Silvia Pinal, actress and icon of Mexican cinema's golden age, dies at 93

The Mexican actress Silvia Pinal, icon of the Golden Age of Cinema, who shared credits with Cantinflas, Tin Tan and Pedro Infante, and starred in Luis Buñuel's "Viridiana", which won a prize at Cannes, died on Thursday. She was 93 years old.

The National Association of Performers and Mexico's Secretary of Culture, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, mourned her passing on their X accounts.

""Her legacy as an artist and her contribution to our culture are unforgettable. Rest in peace," the Secretary wrote.

Days earlier, her relatives reported that she was hospitalized due to conditions from a urinary tract infection. In her last years she also suffered from COVID-19, pneumonia and sores on her back. In 2020 she had to undergo hip surgery after a fall.

Pinal had a career spanning more than six decades in which she appeared in more than 60 films produced in Mexico, Argentina, Spain and even the United States. Starting in the 1960s, she began her equally prolific television career, with programs such as "Mujer casos de la vida real" and "Silvia y Enrique" and the telenovelas "El privilegio de amar" and "Soy tu dueña".

Alongside her facet as an actress, Pinal excelled as a theater producer, dabbled in politics and was leader of the National Actors Association between 2010 and 2014.

She established an entire dynasty of women dedicated to the arts. Her daughters Sylvia Pasquel and Alejandra Guzmán had successful careers in theater and music, respectively. She was also the grandmother of singer and actress Stephanie Salas, model and businesswoman Frida Sofía, and great-grandmother of model Michelle Salas (Luis Miguel's first-born daughter).

In 2022, Mexico's National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature held a tribute to her with film, musical theater and a show worthy of a television gala.

"Ay mamacita!" said Pinal, eliciting laughter from the audience as she stood on stage. "I feel so excited at this moment, I feel full of things."

Pinal danced animatedly in her wheelchair as she received recognition for her artistic work as a distinguished graduate of the Escuela Nacional de Arte Teatral. During the gala she was accompanied by her daughters Sylvia, Alejandra, granddaughter Stephanie and great-granddaughter Michelle, among other family members and friends such as actresses Diana Bracho, María Rojo, Angélica Aragón, Fela Domínguez and Bianca Marroquín.

"I want to thank you, mother," Guzman said at the tribute. "All the things you have shown us that any woman can do, because you have done more than that, you have achieved your dreams ... Thank you for giving us talent, giving us your blood, giving us your caste and giving us that smile always."

Pinal was born in Guaymas, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, on September 12, 1931. Her family moved to Mexico City when she was still a child. She began her acting career at an early age in theater and radio. At the age of 17 she got her first role in the film "Bamba" (1948) by Miguel Contreras Torres.

Her raspy voice and attractive physique quickly made her a star despite her young age. The following year she was already acting with Cantinflas in "Puerta, joven" and with Tin Tan in "El rey del barrio".

In those early years she also shared credits with Marga López, in Julián Soler's "Azahares para tu boda", and with Pedro Infante in Roberto Rodríguez's "La mujer que yo perdí".

Love did not take long to come into his life either. At the age of 17 she married producer Rafael Banquells, with whom she had Sylvia a year later. But the marriage did not last long; they divorced in 1952, when Pinal won her first Ariel Award (Mexico's equivalent of the Oscar) for best co-acting in "Un rincón cerca del cielo", in which she again coincided with Infante.

Her role in "Un extraño en la escalera" (1954) alongside Arturo de Córdova made her one of the public's favorites in the 1950s, when she received two more Ariels for her work in "Locura pasional" (1955) and "La dulce enemiga" (1956).

With Argentine director Tulio Demicheli her career took an even more sensual turn and she established herself as a femme fatale, with titles such as "Préstame tu cuerpo", "Una golfa" and "Desnúdate Lucrecia", all released in 1958. Their collaboration was so successful that Pinal and Demicheli decided to move to Spain to expand their careers. The actress filmed "Adiós, Mimí Pompón" and "Maribel y la extraña familia" in the Iberian Peninsula.

