“I was a shy, skinny girl, with a certain arrogance”. One can read this simple phrase and do it with the unmistakable voice of Marisa Paredes. Daughter of a goalkeeper, at only six years old she dreamed of being an actress. He told his mother, of course. This one, neither short nor lazy, responded: “But who do you think you are? “Lola Flores?” Little did she know that decades later she would become one of the great actresses of film, theater and television. A legend on stage.
Marisa Paredes died this Tuesday at the age of 78, as confirmed by the Film Academy. An icon disappears from the screen. An all-round actress who was capable of anything. One of those performers who could handle everything and everyone. His voice, his way of acting and the characters he has left behind are, without a doubt, his great legacy. It is impossible not to imagine her filming with the greats, under the orders of the best national and international directors. Everyone wanted to work with Marisa.
“My elegance comes from my family. “My grandfather was a peasant and he was also very elegant.”he told journalist José Luis Romo for ‘LOC’. Public figure if ever there was one, he never left a cause to champion. His voice, his unmistakable voice, was also that of those who were not so lucky, those who needed a speaker in the media. Until her last months, Marisa was there. It was always there.
A life marked by two loves
His teacher was Fernando Fernán Gómez. She discovered her when she was only 16 years old and was trying to make a career for herself as a theater actress. “He was a teacher of life. “He represented the most fascinating thing a person could have: intelligence, culture, sense of humor, lucidity…”, he explained in the aforementioned interview. Marisa Paredes was then 71 years old and had won the Honorary Goya. The profession surrendered at the feet of that girl who wanted to act.
At Fernán Gómez’s side he learned a lot. It changed forever and opened a world that was unknown to him. But his existence changed when Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi came into his life. Very renowned director, “when I see him, the image of a mature, solid man appears to me. “I decide to stop and with him we plan to have a child.” Paredes rebuilt his life with Isasmendi. Together they had their only daughter, María, who decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps in the world of cinema.
Actress Marisa Paredes with her daughter, María Isasi
The couple, however, did not last. Six years later they would go their separate ways. “María was born the year Franco died; From the window I heard the screams of the ultras,” he would explain years later. And for Marisa Paredes, reality was always very present. His was the story of many, although not all managed to shine at his level. She was a diva who never wanted to be.
Already separated from Isasmendi, The actress rebuilt her life with Chema Pradowho was director of the Spanish Film Library. He spent the last years of his life with him. A calm and mature existence in which Marisa never stopped working. He was one of those breeds that no longer exist.
A life full of memories with Chema Prado
The couple settled in one of the most iconic buildings in the capital, Torres Blancas. A building located on Avenida de América that has also served as the setting for more than one film. “It was a really fun time,” the actress confessed to ‘AD’ magazine. “There was a very good restaurant on the top floor where, occasionally, because it was very expensive, we would ask them to prepare our food and it would arrive through the dumbwaiter. It was all magical and so mysterious.”
“I arrived in Madrid in 1970, visited the building and saw other works by the architect, whom I admired. In the year 80 I was able to rent an apartment on the 21st floor and I settled there,” Prado explained to the aforementioned publication. The couple filled the 120-square-meter apartment with memories. Many were from Marisa, from her filming, from her photographs, from the life she had been leading during the Madrid Movida and long after.
They didn’t hesitate to open the doors of their house so they could photograph her. Their lives were public yet private. They always kept it that way. They were in the front row although knowing that there was much more behind them. Teachings that were also transmitted to María, the actress’s daughter.
The hardest blow for Marisa Paredes
In 2017 Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi died. The film director died from pneumonia and left his children inconsolable. Both to María and to those he had previously had. There began a legal battle between them over the distribution of the filmmaker’s inheritance. “The distribution of the house, the refuge of the famous filmmaker where he lived the last years of his life, did not satisfy all parties equally,” they pointed out from the ‘Vanitatis’ portal.
The family home in Ses Salines, where Isasmendi spent the last years of his life in Ibiza, became the subject of dispute. María Isasi and Marisa Paredes filed a judicial claim a new distribution between the three brothers. The older sister was not registered on the island so it was understood, from the version of the actress’s daughter, that she was not eligible for the distribution of the family home.
The lawsuit reached the Supreme Court, as indicated in various media in 2021, and was expected to be long and complicated. It was, without a doubt, the worst drink the actress had to face in the last years of her life. The tireless fight with her daughter for her parents’ inheritance. María’s relationship with her brothers, children of Isasmendi and his first wife, was never the same again. Although in the last farewell to the film director they did appear united.
The loss of Marisa Paredes leaves her daughter completely devastated. To her and everyone who was by her side in recent years. A respected and beloved actress, the expressions of affection towards her from colleagues and friends have been constant since the news broke early this sad Tuesday.
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