Let us not be clouded by truculence or vicissitudes. Regardless of what the news reports end up ruling, with Encarna Polo Oliva we have just left an icon of Spanish popular culture of the second half of the 20th century, a woman with overwhelming charm and a life so eventful that in any other geography she would have already deserved her good. biopic with a more sociological than simply folkloric background. For example, this brushstroke from a conversation with this reporter 11 summers ago, when Polo presented The score of my lifethe autobiography that he took the trouble to write for the AISGE Foundation. “As a child I sang in front of a house of whores so that the women would throw money out of the windows, and with that money I paid admission to my first sessions at the summer cinemas. I have always taken money…, except now.”
In the front rows of that torrid summer day, she was applauded by Paco Clavel, José Manuel Parada and the much missed Pilar Bardem, an involuntary reflection of a plural and proud Spain that was able to recognize the legacy of the Sevillian artist beyond clichés, prejudices and other stereotyped mentalities. “For me it will always be that eternal smile of the copla yeyé,” summarizes the popularizer of the copla yeyé from Albacete Lidia García, responsible for the podcast, answering questions from this newspaper. Oh, bell ringers! Of course we will always associate Mrs. Encarna with the known Paco, Paco, Pacowhich in the 21st century has experienced an unusual second viral youth after a youtubers it will sync it with the video of single womenby Beyoncé (let’s face it: the effect, 16 years later, still seems shocking to us). But García emphasizes that his talent and character deserve more general applause. “The new rhythm he gave to the copla was combined with a unique and particular sympathy, with that overwhelming joy in presenting the songs. Not only did he make the copla make us dance, but his charisma also helped him a lot in his television role.”
The diagnosis is similar if we turn to the journalist and film critic Juan Luis Álvarez, who covered Encarnita with some frequency since the second half of the 1980s. “She was very excited when I told her that she was the most advanced, even though she had conservative ideas, but it was the pure truth,” he recalls. “To those of us who were children when the mythical Passport for Dublin from TVE (1970) we were fascinated by its colorful vortex, which had nothing to do with what we would later see on the street. In reality that program was a modernity competition between her and Karina…”.
Álvarez also makes an interesting addition in terms of musical style. In some of his biggest pop milestones lolailofrom The Piconeros TO Juanita Banderaher then husband, the brilliant Buenos Aires composer and arranger Adolfo Waitzman, already introduced the first electric guitars, a stylistic license that would later become iconic and revolutionary with gypsy rock (1974), the LP that forged the myth of Las Grecas. After the marital separation, Polo did not give up his efforts to recover the musical scepter of his best years, even if circumstances were never more favorable to him.
We are so captivated by developmentalist rhetoric about happiness Paco, Paco that we run the risk of forgetting some other very meritorious pages, in particular the Spanish adaptation (1968) of The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde or, almost better yet, the song (composed by Watzman) by This man in blacka TVE series directed by Antonio Mercero which paralyzed half the country in front of the television at the end of 1975, with José Luis López Vázquez in the main role conceived by the cartoonist Antonio Mingote. Encarnita’s voice (“Who are you? Who sent you here? / “And all dressed in black, you make me laugh”) was the unmistakable signal, as our elders will remember, to abandon the household chores and lie down on the sofa.
The actor Pepe Viyuela, when he was very young, came from that part of Spain that saw Polo in front of the television: “I remember seeing his songs on television: they reached you immediately, they were very catchy. Paco, Paco It is in the collective memory. I don’t know if she was aware that she was bringing those flamenco rhythms closer to pop and I think she’s a pioneer of what’s being done now in Latin music. It filled everything with joy. My parents, when he appeared, told me to shut up and listen. Because, moreover, he liked it a lot.”
The music has far overshadowed the acting role of Doña Encarna, who deserves to be mentioned especially for the Italian series Scaramouche and for a film by Ignacio Iquino entitled 07 with the 2 in front (Agent: Jaime Bonet)a sincere yet silly parody filmed in 1966 sharing the spotlight with Cassen. It is true that we should then talk about the tables thanks to the assembly The Cuernicabra Fairrepresented in the National Theater of Santo Domingo, for having supported the summary that the journalist Álvarez formulated for us. “At one point, she was a truly innovative woman in this country.”
Innovative and, as they say now, transversal. A nice fact. The prologue to his memoirs, the aforementioned The score of my lifewas the academic and journalist Luis María Anson, director for many years of ABC. On the day of the presentation, Anson stood up from the audience and remarked: “I have always loved being among actresses, because they are geniuses on the stage. I have always admired Encarnita, just as I am amazed by the energy and coherence of Pilar Bardem, even if her ideas do not coincide with mine. We owe them a big round of applause of gratitude.”
