Sara García
Sara García Hidalgo was a Mexican actress who made her biggest mark during the "Golden Age of Mexican cinema". During the 1940s and 1950s, she often played the part of a no-nonsense but lovable grandmother in numerous Mexican films. In later years, she played parts in Mexican telenovelas.
García is remembered by her nickname, La Abuelita de México.
Life and career
1895–1917: Childhood
Sara García Hidalgo was born on 8 September 1895 at Orizaba Veracruz. Her parents were Andalusian, Isidoro García Ruiz, an architect, and his wife Felipa Hidalgo de Ruiz in 1895. Her father was hired for various jobs in Veracruz, where they arrived, having just come from Havana, Cuba. Sarita was the only survivor of their eleven children.In 1900, a storm caused the Santa Catarina river to overflow and knock down the bridge that crossed it. Until the evening the children of the school could return from the other side of the river. The anguish of Don Isidoro for believing that he would lose his only daughter caused him to suffer a stroke days later. Doña Felipa decided to sell her business a papier-mâché factory and travel to Mexico City to intern her husband into the Sociedad de Beneficencia Española de México, but he died shortly after arriving. However her mother was contracted as the housekeeper.
At age 9, Sara entered the prestigious Las Vizcaínas school as an intern. In 1905 a typhus epidemic invaded Mexico, Sara became infected and infected her mother Felipa, who died. She remained under the charge of the director of the institution, Cecilia Mallet, and her good behavior and excellent grades allowed García to stayed in school. The director of Las Vizcaínas noticed her great sensitivity and artistic inclination and directed her into painting. She also became a teacher and during her class she used to make her students performed plays.
1917: Film debut in silent films
Sara started her film career at age 22 when she was still a teacher. One day she decided to stroll by the Alameda and discovered the newly founded Azteca Films studios. She came in with curiosity and was fascinated by everything she saw. From that moment she thought that she could also act, even if it was in the theater. One day, watching Mimi Derba filming, the first Mexican film diva, an actor and official of Azteca Films caught her curiosity and invited her to participate in what would be her first film En defensa Propia "In self-defense". Then she went to the theater where she started making small roles. Her diction and voice gave her prestige and she became part of the most outstanding companies of the moment: Mercedes Navarro, Prudencia Grifell and the sisters Anita and Isabelita Blanch. In one of her tours throughout the Mexican Republic, she met Fernando Ibáñez, whom she had seen during the filming of "La soñadora".1918–1947: Golden Age of Mexican cinema and ''La Abuelita de México''
In 1918, she married Fernando Ibáñez and traveled throughout the country and Central America, until at a stop in Tepic, she gave birth to a girl, whom they named Fernanda Mercedes Ibáñez García. Sara had to dedicate time and take care of her daughter. Her absence bothered Fernando, who began to get involved in several adventures, then became entangled with the head of the company. Sara divorced her husband and left with her daughter. Years later her ex-husband returned home sick. Sara paid for his expenses and cared for him until his death in 1932. Established firmly in the theater, she began to be called to work in the cinema. Her daughter Fernanda also ventured into the cinema with the movie "La madrina del diablo" in which she played Jorge Negrete's girlfriend. Outside the sets, he courted her with Sara's disapproval. The romance ended abruptly and the following year Fernanda married the engineer Mariano Velasco Mújica, leaving to live in Ciudad Valles, Tamaulipas. A little more than two years later Fernanda became ill with typhoid fever and died on October 17, 1940. Due to her strong personality Sara survived her daughter 40 years.García would later continue her extensive career in film and sacrificed her beauty when she decided, at the age of 30, to have her teeth removed so that her mouth would look like that of an older woman and thus be able to star in roles of self-sacrificing ladies and achieve personify the role they gave her.
Film actress Emma Roldán suggested Sara García for the role of doña Panchita, an old woman, in the 1940 film Allá en el trópico. The film's director Fernando de Fuentes considered that García was too young for the part but Roldán replied him saying "Sara is an actress, and actresses don't have an age". For the screen test, Sara García had a wig made for her. At the time of the screen test, the director asked the crew of her whereabouts and they answered that she was the woman in front of him, the director was shocked: her wig, lack of teeth, and performance had touched him. It is in Fernando de Fuentes' Allá en el trópico where Sara García won her title of la Abuelita de México.
In 1942, Sara García co-starred with Joaquín Pardavé in El baisano Jalil, a comedy film where she portrayed the wife of a Lebanese-immigrant family, one of the marginalized communities settled in the La Lagunilla neighborhood, when they arrived in Mexico City. She starred again with Pardavé in a similar comedy, El barchante Neguib.