In 1961 she married businessman Gustavo Alatriste, with whom she had her second daughter, Viridiana, before divorcing in 1967. Alatriste also produced, together with Juan Antonio Bardem, Buñuel's key film "Viridiana".

The film marked the director's return to his native Spain. Buñuel moved from his country in 1937 and became a Mexican citizen in the years following the civil war. Although the director obtained authorization to film in Spanish territory, Franco's censorship made him modify the ending of the film.

It is considered one of the best films of Spanish cinema and for years was the only Spanish film to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. But at the time, a negative review by the Vatican led to "Viridiana", which portrays a novice (Pinal) whose uncle (Fernando Rey) is attracted to her and tries to possess her after doping her, being banned in Spain and to the director's persecution.

Pinal said that she smuggled the only copy of "Viridiana" that could be rescued, since Franco's authorities had ordered its destruction.

Pinal's work with Buñuel continued in the conceptual film "El ángel exterminador" (1962) and the comedy "Simón del desierto" (1965). Throughout that decade, Pinal also made comedies, musical recordings and several television programs.

In 1967 she married for the third time to Guzmán, a singer and actor who was 12 years younger than her. Despite the age difference, the couple had two children, Enrique and Alejandra, who would become one of Mexico's most prominent pop-rock singers over the years.

With Guzmán she filmed the popular "¡Cómo hay gente sinvergüenza!" (1971) by René Cardona Jr.

Years later, Pinal would reveal in her autobiography "Esta soy yo" that her relationship with Guzmán was abusive, a situation that was also portrayed in her 2019 biographical series "Silvia Pinal, frente a ti", starring Itatí Cantoral and broadcast by Televisa's Las Estrellas channel.

Pinal's life was not exempt from misfortunes. The death of her daughter Viridiana at the age of 19 in a car accident marked her in 1982. She distanced herself for years from her eldest daughter, Pasquel, because she had a romantic relationship with a man with whom Pinal had also been involved. In 2000, she had to leave Mexico to avoid prison while she resolved her alleged tax debts. And in her later years, Frida Sofía accused her grandfather and Pinal's ex-husband, actor and singer Enrique Guzmán, of sexual abuse that she claimed occurred when she was a child.

Frida Sofia also accused her mother of corruption of minors and domestic violence. Pinal initially offered Frida Sofía help, although she later said in an interview that she did not want to get involved in the case because she had her doubts.

Six years after her divorce from Guzmán, in 1982, Pinal married for the fourth time to the then governor of the state of Tlaxcala, Tulio Hernández, with whom she remained until 1987. The actress moved to the state capital with her children in 1982, and on October 25 of that year her daughter Viridiana perished in that fatal accident.

After the difficult period of mourning, Pinal had a relevant year in her career in 1985, when she became a theater producer with the Silvia Pinal and Diego Rivera theaters and began broadcasting her famous television program "Mujer, casos de la vida real", which lasted more than 20 years on the air and was successfully transmitted in Latin America and the United States.

The following decade was marked by her incursion into politics. Pinal was a congresswoman, senator and assemblywoman of the Federal District for the Institutional Revolutionary Party. She also served for a time as general secretary of the National Association of Interpreters (Asociación Nacional de Intérpretes).

But in 2000 she had problems with the tax authorities, who accused her of not having paid taxes for the broadcasting of "Mujer" for years. This led the actress to leave the country and live for a while in the United States while her situation was being resolved.

In the following years she appeared in other telenovelas, among them "Carita de ángel", "Amarte es mi pecado" and "Una familia de diez".

In 2006 she was awarded the Order of Isabel La Católica and two years later she received the Golden Ariel for her film career.

She is survived by her daughters Sylvia and Alejandra, her son Enrique, her granddaughters Stephanie and Frida Sofia, and her great-granddaughter Michelle.