Symphonic Sundays and Latin Lunes all rolled up into one beautiful package. Rosita Fornes sings La Violetera from the 1951 movie Del Can Can al Mambo. La Violetera was composed by the Spaniard Jose Padilla and the main movie sound track, Can Can was composed by Jacques Offenbach many decades earlier.The movie was produced and filmed in Mexico during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema by Producciones Calderon.
Rosita Fornes was born Rosalia Palet Bonavia in New York City in February 1923. At age 2, she was taken to Cuba by her Catalonian Polish mother who had married a perfume magnate in Havana. At age 15, she won a talent contest known as the Supreme Court of the Arts sponsored by powerful radio station CMQ in Havana, still heard from Florida to the Texas Gulf Coast. From that point forward, she was regarded as Cuba's most admired performer. At age 15, her doting father, who had raised her in Spain and Cuba since age 2, requested that she change her name to Fornes. She was already a sex symbol in her teens and remained so until her 60s.
But her voice was her true talent. She could perform a full length operetta or aria as effortlessly as one of her signature mambos. Loved in Cuba and Mexico in the same manner as Marilyn Monroe is held in awe in North America and Europe, a Cuban will tell you "There was no one before-there will be no one after". In Mexico, she is known as the first show woman of the Americas for her work in Mexican cinema beginning at age 22. In Spain, she became more popular than the top Spanish star, Sarita Montiel (who will be on an upcoming video). She has toured South America, Europe, and in 1947, made a tour of Los Angeles, San Diego, San Antonio and Houston. Rosita has been courted by Mexican President Miguel Aleman, Cuban President Prio Socoras, Cuban Dictator Fulgencio Basista, and even Che Guevera. She considers herself a devout Catholic and continues to live in Castro's Cuba.