MEXICAN ACTOR, POLITICIAN SALINAS DIES
Mexican actor Carmen Salinas, known for movies like “Danzon,” “Man on Fire” and “Bellas de Noche” and telenovelas and series including “Maria la del Barrio” and “Mujeres Asesinas,” has died. She was 82.
Relatives of the actor announced her death Thursday night on Salinas’ Twitter account.
“With great sorrow, we inform you that leading actress Carmen Salinas passed away today,” says the message along with a black and white photograph of the artist, thanking her fans for their support.
Salinas had been in a coma after suffering a stroke in November. Details about her funeral services would be released later, her family said.
Jocular but always affable, Salinas could go from comedy to drama with ease.
Born to a humble single mother in Torreon, Coahuila, on Oct. 5, 1939, she only went to elementary school and started her acting career as a child, in the ’50s, following into her sister Finita’s footsteps.
Salinas sang and did impersonations on the radio, and when she was a little older she participated in beauty and talent contests. Soon she began to perform in Coahuila and Mexico City venues including the famous El Patio nightclub, where she said she liked to party with actress Evita Munoz “Chachita” and actor Pedro Infante.
By the 1960s, she was appearing in telenovelas like “Casa de Barrio,” “Frontera” and “Sublime Redencion” before making her big screen debut in Roberto Gavaldon’s 1970’s “La Vida Inutil de Pito Perez.”
She also appeared in Tony Scott’s “Man on Fire,” a 2004 thriller filmed in Mexico starring Denzel Washington.
Her many TV credits also included telenovelas “Hasta que el Dinero nos Separe,” “Maria Mercedes” and in 2021 “Mi Fortuna es Amarte” and Eugenio Derbez’s series “La familia P. Luche.”
She was a member of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, for which she was elected plurinominal federal deputy in 2015, a position she held until 2018. She came to be criticized for falling asleep in a session of the radio and television commission, and she told the press that she preferred the money she earned as an actor to that as a legislator.