Mecha Ortiz

Mecha Ortiz (née María Mercedes Varela Nimo Domínguez Castro; 1900–1987) was a classic Argentine actress who appeared in films between 1937 and 1981, during the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema. At the 1944 Argentine Film Critics Association Awards, Ortiz won the Silver Condor Award for Best Actress for her performance in Safo, historia de una pasión (1943), and won it again in 1946 for her performance in El canto del cisne (1945). She was known as the Argentine Greta Garbo and for playing mysterious characters, who suffered by past misfortunes in love, mental disorders, or forbidden love. Safo, historia de una pasión was the first erotic Argentine film, though there was no nudity. She also played in the first film in which a woman struck a man and the first film with a lesbian romance. In 1981, she was awarded the Grand Prize for actresses from the National Endowment for the Arts. Early life and background María Mercedes Varela Nimo Domínguez Castro, known as Mecha was born 24 September 1900. Until she was 29, Mecha, was married to a farmer and was busy being a wife and mother. She had enrolled for acting classes in the Conservatorio Nacional de Música y Declamación (National Conservatory of Music and Speech) in the inaugural class under the direction of Carlos López Buchardo and Enrique García Velloso. This first class of 1926, which included Ortiz, Miguel Mileo and Paulina Singerman, among others, sought to teach acting using a standardized manual. When her husband was thrown from a horse and had a serious back injury, she took a job in the prosecutor's office, refusing help from her well-to-do family. Her sister, Amanda Varela, was an established actress and got her a screen test with Paramount Studios of France. She was selected but no films were made, so her sister introduced her to a friend, influential film critic Chas de Cruz, who helped her find work. Career She began her entertainment career as a supporting actress in the Rivera-De Rosas Theatre Company of Enrique de Rosas. She debuted on stage with El Proceso de Mary Duggan, by Bayard Veiller on 20 June 1929, at the Ateneo Theater. In 1933, she was in the production of Mirandolina by Carlo Goldoni which was put on by the Theater Company of Antonio Cunill Cabanellas. Also in 1933, she appeared in Corine with Guillermo Battaglia, Nedda Francy, Miguel Faust Rocha and Iris Marga at the Odeón Theater.