She started a long series of films co-starring with the brightest stars of the cinema of Mexico, such as Cantinflas, Jorge Negrete, Germán Valdés "Tin-Tan".
She co-starred many times in films as the grandmother of famous Mexican actor Pedro Infante. Her most remembered film with him is the 1947 Los tres García where she also starred alongside Abel Salazar and Víctor Manuel Mendoza, playing the role of their grandmother with a strong, naughty and authoritarian attitude.
1947–1980: Multiple films, Telenovelas and final works
García continued working with Pardave and appeared with him on El ropavejero "The junkman" and in Azahares para tu boda "Orange blossoms for your wedding", which were her last jobs with him. Garcia's nature was also deeply irreverent, and she showed it in films like Doña Clarines, in which she makes fun of her grandmother's character, something she repeated in Las señoritas Vivanco "The Misses Vivanco" and in El proceso de las señoritas Vivanco "The process of the Misses Vivanco", both in which she acted along with Prudencia Grifell and were directed by Mauricio de la Serna.In that decade she combined her work between film and television, appearing in multiple soap operas such as A Face in the Past, La gloria Quedo atrás, La Duchess, in which a lottery ticket seller wins the jackpot and uses that money to get her daughter back, whom she had given up to her millionaire in-laws in the past.
In that decade we also saw her in the pages of a comic-book adventure story entitled "Doña Sara, la mera mera", in which she was dressed as the character she had made famous in Los tres García and Vuelven los García. In the 70s, her grandmother character took part in films such as "Fin de fiesta", by Mauricio Walerstein, and Luis Alcoriza's "Mecánica Nacional", in which she utters some of the most famous insults of our cinematography, but that had their charm emanating from that mouth that had represented so much for the moral society of Mexico.
In the 70s she appeared as Nana Tomasita, who looked after Cristina in the long-running telenovela Mundo de juguete and as a meticulous old woman from the Caridad segment, directed by Jorge Fons, in Faith, Hope and Charity.
Personal life
During her tenure on the College of Las Vizcaínas, she met Rosario González Cuenca, the daughter of a marriage that his parents knew on the ship that traveled from Cuba to Mexico. Years after their meeting, both of them reunited after García's divorced to Fernando Ibañez, Rosario at the moment also divorced and both went to reside together, with Rosario becoming in Fernanda's aunt who was Sara García's daughter. Rosario would later become her alleged female lover, assistant, and business manager, and García lived throughout her life with her.She adored Pedro Infante, but she couldn't stand Jorge Negrete as he had fallen in love with her daughter Fernanda. Many close friends affirm that she was a severe and evil mother-in-law as well as not approving the relationship between Jorge and her daughter.
Later years and death
García had her own television show in 1951, Media hora con Abuelita, but it was a failure and subsequently was cancelled. She returned to television in 1960 when she obtained a role in Un rostro en el pasado which was her first of eight telenovelas that also included Mundo de juguete in 1974, which as of this date the longest-running telenovela in history, and Viviana with Lucía Méndez in 1978.On 21 November 1980, Sara died at the National Medical Center in Mexico City at the age of 85, due to a cardiac arrest that arose from pneumonia, days before she had been hospitalized after being injured by falling down the stairs of her house.
García was buried alongside her daughter in a mausoleum at Panteón Español cemetery in Mexico City. While she was being buried, the song "Mi Cariñito" was played, as this song was the one that Pedro Infante sang to Sara several times, particularly he sang it drunk and tearful as a lament after Sara’s character died in the movie Vuelven Los Garcia. It is said that the song was sung at her funeral by Lucha Villa.
