The Zaragoza was hungry in his childhood and, although he earned a lot of money as an actor, he always bought in installments
'The price of laughter', a documentary that dismantles topics about Paco Martínez Soria
Although the cinema gave him fame and fortune, Paco Martínez Soria was a man forged on the boards. It even came to represent works by Shakespeare and Molière. In this way he could leave behind the misery of a country mired in famine. The disorderly verbiage of the only male son of the actor, Francisco (85), a Cistercian monk in the monastery of Poblet (Tarragona), sheds light on the origins of the comedian: "Between four and six years we went hungry at home and we we hid in the shelter when Franco's planes bombed the city . " The Civil War had broken out.
Born in 1902 in Tarazona (Zaragoza), where his father ran a hardware store that ended in red numbers , with five years he emigrated to Barcelona, where his father was assigned after approving the oppositions for police. How ironic! Six decades later he would star in The City is not for me (1965), his favorite movie and the one that would make him immortal at 24 frames per second . "My father trained in the Claretians, made representations of the shepherds, began as an amateur in the l'Artesà workers' association ...", recalls his son.
There, in Barcelona, he met Consuelo Ramos , whom he married and had three other daughters, Natividad, Consuelo and Eugenia, who have not been available for this report. The whole family settled in the old part of the Gracia neighborhood , cradle of the Catalan rumba.
"Dad worked at a German iron and pipe company and my mother in insurance at City Hall with Tarradellas. But the war broke out, the Reds did not love the Germans and my father remained unemployed . He dedicated himself to caring for his children. while my mother worked. And then, to try to avoid starving, we returned to Zaragoza for a while, "he says.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his classic Grandfather made in Spain (directed by Pedro Lazaga), LOC takes off his beret and puts on his glasses to portray Paco , "a very serious man who instilled so much respect that everyone called him a gift . the theater had two others, Don Enrique Borrás and Doña Lola Membrives, "says Father Paco.
Back in Barcelona, in 1941 a friend from Barcelona left 7,500 pesetas to form his own theater company. "At the beginning he did not fill the theaters and he traveled all over Spain," says his son. Three pesetas the chair! , because at that time the seats of the theaters of provinces were not armchairs, but chairs. After paying off the debt, and starting to earn money, he preferred to rent an apartment to live instead of buying it : "When I was 12 years old we moved to Calvet Street [in the area they lived long after Samaranch or Tita Cervera] to a floor of 500 pesetas a month and in 1952, as my older sister wanted to get married, my parents left that floor and we moved to a more elegant attic in Balmes with Miter [noble zone] for 1,000 pesetas per month. They spent many years there until they could build the house of Cabrera de Mar ".
In that house on the coast of Barcelona, his grandson Quique Iglesias (43), a sports journalist at COPE, keeps an indelible memory: "He liked firecrackers so much that he was going to buy them from Argentona and together with the whole family we rode spectacular verbenas . It was his way of bringing us all together. " At the moment, in one of the houses of that farm his eldest daughter lives and "the biggest one, with two floors and an elevator where my parents lived, was sold, filled with squatters and later the bank covered her, " the ecclesiastical son confesses.
In spite of the great fame that he achieved with the cinema (he worked in about 40 films), "the humble origin of his family had it very marked and was not done with greatness. Everything he paid in installments , even second-hand cars He got along great with the waiters, the service girls and the taxi drivers, to whom he gave huge tips, "says his son, who also doesn't remember luxuries :" He didn't invest in jewelry and flats like Sara Montiel. He had the Cabrera estate. of Mar, two cars and the theater. Nothing more. I wasn't so millionaire, but I was happy. " However, his biographer, Javier Lafuente, who published The gift of laughter , clarifies that "he was not a beating with a beret and was richer than his son can remember. He was a great businessman, scrupulously honored and paid social security to all his employees while others just did it by word. " But when Paco bought the Talía theater in the Parallel he went into debt again . After his death, the family sold him and today is a field full of rats .
Monk Paco says that thanks to what his father learned on stage he could be a better servant of God: "My father was very meticulous. During rehearsals he used to say: 'No, no, he does not do well. Pronounce, speak more clearly, pause, words have a soul , you have to speak so that the one in the last row can hear you. So I learned to preach thanks to him and I taught him to bless when he made a cure in Bethlehem was assembled (1970) ". And he adds: "Yes, when he spoke, he always had his pussy in his mouth (giggles)."
Inside the door, Martínez Soria took off his mask and acted as patriarch . His offspring states that "in private I never heard him tell a joke. He was short-spoken , serious, Aragonese, familiar, very demanding and while eating, he read the newspaper." But when was it funny? "Oh, friend! When someone approached him while he ate dinner or ate at a restaurant, then he changed his face, made a grace and we thought: 'Look, it's like that for those outside.' " In the family, no one inherited his artistic vein, with the exception of his granddaughter Natalia, "but the poor woman had psychological problems and ended up committing suicide in Zaragoza, " Father Paco whispers.
VERY GENEROUS
The great former Vedette of the Parallel Lita Claver La Maña treasures unforgettable memories. He met the actor when he came to see her while she was on tour with a company of comedians: "He had great charisma, a mischievous look and was very generous. He sent us an envelope with 50,000 pesetas when we paid tribute to Johnson [the first gay showman of Spain in full Franco] in El Molino to raise funds for a very elder and deaf sister of the artist. " It was the early 80's. His kindness was legendary: "It was an easy tear when he got excited . He did a lot of charity with Alady or Mary Santpere , the only actress who came home because Dad had no friends among the actors or used to go to events, I also remember that when I was rector of a school, he bought us an organ of 200,000 pesetas and if the church benches were badly damaged, he would send the theater carpenters. "
Gabriel Lechón and Pablo Urueña, creators of the only documentary about his figure entitled The price of laughter , say that "he always helped younger actors, but the entertainment world is full of very large egos and Don Paco knew it. someone made him shadow suggested that he say other lines of the script . "
Don Paco died alone in the room of the Colón hotel in Madrid in 1982. He was in the capital rehearsing Keep the secret, Lucas! work that never got to release, because a heart attack took it . He is buried in Cabrera de Mar, where his wife also rests, who died six years later.
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