China Zorrilla (Spanish: [ˈtʃina soˈriʒa], born Concepción Matilde Zorrilla de San Martín Muñoz; 14 March 1922 – 17 September 2014) was a Uruguayan theater, film, and television actress.

She has made over 40 appearances in film and TV since 1971. She started her career in Uruguay, but later moved to Argentina where she lived for over 35 years and was active in Argentine TV, theater, and cinema; she returned to Uruguay before her death. She is a popular star in the Rioplatense area, and is regarded as one of the Grand Dames of the South American theater stage.

In 2008, Zorrilla was awarded the distinction of Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honor) by the French Government. In 2011, the Correo Uruguayo (the national postal service in Uruguay) released a print run of 500 commemorative postage stamps dedicated to Zorrilla.

Early life

Zorrilla was born in Montevideo into an aristocratic Uruguayan family. She is the daughter of sculptor José Luis Zorrilla de San Martín (1891–1975) and Guma Muñoz del Campo.

Her father was a disciple of Antoine Bourdelle and created monuments in Uruguay and Argentina. Her paternal grandfather was Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, who is considered Uruguay's national poet. Her older sister, Guma (1919–2001), was a theater costume designer. She grew up with her four sisters in Paris. In Montevideo she attended Sagrado Corazón (Holy Cross) School. In 1948, she earned a British Council scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she studied under Greek actress Katina Paxinou.

Uruguay

Zorrilla debuted in Paul Claudel's The Tidings Brought to Mary. She joined the National Comedy of Uruguay and worked at the Solís Theatre, where Margarita Xirgu directed her in García Lorca's Blood Wedding and other classics.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Zorrilla appeared in Mother Courage and Her Children, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Tartuffe. The Seagull, Wilder's Our Town, Neil Simon's Plaza Suite, Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, and plays by Pirandello, Peter Ustinov, Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, J. B. Priestley, Ferenc Molnár, and others. She received critical acclaim for her performances in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker and in Hay Fever as Judith Bliss.

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

Between 1964 and 1966, Zorrilla lived in New York and worked as a French teacher and Broadway secretary. In New York, she gave performances of Canciones para mirar, a children's musical based on texts by Argentine poet Maria Elena Walsh. As a correspondent for the Uruguayan newspaper El País, she covered events such as the Cannes Film Festival.

As opera director, she directed Puccini's La bohème, Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Solís Theatre, and Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Teatro Argentino de La Plata. She hosted a talk show for many years.

Argentina

In 1971, Zorrilla's film debut came in at age 49 in Un Guapo del 900, directed by Lautaro Murúa and starring Alfredo Alcón. The following summer she replaced Ana María Campoy in Butterflies are Free, which was performed in Mar del Plata. She then moved to Argentina.

From 1973 to 1977 she was forbidden by the military regime from performing in Uruguayan theatres. After the country's return to democracy in the 1980s, Zorrilla made a comeback at the Teatro Solís.

During the mid-1970s, Zorrilla toured and performed nationally and internationally, including at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and in Barcelona Bogotá, Lima, Caracas, Tel Aviv, Miami, San Juan, Santiago, Montevideo, Punta del Este, São Paulo, and Asunción.

In the theater, she has portrayed historical figures such as Emily Dickinson in William Luce's The Belle of Amherst, Monica Ottino's Victoria Ocampo, Mrs. Patrick Campbell in Jerome Kilty's Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters. Zorilla performed in plays by Jean Cocteau, Lucille Fletcher, Oscar Viale, and Jacobo Langsner. She reprised the part of Judith Bliss in Hay Fever.

In the twenty-first century, she won four awards as sculptor Helen Martins in Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca and as Eve in an adaption of Mark Twain's Eve's Diary (The private diary of Adam and Eve).

In 1995, she assumed the role of Persephone in Stravinsky and Gide's Perséphone in Buenos Aires.

Zorrilla adapted, directed, and produced plays and musicals: Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters, Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men, Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear and Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers.

