Pancho Villa, one of the most important figures of the Mexican Revolution, was known for being a womanizer. In 1914, during his stay in Mexico City, he attended the theater and met a famous theater actress who immediately captivated him and who, as was her custom, went down to the audience and cut all the buttons off his jacket.
It was María Conesa, a charismatic artist, who sang Las Musas Latinas in the show that Villa attended. There was a rumor that they were romantically involved. However, it is said that when the artist learned that the leader had an interest in her, she responded by saying: “Look General, a flea like me, doesn't sleep in her duffel bag.”
Faced with the intention of the North Centaur to kidnap her, Conesa had to hide and stop showing up while the warlords and their armies left the city. That was just one of the episodes of her life that gave her something to talk about, her artistic career was also controversial, since in Mexico her performances made her famous because of the great mischief she showed in them and which was unusual at that time.
Born in 1890, Maria entered the world of acting in Spain, where she was originally from. There, as a child, she joined Teresita, her older sister, into a children's company with which she performed at the Universal Exhibition in Paris and went on tours in Spanish and Italian territory. In 1906 his sister was murdered, after which he fell ill and later found himself in the need to return to the stage, playing the zarzuela La gatita blanca, not knowing that it would become his greatest achievement.
She arrived in Mexico in 1907, preceded by an overwhelming success in Cuba and soon became the highest-paid actress on Mexican soil, due to the great popularity of her performance as the white cat. The play in which he played this role was branded as immodest by officials and members of high society.
Many wrote about her, including the Mexican poet Luis G. Urbina who wrote: “Her figure is not grassy, the countenance is not beautiful, the voice is disheveled and unpleasant, but from all over her face, this woman drips malice from all over her body...” However, it continued to fill theaters despite negative comments.
Accounts by various historians, such as Carmen Saucedo Zarco, point out that her marriage to the aristocrat Manuel San y Calderón also caused a stir. The couple met to eat cupcakes in the cafes of what is now Madero Street, in front of people's prying eyes, and in late 1908 they set out on a trip to New York after their parents discovered Maria's pregnancy.
The fame achieved was such that it led her to act in front of great personalities of the time, including President Porfirio Díaz, who saw her just two months before the revolutionary movement broke out.
Already during the Mexican Revolution, the actress continued to perform in theaters despite the enormous political turbulence and met not only Pancho Villa but other revolutionaries such as Emiliano Zapata, who decided to also be delighted with her. In those years she was linked to other well-known characters, such as General Juan Mérigo, who committed criminal acts with the “gray car gang”.
Mérigo wrote the book “La banda del automobile gris y yo”, in which he claimed to have had multiple encounters with the actress in places such as the Lyric Theater and the Principal Restaurant. However, she denied any connection with the men she was linked to.
María Conesa had several appearances in theater and film, where she played other characters beyond the one that made her famous. She continued to perform until a few days before her death, her last participation in theater was playing Aunt Antonia in La verbena de la paloma in August 1978.
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