China Zorrilla

China Zorrilla (born Concepción Zorrilla de San Martín Muñoz, March 14, 1922 in Montevideo, Uruguay) is a Silver Condor award winning Uruguayan theater, film and TV actress.

She made over 40 appearances in film and TV since 1971. She has lived in Argentina for over 35 years and is active in the TV, theater and Cinema of Argentina. A very popular star in the Rioplatense area, she is regarded as one of the Grand Dames of the South American theater stage.

Born into a patrician and artistic oriented Uruguayan family, her father was the sculptor José Luis Zorrilla de San Martín (1891–1975), a disciple of Antoine Bourdelle and author of several important monuments in Uruguay and Argentina. Her grandfather, Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, is the National poet of Uruguay. Her older sister Guma Zorrilla (1919-2001) was a distinguished theater costume designer.

She grew up with her four sisters in Paris, back in Montevideo attended the Sacré Cœur School. In 1948 she won a British Council fellowship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London where she had classes with the great Greek tragic actress Katina Paxinou.

Back in Montevideo she made her debut in Paul Claudel´s L'Annonce Faite a Marie (The Annunciation of Marie). As a member of the 'National Comedy of Uruguay' she worked in the Solís Theatre under the direction of the legendary Spanish actress Margarita Xirgu who directed her in García Lorca's Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding) and other classics.

As the preeminent First Lady of the Uruguayan stage during the 1950–60s she appeared as Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Chekhov's The Seagull, Wilder's Our Town, Neil Simon's Plaza Suite, Molière's Tartuffe, Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot and other plays by Pirandello, Peter Ustinov, Jean Giraudoux, Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, J. B. Priestley, Ferenc Molnár and others. A very fine comedienne, she was acclaimed as Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker winning special acclaim as the eccentric Judith Bliss in Noel Coward's Hay Fever.

With actor Enrique Guarnero and writer Antonio Larreta she co-founded the TCM (Teatro Ciudad de Montevideo) touring Buenos Aires, Paris and Madrid. In the Spanish capital they won the Spanish Critics Award for their performances of García Lorca and Lope de Vega.

In 1971, she made her belated film debut at 49 in Un Guapo del 900 by director Lautaro Murúa with Alfredo Alcón. The next Summer she successfully replaced actress Ana María Campoy in Butterflies are Free (marking also the theatrical debut of Susana Giménez) in Mar del Plata; she decided to move to Argentina where she will have a remarkable career in television, theater and movies.

Coincidently, in 1973–77 she was forbidden to perform in Uruguay by the de facto military regime. When the democracy returned to her native country in the 1980s, she made a triumphal comeback at the Teatro Solís.

In theater she was particularly successful playing historic characters: Emily Dickinson (by William Luce), Victoria Ocampo (by Monica Ottino), Mrs. Patrick Campbell (in Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters, on the correspondence of George Bernard Shaw and actress Patrick Campbell) and in plays by Jean Cocteau, Lucille Fletcher, Oscar Viale and fellow Uruguayan Jacobo Langsner. She also repeated her warhorse Hay Fever as "Judith Bliss".

In the last decade, she has obtained an outstanding success (and four awards as "Best actress in a play") as sculptor Helen Martins in Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca and as Eve in an adaption she conceived of Mark Twain's Eve's Diary (The private diary of Adam and Eve).

Beginning in the mid-seventies she toured extensively the country several times and internationally, appearing at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Barcelona, Bogotá, Lima, Caracas, Tel Aviv, Miami, San Juan, Santiago, Montevideo, Punta del Este, Sao Pablo, Asunción, and other cities.

In 1995 she reprised the role of Persephone premiered by Victoria Ocampo in Perséphone, the opera-oratorio by Igor Stravinsky–André Gide at the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires).

She was awarded the Orden de Mayo by the Argentinian government and the Orden Gabriela Mistral by the Chilean government and awards in her native country.

She was named "Illustrious Citizen" in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and other Argentinian cities and two theaters bears her name.

In 2008 she was made Knight (Chevalier) of the Légion d'honneur by the French Government.

Filmography

Tocar el cielo (2007) .... Imperio

Elsa y Fred (2005) .... Elsa

"Mujeres asesinas" .... Inés Quinteros (1 episode)

Conversaciones con mamá (2004) .... Mamá

"Roldán, Los" (2004) TV Series .... Mercedes Lozada (unknown episodes)

"Piel naranja años después" (2004) TV Series .... Doña Elena

"Son amores" (2002) TV Series (uncredited) .... Margarita (2003)

"099 Central" (2002) TV Series (uncredited) .... Dora, Tomás' grandmother

"Enamorarte" (2001) TV Series .... Mercedes 'Mechita' Dugan viuda de Juárez (unknown episodes)

"Amantes, Las" (2001) TV Series

"Gasoleros" (1998) TV Series .... Matilde (Mother of Roxana 'Roxy' Presutti)

Sin querer (1997)

"Arcángel, El" (1997) TV Series (unknown episodes)

"Ricos y famosos" (1997) TV Series .... Catalina

"R.R.D.T" (1997) TV Series .... Tina

Entre la sombra y el alma (1997)

Besos en la frente (1996) .... Mercedes Arévalo

La salud de los enfermos (1996)...Mamá

Lola Mora (1996)

Fotos del alma (1995) .... Esthercita

Nave de los locos, La (1995) .... Dra. Marta Caminos

"Leandro Leiva, un soñador" (1995) TV Series

Guerriers et captives (1994)

Cuatro caras para Victoria (1992) .... Victoria IV

Peste, La (1992) .... Emma Rieux

Dios los cría (1991)

Verano del potro, El (1991) .... Ana

"Atreverse" (1990) TV Series (unknown episodes)

Nunca estuve en Viena (1989) .... Carlota

Pobre mariposa (1986)

Esperando la carroza (1985) .... Elvira Romero

Contar hasta diez (1985)

Darse cuenta (1984)

Invitación, La (1982)

Pubis Angelical (1982)

Últimos días de la víctima (1982) .... Beba (Landlady)

Señora de nadie (1982)

"Solitario, El" (1980) (mini) TV Series .... Melani Duvalie

Chau, amor mío" (1979) TV Series .... Ana

"Que estamos solos, Los" (1976) TV Series .... Doña Barbarita

Sorpresas, Las (1975) .... (segment "Corazonada")

Gauchos judíos, Los (1975)

"Piel naranja" (1975) TV Series .... Elena

Triángulo de cuatro (1975)

Tregua, La (1974)

"Mi hombre sin noche" (1974) TV Series .... Casilda (April-August 1974)

Venganzas de Beto Sánchez, Las (1973) .... La maestra

"Pobre diabla" (1973) TV Series .... Doña Aída Morelli

Heroína (1972)

Maffia, La (1972) .... Assunta

Tobogán, El (1971) (TV) .... Rosa

Guapo del 900, Un (1971)