She worked in several films. She won Best Actress in La Habana Film Festival for her role in "Darse Cuenta". She performed in Summer of the Colt (a Canadian coproduction), Maria Luisa Bemberg's Nobody's Wife, The Jewish Gauchos, the coproduction The Plague (starring William Hurt and Raúl Juliá), Edgardo Cozarinsky's Guerriers et captives (with Dominique Sanda and Leslie Caron), Manuel Puig's "Pubis Angelical", Adolfo Aristarain's Lasts Days of the Victim, and in the cult classic Argentine black comedy Esperando la carroza (Waiting for the Hearse) (1986).

Zorrilla earned recognition for her performances in Conversaciones con mamá in 2005 (2004 Best Actress Award at the 26th Moscow International Film Festival and the Málaga Film Festival) and in Elsa & Fred, which won her several awards, including the Silver Condor for Best Actress.

Death

Zorrilla died on 17 September 2014 from pneumonia in a hospital in Montevideo, Uruguay, aged 92.

Honors

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

She was declared "Illustrious Citizen" in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and other Argentine cities, and two theaters bear her name.

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

***

China Zorrilla (Spanish: [ˈtʃina soˈriʒa], born Concepción Matilde Zorrilla de San Martín Muñoz; 14 March 1922 – 17 September 2014) was a Uruguayan theater, film, and television actress.

She has made over 40 appearances in film and TV since 1971. She started her career in Uruguay, but later moved to Argentina where she lived for over 35 years and was active in Argentine TV, theater, and cinema; she returned to Uruguay before her death. She is a popular star in the Rioplatense area, and is regarded as one of the Grand Dames of the South American theater stage.

In 2008, Zorrilla was awarded the distinction of Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honor) by the French Government. In 2011, the Correo Uruguayo (the national postal service in Uruguay) released a print run of 500 commemorative postage stamps dedicated to Zorrilla.

Early life

Zorrilla was born in Montevideo into an aristocratic Uruguayan family. She is the daughter of sculptor José Luis Zorrilla de San Martín (1891–1975) and Guma Muñoz del Campo.

Her father was a disciple of Antoine Bourdelle and created monuments in Uruguay and Argentina. Her paternal grandfather was Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, who is considered Uruguay's national poet. Her older sister, Guma (1919–2001), was a theater costume designer. She grew up with her four sisters in Paris. In Montevideo she attended Sagrado Corazón (Holy Cross) School. In 1948, she earned a British Council scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she studied under Greek actress Katina Paxinou.

Uruguay

Zorrilla debuted in Paul Claudel's The Tidings Brought to Mary. She joined the National Comedy of Uruguay and worked at the Solís Theatre, where Margarita Xirgu directed her in García Lorca's Blood Wedding and other classics.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Zorrilla appeared in Mother Courage and Her Children, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Tartuffe. The Seagull, Wilder's Our Town, Neil Simon's Plaza Suite, Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, and plays by Pirandello, Peter Ustinov, Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, J. B. Priestley, Ferenc Molnár, and others. She received critical acclaim for her performances in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker and in Hay Fever as Judith Bliss.

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

Between 1964 and 1966, Zorrilla lived in New York and worked as a French teacher and Broadway secretary. In New York, she gave performances of Canciones para mirar, a children's musical based on texts by Argentine poet Maria Elena Walsh. As a correspondent for the Uruguayan newspaper El País, she covered events such as the Cannes Film Festival.

As opera director, she directed Puccini's La bohème, Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Solís Theatre, and Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Teatro Argentino de La Plata. She hosted a talk show for many years.

Argentina

In 1971, Zorrilla's film debut came in at age 49 in Un Guapo del 900, directed by Lautaro Murúa and starring Alfredo Alcón. The following summer she replaced Ana María Campoy in Butterflies are Free, which was performed in Mar del Plata. She then moved to Argentina.

From 1973 to 1977 she was forbidden by the military regime from performing in Uruguayan theatres. After the country's return to democracy in the 1980s, Zorrilla made a comeback at the Teatro Solís.

