Lola Flores
Who is Lola Flores?
Dolores Flores Ruiz, Lola Flores, was born in Jerez de la Frontera on 21 January 1923 into a Roma family, and from a very young age performed at village festivities. She made her debut in 1939 at the Teatro Villamarta with the show “Luces de España,” alongside guitarist Melchor de Marchena, and shortly after appeared in the film “Martígala” with cantaor Pepe Marchena, as well as touring Andalusia with guitarist Javier Molina.
Career
After a six-month season at the Café Arrieta in Gijón, where she popularized her number “El lerele,” she made her Madrid debut at the Teatro Fontalba with the show “Cabalgata,” which brought her huge success in Madrid and Barcelona. Between 1945 and 1952 she formed an artistic partnership with Manolo Caracol in the show “Zambra,” with which they toured Spain and the Americas, and she recorded her first record with him. From 1953 she led her own company, and married guitarist Antonio González “El Pescailla,” with whom she would form one of the most popular couples of postwar Spain.
In her final years she suffered health problems that required several surgeries, though this did not stop her from continuing to take the stage almost until the end of her life.
Style
Critic and poet José María Pemán called her a “whirlwind of colors” for her overwhelming temperament and her highly personal, unorthodox way of understanding flamenco, more focused on expressive power and desgarro than on technical orthodoxy.
Legacy
She died in Madrid on 17 May 1995, having become one of the most popular and beloved figures in twentieth-century Spanish culture, leaving a mark that transcends flamenco to become part of the popular memory of several generations.