Lola Beltrán

María Lucila "Lola" Beltrán Ruiz (7 March 1932 – 24 March 1996) was a Mexican actress and singer.

She is and was one of Mexico's most acclaimed singers of Ranchera and Huapango music. She collaborated with other Mexican music stars such as Amalia Mendoza, Juan Gabriel, and Lucha Villa. She was internationally renowned for her interpretation of the songs "Cucurrucucú paloma" and "Paloma Negra" and sang before world leaders. She was nicknamed Lola la Grande ("Lola the Great"). Her song Soy infeliz ("I'm Unhappy") was the opening music for Pedro Almodóvar's film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Life
Beltrán was born in the town of El Rosario, Sinaloa where she was schooled by Carmelite nuns. Her mother enjoyed singing and her father managed a mine. She completed secretarial studies while participating in singing competitions. She was intrigued by ballads and the singing she heard in church. Eventually, Beltrán and her mother moved to Mexico City so that she could find a career performing. Beltrán worked as a secretary at a Mexican radio station, XEW. She pestered the radio station to be allowed to sing. The station and listeners were so impressed that within a year she had her own radio show. Beltrán credits the station with giving her a chance, which enabled her to make a career. It was there that she met the songwriter Tomás Méndez who composed songs for her, including the international hits "Cucurrucucú paloma" and "Tres Dias".

Beltrán was the first wife of the matador and film actor Alfredo Leal Kuri and had a daughter with him, singer María Elena Leal. She entered the world of film in 1954 in El Tesoro de la Muerte. After appearing in dozens of films, most of them musicals, she obtained a starring role in the telenovela Mi rival with Saby Kamalich. In cinema, Beltrán made her film debut on El cantor del circo (1940), an Argentine film. She also shared credits with Mexican movie stars such as Emilio Fernández, Ignacio López Tarso, Katy Jurado, María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz in La Bandida (1963). Her last film appearance was in Una gallina muy ponedora (1982) sharing credits with Columba Domínguez.

As a television presenter, she hosted the programs Noches tapatías (1976) and her own television program entitled El estudio de Lola Beltrán (1984), programs in which she received stars such as Cornelio Reyna, Juan Gabriel, Lucha Villa, La Prieta Linda and Luis Miguel.

Beltrán is considered one of the most successful ranchera artists of all time. She gave concerts before various world leaders: President Charles de Gaulle of France, the leader of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito, Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev, King of Spain Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, Queen Elizabeth II, American Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon and Presidents of Mexico Adolfo Ruiz Cortines and Carlos Salinas de Gortari. She was the first ranchera singer to perform at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts), the premier opera house and concert hall in Mexico. She also sang in the Olympia Music Hall in Paris, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and the Conservatory of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in the former Soviet Union.

Beltrán was honored in 1995 with her inclusion into a series of commemorative postage stamps, issued by her native Mexico, honoring 'Popular Idols of Radio'. This was done in recognition of her lifetime achievement in the realm of popular music and her success in spreading an appreciation of Mexican culture throughout the world.

Death
On March 24, 1996, soon after recording Disco del Siglo (English: Album of the Century) with Lucha Villa and Amalia Mendoza "La Tariácuri" and produced by Juan Gabriel, Beltrán died of a pulmonary embolism at Hospital Ángeles in Mexico City. She had appeared in about 50 films and recorded about a hundred albums. Her body was laid on display in the rotunda of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City.

On March 7, 2024, Google celebrated the 92nd anniversary of her birth with a Google Doodle.