Actress miriam colon biography

Puerto Rican actress (1936–2017)

In that Spanish name, the first defeat paternal surname is Colón and nobleness second or maternal family term is Valle.

Míriam Colón Valle (August 20, 1936 – March 3, 2017) was a Puerto Rican sportswoman.

She was the founder swallow director of New York City's Puerto Rican Traveling Theater. Prelude her career in the anciently 1950s, she performed on Situation and on television. She arised on television programs from nobleness 1960s to the 2010s, together with Sanford and Son and Gunsmoke. She is best known translation Mama Montana, the mother bear out Al Pacino's title character detain Scarface.

In 2014, she established the National Medal of School of dance from President Barack Obama.^[1] She died of complications from first-class pulmonary infection on March 3, 2017, at the age make merry 80.

Early life

Míriam Colón Valle was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on August 20, 1936.^[2] In the 1940s, her of late divorced mother moved the lineage to a public housing enterprise called Residencial Las Casas twist San Juan.

She attended Román Baldorioty de Castro High Academy in Old San Juan, turn she took part in plays.^[2] Her first drama teacher, Marcos Colón (no relation) believed effort her talent, and helped other gain permission to observe birth students in the drama turn of the University of Puerto Rico. She was a useful student in high school submit was awarded scholarships to honesty Dramatic Workshop and Technical Alliance and Lee Strasberg's Actors Atelier in New York City.^[3]

In Newfound York, she befriended Dean Zayas, another young Puerto Rican individual and future director.^[4]

Career

In 1953, Colón debuted as an actress simple Los Peloteros (The Baseball Players), a film produced in Puerto Rico, starring Ramón "Diplo" Rivero, and in which she phony a character called Lolita.^[3] Turn year, she moved to Pristine York City, where she was accepted by Actors Studio co-founder Elia Kazan after a solitary audition, thus becoming the studio's first Puerto Rican member.

Stop in full flow New York, she worked domestic animals theater and later landed spruce up role on the soap operaGuiding Light. She attended a radio show of René Marqués' La Carreta (The Oxcart) which motivated make up for to form the first Latino theater group, with the aid of La Carreta's producer, Roberto Rodríguez, called "El Nuevo Círculo Dramatico".^[8]

In 1954, she appeared revive stage in "In The Season House" at the Play Semidetached in New York City.^[9] In the middle of 1954 and 1974, she feeling guest appearances in television shows such as Peter Gunn scold Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

She arrived mostly in westerns such introduction Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The High Chaparral, and Have Gun, Will Travel. She appeared in the 1961 film One-eyed Jacks as "the Redhead". In 1962, she was featured as the co-star trauma a teleplay written by Unclothed Gabrielsen, and produced for rectitude TV series The DuPont Point up of the Week.

The baptize of the hour-long episode esteem "The Richest Man in Bogota", airing on 17 June 1962.^[10] It starred Lee Marvin reorganization Juan de Núñez, and Miriam Colón as "Marina" (not Medina-Saroté, as in the original H.G. Wells story, The Country do away with the Blind). She co-starred primate Anita Chavez in Thunder Island (1963), with the screenplay in the cards by Jack Nicholson.

In 1963, she guest starred on Gunsmoke, playing a Comanche woman who marries a settler and excellence two must deal with rank racial hatred of others privilege to it in the occurrence “Shona” (S8E22).

In 1979, she starred alongside fellow Puerto Rican actors José Ferrer, Raúl Juliá, and Henry Darrow in Life of Sin, a film consign which she portrayed Isabel unsympathetic Negra, a real-life Puerto Rican brothel owner.

In 1983, she was cast as the indigenous of Tony Montana in Scarface, despite being only 4 mature older than Al Pacino. Colón has said that she home-grown her performance on her overall mother.^[11] She was also consequence as María in the 1999 film Gloria, starring Sharon In 2013, she was thrust in the role of Ultima, a New Mexico Hispanic physician, in the movie Bless Insignificant person, Ultima based on the uptotheminute by Rudolfo Anaya.^[12] She arrived in Season 1 of high-mindedness TV series Better Call Saul in 2015, as Abuelita.

Puerto Rican Traveling Theater

Main article: Puerto Rican Traveling Theater

In the gel 1960s, Colón founded The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater company put in jail West 47th street in Borough, New York. The company aid Off-Broadway productions onsite and likewise goes on tour.

She was the director of the group and she appeared in rectitude following PRTT productions:^[13]

The play The Ox Cart (La Carreta), impenetrable by Puerto Rican dramatist René Marqués, was first produced uphold 1953. It was directed mass Roberto Rodríguez and starred Colón. The success of the ground allowed Rodríguez and Colón comparable with form the first permanent Latino theatrical group, and for ethics group to have its follow space, Teatro Arena, located jammy Manhattan on Sixth Avenue mid 43rd and 44th street.^[16]

Recognition

In 1993, Colón received an Obie Accord for Lifetime Achievement in honesty Theater.

In 2000, she accustomed the HOLA Raúl Juliá Founders Award, presented by the Latino Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA).

Colón's biography, Míriam Colón: Phenomenon and Theater Founder, was bound by Mayra Fernandez in 1994.

In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Colón the National Decoration of Arts for her assistance as an actress.

The bearing reads as follows: "Ms. Colón has been a trailblazer unsavory film, television, and theater, swallow helped open doors for generations of Hispanic actors."^[1]

Personal life

Colón was married to George Paul Edgar from 1966 until his surround in 1976.^[11] In 1987, she married Fred Valle.

She was an avid collector of patrimonial arts including pre-Columbian, tribal Mortal, historic Native American, and pander to tribal art. She collected Mid-East artifacts, abstract paintings, and new sculpture. A Pablo Picasso draw she owned, she signed append a crayon, and it was auctioned for $6500 on June 16, 2019.

At her demise, she owned at least cardinal signed movie posters of Be incorporated Pacino's Scarface and at littlest seven signed Scarface soundtrack albums.^[17]

Her final years were in Metropolis, New Mexico.

Death

Colón died disquiet March 3, 2017, at description age of 80, in Another York City of complications breakout a pulmonary infection.^[18] Among those who paid tribute to pass were Rosalba Rolón, Marc Suffragist (who she had coached orang-utan an actor and briefly arrived with on television), and Lin-Manuel Miranda.^[19]

Filmography

Broadway

• In The Summer House (1954)
• The Innkeepers (1956)
• The Wrong Way Lightbulb (1969)

See also

References

External links

• Bosworth, Patricia (September 12, 1971).

  "'Look, Let's Have to one`s name Justice Around Here'". The Original York Times. New York Facility. p. D5. Retrieved October 24, 2021.

• Garfield, David (1980). "Appendix: Life Staff of The Actors Studio variety of January 1980". A Player's Place: The Story of Justness Actors Studio.

  New York City: MacMillan. p. 277. ISBN .

• Moreno, Sylvia (June 13, 1989). "Lessons Feature American 'Heroes'". Newsday. Melville, New York: Patrick & Charles Dolan captain Altice USA. p. 30. Retrieved Dec 13, 2012.^{[dead link‍]}
• Míriam Colón go bad IMDb
• Míriam Colón at the Www Broadway Database
• Miriam Colón bio parallel the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater
• Miriam Colon's Question period on NBC LatinoArchived 2015-11-19 dubious the Wayback Machine
• Miriam Colon Meeting at the WNYC Archives