Legacy
In 1973, Sara García signed a commercial agreement to give her image to the factory of Chocolates Azteca, which was later bought by the Nestlé brand. Since then her image has been displayed on the label of Mexico's traditional Abuelita chocolate.Filmography
Telenovelas
Television shows
Documentaries
Films
Cinema of Mexico
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1917 | En defensa Propia | Extra | |
| 1917 | Alma de sacrificio | Extra | |
| 1917 | La soñadora | Extra | |
| 1927 | Yo soy tu padre | Extra | |
| 1934 | El pulpo humano | ||
| 1934 | El vuelo de la muerte | Doña Clara | |
| 1934 | La sangre manda | Vecina | |
| 1934 | ¡Viva México! | Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez | |
| 1936 | Such Is Woman | Viuda | |
| 1936 | Marihuana | Petra | |
| 1936 | Malditas sean las mujeres | Señora de Ambrosaliet | |
| 1936 | No te engañes corazón | Doña Petro | |
| 1937 | Las mujeres mandan | Marta | |
| 1937 | La honradez es un estorbo | Doña Refugio | |
| 1937 | No basta ser madre | Sebastiana del Puerto | |
| 1938 | Por mis pistolas | ||
| 1938 | Pescadores de perlas | Juana | |
| 1938 | Dos cadetes | Dolores | |
| 1938 | Padre de más de cuatro | Doña Gertrudis | |
| 1938 | Perjura | Doña Rosa | |
| 1938 | Su adorable majadero | Mariquita | |
| 1939 | El capitán aventurero | Catalina, corregidora | |
| 1939 | Los enredos de papá | Petra | |
| 1939 | Calumnia | Eduviges | |
| 1939 | Papacito lindo | Remedios | |
| 1939 | En un burro tres baturros | Manuela | |
| 1940 | Miente y serás feliz | Constancia | |
| 1940 | Allá en el trópico | Doña Panchita | |
| 1940 | Mi madrecita | Madre | |
| 1940 | Here's the Point' | Clotilde Regalado, Leonardo del Paso's mistress | |
| 1940 | Father Gets Untangled | Petra | |
| 1940 | Father Gets Entangled Again | Petra | |
| 1941 | Cuando los hijos se van | Lupe de Rosales | |
| 1941 | ¿Quién te quiere a ti? | Seducer's mother | |
| 1941 | La gallina clueca | Teresa de Treviño | |
| 1941 | Al son de la marimba | Doña Cornelia Escobar | |
| 1942 | Las tres viudas de papá | Petra | |
| 1942 | Dos mexicanos en Sevilla | Gracia | |
| 1942 | Regalo de Reyes | Doña Esperanza | |
| 1942 | La abuelita | Doña Carmen | |
| 1942 | Historia de un gran amor | Doña Josefa | |
| 1942 | El baisano Jalil | Suad | |
| 1942 | El verdugo de Sevilla | Doña Nieves | |
| 1943 | Resurrection | Genoveva | |
| 1943 | No matarás | Aurora | |
| 1943 | Caminito alegre | Antonia Goyena | |
| 1943 | Toros, amor y gloria | Irene | |
| 1944 | Mis hijos | María | |
| 1944 | La trepadora | Doña Carmelita | |
| 1944 | El secreto de la solterona | Marta | |
| 1944 | El jagüey de las ruinas | Doña Teresa "Mamanina" | |
| 1944 | Como yo te quería | Remedios Mantilla | |
| 1945 | Escuadrón 201 | Doña Herlinda | |
| 1945 | La señora de enfrente | Lastenia Cortazano | |
| 1945 | Mamá Inés | Inés Valenzuela | |
| 1946 | El barchante Neguib | Sara | |
| 1946 | ¡Ay qué rechula es Puebla! | Doña Severa | |
| 1947 | Sucedió en Jalisco | Doña Engracia, abuela | |
| 1947 | El ropavejero | María | |
| 1947 | Los tres García | Doña Luisa García viuda de García | |
| 1947 | Vuelven los García | Doña Luisa García viuda de García | |
| 1948 | Los que volvieron | Marta Ortos | |
| 1948 | Mi madre adorada | Doña Lolita | |
| 1948 | Dueña y señora | Toña | |
| 1948 | Tía Candela | Candelaria López y Polvorilla "Tía Candela" | |
| 1949 | Dicen que soy mujeriego | Doña Rosa | |
| 1949 | The Perez Family | Natalia Vivanco de Pérez | |
| 1949 | Eterna agonía | Doña Cholita | |
| 1949 | Novia a la medida | Doña Socorro | |
| 1949 | El diablo no es tan diablo | Doña Leonor | |
| 1949 | Dos pesos dejada | Prudencia | |
| 1950 | Yo quiero ser hombre | Tía Milagros / Doña Tanasia | |
| 1950 | Mi preferida | Doña Sara | |
| 1950 | Si me viera don Porfirio | Doña Martirio | |
