Mirtha Legrand

For other uses, see Legrand (surname).

Mirtha Legrand
Mirtha Legrand in 1981
Born	Rosa María Juana Martínez 23 February 1927 (1927-02-23) (age 84) Villa Cañás, Argentina
Spouse	Daniel Tinayre (1946-1994)

Rosa María Juana Martínez, better known by the stage name Mirtha Legrand (born 23 February 1927 in Villa Cañás, Santa Fe Province^[1]) is an Argentine actress and television personality and twin sister of the actress Silvia Legrand.

Biography

Early life

The future Mirtha Legrand was born in Villa Cañás, a town in the province of Santa Fe located some 200 km from Rosario. Her parents were both Spanish immigrants. In 1934 her parents separated. Her mother relocated to Rosario to ensure a better education for her three children, while her father remained in Villa Cañás.

In Rosario, Rosa María Juana and her twin sister María Aurelia took basic courses at the Municipal Theater. After the death of their father in 1936, the family relocated permanently to Buenos Aires, to the barrio of La Paternal. There they lived in poverty, mitigated by sporadic employment, until in 1939 the sisters were offered small roles in a film starring Niní Marshall which would be released in 1940 under the title Hay que educar a Niní.

The Martínez sisters' next film together was Novios para las muchachas in 1941. Mirtha's first leading role came later that year in Los martes, orquídeas. The same year her mother would be contacted by a well-known film industry figure, Ricardo Cerebello, who offered to represent the sisters. It was Cerebello who devised the stage names Mirtha and Silvia Legrand.

The success of Los martes, orquídeas led Lumiton Studios, one of the most important studios of the era, to sign Mirtha to a five-year contract. One of the films in which she took part during that time was Safo, historia de una pasión, the first Argentine film from which minors were banned. During the same period, Mirtha and Silvia hosted El club de la amistad for Radio Splendid.

Marriage

In 1945 Mirtha Legrand met the French-born filmmaker Daniel Tinayre. They were married on 18 May 1946, when Mirtha was nineteen years old and Tinayre thirty-six. The young actress, who saw her marriage as a means by which she could escape poverty, was already sufficiently famous that Radiolandia, a gossip magazine, secured exclusive rights to the details of her wedding. With Tinayre she had two children, Marcela Tinayre and Daniel Jr.

After her wedding came her greatest roles, most notably La vendedora de fantasías (1950), directed by her husband. In 1955 she appeared in El amor nunca muere alongside two other great actresses of the time, Tita Merello and Zully Moreno. In 1957 she made her first entry into theater, and made her television debut a year later with the programs M ama a M and Los enredos de Mariana, both on Canal 7. Between 1961 and 1962 she filmed Bajo un mismo rostro, in which she delivered what she considered her best performance. In 1965 she appeared in Con gusto a rabia, the last film in which she appeared.

Almorzando con Mirtha Legrand

Mirtha in the Teatro Colón in 2010.

In the program Legrand converses as she has lunch with famous people, like actors, policitians, or comedians.

Following the death of her mother Rosa, Legrand withdrew from public life for several months. In 1968, the director of Canal 9, Alejandro Romay, offered her her own show, Almorzando con las estrellas ("Lunch with stars"). It was an immediate ratings success. Each show followed a similar format, in which Legrand would sit down for "lunch" with a table of celebrity guests, mostly of the sort featured by the gossip magazines. The name soon changed to Almorzando con Mirtha Legrand as the hostess gained renown. The guest list also began to include politicians as well as entertainers. In 1994 she received the Golden Martín Fierro Award for this program.

Some of Legrand's guests included: María Estela Martínez de Perón, Néstor Kirchner, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Carlos Menem, Hugo Chávez, René Favaloro, Andrea del Boca, Libertad Lamarque, China Zorrilla, Susana Giménez, Leonor Benedetto, Nacha Guevara, Sandro de América, Mercedes Sosa, Soledad Pastorutti, Fito Páez, Belinda, Victoria de los Ángeles, Grecia Colmenares, Ricardo Darín, Cecilia Roth, Mariano Mores, Valeria Lynch, Elena Roger, Alain Delon, Rita Hayworth, Chavela Vargas, Catherine Deneuve, Julio Iglesias, Nati Mistral, Renata Scotto, Raphael, Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Raffaella Carrá, Diego Armando Maradona, Jon Secada, Celia Cruz, Alberto Cortez, Franco Simone, Xuxa, Daniela Mercury, Valeria Mazza, Verónica Castro, Tita Merello, Joan Manuel Serrat, Rosario Flores, Henry Calvin, Rocío Jurado, Nicola Di Bari, José Feliciano, Gabriela Spanic, Fred Bongusto, Guy Williams, Marcel Marceau, Juan Luis Guerra, Chayanne, José Vélez, Sara Montiel, Camilo Sesto, Marcelo Tinelli, Mario Pergolini, Carolina Herrera, José Luis Rodríguez, José Luis Perales, Gianni Nazzaro, Cristian Castro, Azúcar Moreno, Elis Regina, Hilda Molina, among many other national and international superstars.

References

1. ^ Cinenacional.com

External links

• Mirtha Legrand at the Internet Movie Database
• (Spanish) Mirtha Legrand at cinenacional.com
• (Spanish) Biography of Mirtha Legrand

Persondata
Name	Legrand, Mirtha
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	23 February 1927
Place of birth	Villa Cañás, Argentina
Date of death
Place of death