Imperio Argentina
Who is Imperio Argentina?
Imperio Argentina, the stage name of Magdalena Nile del Río, was born in Buenos Aires on December 26, 1906, in the San Telmo neighborhood, daughter of Gibraltar-born guitarist Antonio Nile and Málaga-born actress Rosario del Río. She first went on stage as a very young child, at the Café Armonía in Buenos Aires, and never really left it again until well into the 1980s. Her stage name came from writer Jacinto Benavente, later a Nobel laureate in literature, who was struck by her childhood boldness, while singer and dancer Pastora Imperio sponsored her earliest artistic steps.
She traveled to Spain to study dance and made her debut at Madrid’s Teatro Romea in 1924, alongside Antonia Mercé “La Argentinita.” She died in Benalmádena (Málaga) on August 22, 2003.
Career
Director Florián Rey chose her in 1927 to star in “La hermana San Sulpicio,” a silent film based on the novel by Armando Palacio Valdés, the start of a long artistic and romantic partnership: the couple married in 1934. With the arrival of sound cinema she moved to France, where she filmed at the Joinville studios alongside performers such as Manuel Russell, starring in the major hit “Su noche de bodas.” In 1932 Paramount signed her to film alongside her compatriot Carlos Gardel in “La casa es seria” and “Melodía de arrabal,” which brought her great popularity on American screens.
With Florián Rey she made some of her most memorable films, including “Nobleza baturra” and “Morena Clara” (1935), an Andalusian comedy that filled cinemas across Spain. Her career was clouded in the late 1930s and early 1940s by her closeness to the Francoist movement and by a trip to Nazi Germany, where she was received by Adolf Hitler; she witnessed the events of Kristallnacht in Berlin, an experience she later said made her fully aware of the horrors of Nazism. This episode brought her rejection from part of the international community for a time, with protests outside theaters in New York, Mexico and Argentina itself.
In the 1940s she worked under director Benito Perojo in films such as “Goyescas” and “Los majos de Cádiz,” and it wasn’t until the 1950s that she fully regained her prestige, with titles and songs such as “Los piconeros” and “La cieguita.” She kept acting in film, theater, radio and television well into her later years, with late films including “Ama Rosa” (1960), “Tata mía” (1986) and “El polizón del Ulises” (1987).
Discography and legacy
She recorded with guitarist Rafael Medina for the Parlophone label, with a repertoire of tangos, criollo waltzes, habaneras and Cuban melodies, along with versions of international hits such as “Carioca.” In 2001 she published her memoirs, “Malena Clara,” which, besides recounting her career, inspired the character played by Penélope Cruz in Fernando Trueba’s film “La niña de tus ojos” (1998) — a film Imperio Argentina herself was unhappy with over how it portrayed certain episodes of her life. Her filmography totals about twenty titles, and she remains regarded as one of the great ambassadors of copla and Spanish cinema in the 20th century.