SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- Although she has been away from Cuban screens for 20 years, Caribbean people continue to recognize and admire Flora Pérez for the trail of talent and good memories left by her presence on Cuban television and theater.
Although she left Cuba 19 years ago to join her son in the United States, Flora Pérez, a native of Guane, Pinar del Río, has transcended as one of the best Cuban actresses of all time in theater, film, and television.
Flora started in television when he was studying at the National School of Art (ENA). At that time, he began in the program Making Pathsdirected by Carlos Alegre, as revealed in an interview with the actor and announcer Abel Alvarez.
“I worked with many admired directors, such as Abel Ponce. And with actors Enrique Almirante, Jorge Villazón, Ernesto Tapia, Toni Cortés. I worked with many actors, especially in Day and nightwhich was a program that paralyzed all of Cuba. I have great memories of these programs, because I was practically the founder of Day and night”.
Flora Pérez, after making a solid career in Cuba, emigrated to the United States around 2005, illegally, and entered that country through the southern border. In the United States, Cubans still remember her.
“I came through the border, and about a week after being here, I went to a furrier’s and immediately two women looked at me and said, ‘Oh, I know you from somewhere.’” Then the two women gave her 11 pairs of shoes, an anecdote that Pérez now tells with a smile.
“That happens to me every day. Even in Atlanta, we lived in Atlanta, Georgia, for years and even there people recognized me.”
In Los Angeles, where he has lived, he also thanked the solidarity of the Cubans. “The Cuban community here is large, it is not very large unlike the one in Miami, but there is still that solidarity, because it is a much older exile, they arrived here around the 60s, approximately. Cubans always help each other,” he said.
In Miami, where she currently lives, and despite being a talented actress, she has not had many acting opportunities. In that city, three years after arriving, she did some commercials to promote medicines.
“They called me from Giant Saturday Like two or three times and they treated me so kindly, Don Francisco called me to the dressing room and wanted to welcome me to the program, there were three times that I went to Sábado Gigante,” he said.
In that space, he said, he participated on some occasions. He also acted in a scene in Eva Luna“I am very sorry because they knew about my career as an actress in Cuba and it was a small scene. But there are no small scenes. Even if it is just a snack, I am grateful.”
She has only been invited to perform in the theatre on one occasion – when she was unable to attend. “I don’t think it’s because the directors, few or many, who are directing here in Miami are unaware. They do know that I am here, but they haven’t invited me. I don’t feel that interest yet,” she lamented.
In the interview he reviewed his experience in adventure series, especially in The little champions. When she returns to Cuba for a visit, she is immediately recognized for her role as Bienvenido’s mother in that series.
“Ah, look who’s here, the mother of Bienvenido, the pitcher from Las Villas,” he recalled, about the adventure he recorded with Willy Franco in 1989.
“I haven’t heard from that boy for many years. I left him studying at ISA, the Higher Institute of Arts. When he recorded with us, he wasn’t an actor, but later he started acting at ISA. Very talented.”
In a recounting of her youth, Pérez narrated her journey to become one of the most talented Cuban artists.
She always liked to sing. She started in a quartet in third grade and continued like that until one day in high school, when the directors of her school told her that a jury from the Pinar del Río School of Art would come to recruit her. However, at that time she had opted for medicine.
Although she insisted that she would later aspire to a career in Medicine, she applied and a few weeks later, she received a telegram with good news that she had entered the ENA.
Pérez left his hometown for the first time. When he arrived in Havana, “Beatriz Valdés took me to Coppelia, to Coppelia. We stood in line and she told me about the dishes there, a salad, a banana split, and I didn’t even know what she was talking about, since I was from Havana. For me, salad was tomato, lettuce and cucumber.”
With their generation they managed to create a group that, although small, was very close-knit. Jorge Villazón, Beatriz Valdés, Mabel Roche, Faustino Pérez, María Caridad Morales, Rolando Brito, among others, witnessed the birth of a career that would continue to rise.
From his friendship with Villazón he remembers the visits he made to him in Guane, when he went to Pérez’s birthplace, opened the pots, and talked with his father.
Now, far from acting but with a great career, Flora is a proud grandmother and mother and shares a little of her story, with humility, with her audience.
Follow our channel WhatsApp. Receive the information from CubaNet on your cell phone through Telegram.
