1. China Zorrilla's career took off in Uruguay in the 1950 and 1960s, later she settled in Argentina, where she lived for over 35 years and was popular on TV, theater, and cinema.
15 Facts About China Zorrilla
1. 2.
In 2008, China Zorrilla was invested Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government and in 2011, the Correo Uruguayo released a print run of 500 commemorative postage stamps dedicated to her.
3.
An artistic family, her older sister, Guma China Zorrilla, was a theater costume designer for the Uruguayan stage.
4.
China Zorrilla grew up in Paris with her four sisters.
5.
Back in her hometown, China Zorrilla made her theater debut in Paul Claudel's The Tidings Brought to Mary in 1948.
6.
China Zorrilla received critical acclaim for her performances in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker and in Hay Fever as Judith Bliss.
7.
China Zorrilla toured Buenos Aires, Paris, and Madrid, where they won the Spanish Critics Award for their stagings of Federico Garcia Lorca's La zapatera prodigiosa and Lope de Vega in the summer of 1961.
8.
Between 1964 and 1966, China Zorrilla took a sabbatical year and lived in New York, where she worked as a French teacher and Broadway secretary.
9.
China Zorrilla's stay coincided with the civilian-military dictatorship in Uruguay, which forced her to stay abroad.
10.
China Zorrilla expressed her solidarity by protecting and helping Uruguayans flee the dictatorship.
11.
China Zorrilla performed in plays by Jean Cocteau, Lucille Fletcher, Oscar Viale, and fellow countryman Jacobo Langsner who wrote several plays for her.
12.
China Zorrilla reprised one of her theater earlier successes, the part of Judith Bliss in Hay Fever.
13.
China Zorrilla adapted, directed, and produced plays and musicals: Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters, Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men, Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear and Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers.
14.
China Zorrilla performed in Summer of the Colt, Maria Luisa Bemberg's Nobody's Wife, The Jewish Gauchos, the coproduction The Plague, Edgardo Cozarinsky's Guerriers et captives, Manuel Puig's "Pubis Angelical", Adolfo Aristarain's Lasts Days of the Victim, and in the Argentine black comedy Esperando la carroza.
15.
China Zorrilla died on 17 September 2014 from pneumonia in a hospital in Montevideo, Uruguay, aged 92.