Rosita Fornés

Here are two songs (a Cuban one and a French one) performed by the Cuban superdiva Rosita Fornés.
Rosita Fornés was born Rosalia Palet Bonavia in New York, USA, in 1923. She was taken to Cuba by her Catalonian-born parents when she was 2. Fornés first won critical acclaim as a singer after winning the best prize at a widely-known Cuban talent contest in 1938. From this moment on she became Cuba's most prolific, admired and maligned performer. She has been, throughout her brilliantly long career, the center of personal and political controversies. She is said to have been Che Guevarra's lover! Her visit to the US in May to September of 1996 generated in Miami the largest and most politically heated press coverage that any performer had produced ever in this city. She was, in her younger years and well into her sixties, regarded as a sex symbol, as the unchallenged blonde goddess of Cuban show business, although her true weapons in this field have been her spell-binding stage presence, her unbending professionalism and a beautifully melodious singing voice (her stage repertoire has included numerous full-length operettas and opera arias). In her twenties, already famous in Cuba, she traveled to Mexico where she became an overnight and lasting sensation. To this day, Rosita Fornés is received in Mexico as La primera vedette de America ("The first show-woman of the Americas"). In the fourties and fifties she toured extensively throughout Latin America, the US and Europe. In the latter part of the 1950s she became Spain's most popular stage diva, rivaling Spanish stars such as Celia Gámez and the younger Sarita Montiel. In Cuba, her sold-out theather performances and countless TV appearances have made Ms. Fornés this country's top female superstar. Rosita Fornés has received numerous artistic awards in Cuba and abroad. She remains today an active, commanding and venerated presence in the Cuban stage scene.
Enjoy the glamour and talent of Rosita Fornés, the Cuban Marilyn Monroe!

Amor por ti / Ma vie

Rosita Fornés passed away 10 June 2020. RIP