During the mid-1970s, Zorrilla toured and performed nationally and internationally, including at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and in Barcelona[6] Bogotá, Lima, Caracas, Tel Aviv, Miami, San Juan, Santiago, Montevideo, Punta del Este, São Paulo, and Asunción.

In the theater, she has portrayed historical figures such as Emily Dickinson in William Luce's The Belle of Amherst, Monica Ottino's Victoria Ocampo, Mrs. Patrick Campbell in Jerome Kilty's Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters. Zorilla performed in plays by Jean Cocteau, Lucille Fletcher, Oscar Viale, and Jacobo Langsner. She reprised the part of Judith Bliss in Hay Fever.

In the twenty-first century, she won four awards as sculptor Helen Martins in Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca and as Eve in an adaption of Mark Twain's Eve's Diary (The private diary of Adam and Eve).

In 1995, she assumed the role of Persephone in Stravinsky and Gide's Perséphone in Buenos Aires.

Zorrilla adapted, directed, and produced plays and musicals: Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters, Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men, Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear and Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers.

She worked in several films. She won Best Actress in La Habana Film Festival for her role in "Darse Cuenta". She performed in Summer of the Colt(a Canadian coproduction), Maria Luisa Bemberg's Nobody's Wife, The Jewish Gauchos, the coproduction The Plague (starring William Hurt andRaúl Juliá), Edgardo Cozarinsky's Guerriers et captives (with Dominique Sanda and Leslie Caron), Manuel Puig's "Pubis Angelical", Adolfo Aristarain's Lasts Days of the Victim, and in the cult classic Argentine black comedy Esperando la carroza (Waiting for the Hearse) (1986).

Zorrilla earned recognition for her performances in Conversaciones con mamá in 2005 (2004 Best Actress Award at the 26th Moscow International Film Festival and the Málaga Film Festival) and in Elsa & Fred, which won her several awards, including the Silver Condor for Best Actress.

Death

Zorrilla died on 17 September 2014 from pneumonia in a hospital in Montevideo, Uruguay, aged 92.

Honors

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

She was declared "Illustrious Citizen" in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and other Argentine cities, and two theaters bear her name.

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

Filmography

Film

YearTitleRole

2007Tocar el cieloImperio2005Elsa y FredElsa2004Conversaciones con mamáMamá1997Sin querer
Entre la sombra y el alma (short film)
1996Besos en la frenteMercedes ArévaloLola Mora
1995Fotos del almaEsthercitaLa nave de los locosDr Marta Caminos1994Guerriers et captives
1992Cuatro caras para VictoriaVictoria Ocampo IVLa PesteEmma Rieux1991Dios los cría
El verano del potroAna1989Nunca estuve en VienaCarlota1986Pobre mariposa
1985Waiting for the HearseElvira RomeroContar hasta diez
1984Darse cuenta
1982La invitación
Pubis angelical
Últimos días de la víctimaBebaSeñora de nadie
1975Los gauchos judíos
Triángulo de cuatro
Las sorpresas
1974The Truce
1973Las venganzas de Beto SánchezTeacher1972La MaffiaAssunta1971Un Guapo del 900

Television

YearTitleRole

2005Mujeres asesinasInés Quinteros (1 episode)2004Los RoldánMercedes LozadaPiel naranja años despuésDoña Elena2003Son amoresMargarita (uncredited)2002099 CentralDora (uncredited)2001EnamorarteMercedes "Mechita" Dugan viuda de JuarezLas amantes
1998GasolerosMatilde1997El arcángel
Ricos y famososCatalinaRodolfo Rojas D.T.Tina1996La salud de los enfermos (TV film)Mother1995Leandro Leiva, un soñador
1990Atreverse
1980El solitario (miniseries)Melani Duvalie1979Chau, amor míoAna1976Los que estamos solosDoña Barbarita1975Piel naranjaElena1974Mi hombre sin nocheCasilda1971El tobogánRosa1973Pobre diablaAída Morelli