| 1950 | Azahares para tu boda | Eloísa | |
| 1950 | Mi querido capitán | Pelancha | |
| 1950 | Yo quiero ser tonta | Atilana | |
| 1951 | La reina del mambo | Tía | |
| 1951 | El papelerito | Doña Dominga | |
| 1951 | Doña Clarines | Clara Urrutia 'Doña Clarines' | |
| 1951 | La duquesa del Tepetate | Chonita, Duquesa del Tepetate | |
| 1951 | Acá las tortas | Dolores | |
| 1952 | La miel se fue de la luna | Doña Martirio | |
| 1953 | Misericordia | Benigna | |
| 1953 | Por el mismo camino | Tía Justa | |
| 1953 | El lunar de la familia | Doña Luisa Jiménez | |
| 1953 | Genio y figura | Doña Luisa | |
| 1953 | Los que no deben nacer | Clotilde | |
| 1954 | Los Fernández de Peralvillo | Doña Conchita Fernández; doña Chita | |
| 1954 | El hombre inquieto | Doña Fátima Sayeh | |
| 1955 | Sólo para maridos | Concordia | |
| 1956 | El crucifijo de piedra | Laura | |
| 1956 | La tercera palabra | Matilde | |
| 1956 | El inocente | Madre de Mané | |
| 1957 | La ciudad de los niños | Doña Juliana | |
| 1957 | Pobres millonarios | Doña Margarita del Valle | |
| 1958 | El gran premio | Soledad Fuentes Lago | |
| 1958 | Con el dedo en el gatillo | La abuela | Episode: El anónimo |
| 1959 | Los Santos Reyes | La anciana | |
| 1959 | Las señoritas Vivanco | Hortensia Vivanco y de la Vega | |
| 1959 | Yo pecador | Nana Pachita | |
| 1961 | El proceso de las señoritas Vivanco | Doña Hortensia Vivanco y de la Vega | |
| 1961 | ¡Mis abuelitas... nomás! | Doña Casilda | |
| 1961 | El buena suerte | Doña Paz | |
| 1961 | Paloma brava | Doña Popotita | |
| 1961 | El analfabeto | Doña Epifanita | |
| 1962 | El malvado Carabel | Tía Elodia | |
| 1962 | Las hijas del Amapolo | La abuela | |
| 1962 | El caballo blanco | Doña Refugio | |
| 1962 | Ruletero a toda marcha | Doña Sarita | |
| 1964 | Las Chivas Rayadas | Doña Pancha | |
| 1964 | Los fenómenos del futbol | Doña Pancha | |
| 1964 | Nos dicen las intocables | Doña Cucaracha | |
| 1964 | Héroe a la fuerza | Doña Prudencia | |
| 1965 | Canta mi corazón | Abuela | |
| 1965 | Escuela para solteras | Doña Bernarda | |
| 1965 | Nos lleva la tristeza | Doña Marina Guerra viuda de Batalla | |
| 1966 | Los dos apóstoles | Doña Angustias | |
| 1966 | Joselito vagabundo | Doña Guadalupe | |
| 1967 | Seis días para morir | Doña Mercedes | |
| 1967 | Un novio para dos hermanas | Seňora Cáceres | |
| 1967 | Las amiguitas de los ricos | Viejecita | |
| 1968 | Sor Ye Ye | Madre María de los Ángeles | Co-produced with Spain |
| 1969 | No se mande, profe | Doña Claudia | |
| 1969 | Flor marchita | Paula la nana | |
| 1969 | El día de las madres | Doña Carmen | |
| 1970 | ¿Por qué nací mujer? | Doña Rosario | |
| 1971 | La casa del farol rojo | Doña Sara Morales viuda de Mendoza | |
| 1970 | La hermana dinamita | Madre Ana | |
| 1972 | La inocente | La abuela | |
| 1972 | Fin de fiesta | Doña Beatriz | |
| 1972 | Nadie te querrá como yo | Abuela | |
| 1972 | National Mechanics | Doña Lolita | |
| 1973 | Entre Monjas Anda el Diablo | Sor Lucero | |
| 1973 | Nosotros los feos | Doña Sara García viuda de García y García | |
| 1973 | Valente Quintero | Elvira Peña | |
| 1974 | Los Leones del ring | Doña Refugio | |
| 1974 | Los Leones del ring contra la Cosa Nostra | Doña Refugio | |
| 1974 | Fé, Esperanza y Caridad | Anciana | Segment: Caridad |
| 1974 | El hijo del pueblo | Vicenta Aurelia Fernandez; Chenta | |
| 1977 | Como gallos de pelea | Doña Altagracia | |
| 1977 | Nobleza ranchera | Altagracia | |
| 1978 | La comadrita | Doña Chonita | |
| 1979 | La vida difícil de una mujer fácil | Doña Amalia | |
| 1979 | Como México no hay dos | ||
| 1980 | Sexo vs. sexo | Señora dueña del club de Can-Can |
Cinema of the United States
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1957 | The Living Idol | Elena | Co-produced with Mexico |