandestine Stories from Havana. (Argentina). Director Diego Musik
1998 Estorvo. Director Ruy Guerra
2001 The Nights of Constantinople. Director Orlando Rojas
2009 The Annunciation. Director Enrique Pineda Barnet

Awards and Recognition
Distinction for National Culture, awarded by the State Council of the Republic of Cuba.
Alejo Carpentier Order awarded by the State Council of the Republic of Cuba.
First special mention for female performance. Contest of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Havana, 1983.
Award for supporting performance. Havana, 1999.
First special mention for female performance. Contest of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Havana, 1984.
Award for female performance on television. Contest of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Havana, 1982.
Award for supporting performance. Contest of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Havana, 1993.
Award for female performance on radio. National Radio Festival. Havana, 1992.
Award for female performance on television. Contest of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Havana, 1986.
National Theater Prize 2003
National Television Prize 2005

Source: EcuRed, En Caribe.org