Lola Flores, the ‘Rocíos’ Jurado and Dúrcal, Carmen Sevilla, La Pantoja, Marujita Díaz… all the artists that are part of our Top 10 folklore artists were unique in their kind, they did groundbreaking things and broke down barriers. But only one conquered the ultra-modern and arch-youthful television pop network MTV: Sara Montiel.
It was in the year 2002, when he left all of Spain and part of the foreigner stunned by starring in an announcement for the awards MTV Europe Music Awards, in which he appeared with his entire head bandaged, almost like a mummy, receiving an invitation at his house to attend the gala. She then goes crazy thinking about what to wear for the event and she ends up taking off her bandages to discover her perfectly made-up face shouting “Marvellous!” (marvelous). A spot as simple as it is brilliant, which made the girl wonder who the hell that cool lady was.
The advert was shot in Madrid, and as it was an international awards ceremony, it was broadcast on televisions around the world divided into two one-minute episodes, although its director, John Bland, also recorded a version of almost a quarter of time that was presented at various film festivals as “the first short made by the MTV network.” An achievement that would be more in line with the profile of Madonna or Elton John, but in which our Saritísima starred, who of course attended the ceremony at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona in her best clothes and was in charge of presenting the Best Female Performer award.
In 2008, at the age of eighty-one, four years before she died, Sara Montiel gave another lesson in modernity by recording the song ‘Absolutely’ with the Fangoria duo, which became the disco hit of the season. “She invented a very unusual type of woman, an artist who has been one of the most spectacular that Spain has produced,” said Alaska about her collaborator. «She made herself a tailor-made and haute couture suit. Beautiful, gorgeous as she has been, she has always known how to favor the camera, with that gesture so hers, with that slight nod that only she and those marvelous drag queens who revere her know how to do. In addition, people do not know how difficult it is to understand how Montiel was able to evade the censors and public opinion just enough to display that eroticism and modernity without being massacred.
Sara was modern, and a pioneer. In many things. so many, that Alaska He came to assure about her: “How many hours have we spent in our lives watching Sara and discovering the things she did before we were of an age to be born?” The Fangoria singer had met Sara Montiel in 1982, when her husband Pepe Tous hired Los Pegamoides for a concert in the bullring in Mallorca. «We went to her house to sign the contract and Sara arrived from the beach. She was very modern, with a parting in the middle of her hair and a very Mexican dress, “she recounted in ‘Lazos de sangre’. «She was very nice, close, wonderful and I, without being able to speak of the nerves. I’m too shy for that. Knowing the people who are important to me leave me silent. Alaska stated in the television program that, if she were still alive, Sara Montiel “would have Instagram and would be a youtuber.” And surely so would she.
And it is that no matter how traditional and traditional she was, she was a woman who looked to the future with audacity. Although it is true that she had already performed for him once in El Pardo, one Christmas she stood up to Franco himself, rejecting her invitation to sing at his party. And with the dictator still alive, she used part of his money to pay many homosexuals the fines to get out of jail for violating the Law of Vagrants and Crooks. It is even said that she appeared on several occasions in the Puerta del Sol cells to ask for her release. And she herself was also always a liberated and empowered woman, who stood up to her second husband when she ordered him to leave the cinema for him.
Historians of Spanish culture have described her as a feminist, independent and self-sufficient who was not afraid of sin, and possibly for this reason she also fell in love with Hollywood, always eager for femme fatales and, even better, if they are exotic. When she decades later had her moment of glory on MTV, it was like coming full circle.
Regardless of adjectives, what Sara Montiel was is an artist like the crown of a pine tree, and until the end: a few months before she died, she continued to give performances, accompanied by her inseparable pianist.