César Lucas and the Film Academy save the photos that helped build the legend of the actress and singer from Malaga
Many of the images of Marisol that César Lucas created nearly 60 years ago could be published in a magazine today as if they were taken a few days ago. The magnetic beauty of Pepa Flores, the freshness of her smile and the enigma of her gaze survive in the nearly 40 images exhibited by the experienced photographer at the Film Academy. It is a tribute to the actress and singer from Malaga who decided to get away from the spotlight when she was still at the top, and who is still a living legend, a queen of cinema and the song that no one has been able to sing dethrone.
On the program until the end of July is the exhibition ‘The glow of a myth’ with 39 images, some unpublished, of the more than six hundred by Marisol who cherish the precious archive of César Lucas (Cantiveros, Ávila, 1941). During a prodigious decade for Marisol, from 1963 to 1973, Lucas photographed her for countless reportages and in all kinds of places: from the beaches of Malaga and Cádiz to those of Brazil, or in the studios and sets where he forged his legend with films such as ‘ Tómbola’, ‘Cabriola’, ‘An Angel Has Arrived’ or ‘Carmen’.
“I was lucky enough to be alive with a lot of events in that wonderful, exciting, exciting, and full of new publishing decade,” says Lucas. For his images, he remembers Marisol as ‘a very special being’. “She was beautiful, serious, professional and affectionate, but at times she seemed sad, perhaps because she was aware that her childhood had been crushed,” the photographer recalled.
Today he has no contact with her and he regrets and understands that she did not answer the phone. But in those happy years they enjoyed a flowing stream of sympathy and complicity, hardly exchanging words to get the fantastic pictures that time has not tarnished. “She knew what she could give me and what I wanted to ask her. She was pure naturalness, charm and appeal to the camera,” says Lucas, who portrayed a beautiful Marisol for countless magazine and record covers “at the rate of two or three reports a month.”
“It was hard to get it wrong and I don’t have a single bad memory of that time,” emphasizes Lucas, whose photos are the result of mutual trust. “She knew I would never betray her, and vice versa,” says the photographer, who started shooting her when she was 14 and would do her historic nude for ‘Interviú’. An image not in the exhibition, captured in 1970 and published in 1976, which revolutionized the market and marked an era. “My legs were shaking and I was having a worse time than her,” Lucas confessed at the time. “We greet each other; I told him where to stand. He undressed. He picked up the flower. and click. There was almost no pose. It was seen and unseen,” he said of a “quick and easy” recording.
Today, Lucas knows that with his photos he helped build “a myth that still lives and that no one has replaced”.
“Time praises or buries photos and you are Marisol’s could be published today, even though some are 60 years old. They are very topical,” says Sylvie Imbert, responsible for the selection and curatorship of the exhibition that came about when Marisol received the Goya de Honor in 2020.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
