Just ten years ago, on February 27, 2011, he passed away Amparo Muñoz; He was then 56 years old and left behind a filmography available to very few, with his name associated with that of some of the best directors of the time: Carlos Saura, Vicente Aranda, Antonio Giménez-Rico, Jaime Chávarri and Fernando León de Aranoa, among others, to which should be added that of the prestigious producer Elías Querejeta.

Likewise, she had a brilliant career in beauty pageants and achieved what had never been achieved until then by a Spanish woman, the Miss Universe award, an achievement that, 30 years later, she paradoxically remembered with terror. Like any person, she also had her shadows, amplified by the curiosity of being a beautiful woman turned into a painful broken toy.

In November 2005, a few years before his death from illness at age 56, the Granada-born journalist Miguel Fernández signed, together with Amparo Muñoz herself, the book “Life is the price”, in which he recounted in first person his life without give up tackling some of the more shady issues she was involved in.

After reading these reports, what can be inferred is that he had very bad luck in life, that he lived very closely the hell of drugs and that it was frequently objectified for its beauty; in fact, the main desire of directors and producers was to show her naked in front of the camera, however gratuitous it might be, as can be seen in some films. The first foray into a filming by Victoria Fonseca, former director of the Andalusian Film Library and a doctor in Audiovisual Communication, was in “Act of Possession”, starring the woman from Malaga. “One of my first tasks within the management team, being a woman, was to“ convince ”Amparo Muñoz of the nudes, almost integral, that she had to carry out. She refused to do so stubbornly and I, through a slow but firm approach, pointed out the sad reality: she was hired for her body. In the end, he agreed, demanding, of course, that only two or three technicians were in the filming of those sequences … naive demand never met, when more than ten were needed. “

Amparo Muñoz Quesada was born in Vélez-Málaga on June 21, 1954 and her main dream was to be an actress but, aware of her difficulty, she longed to start a family and, at most, he aspired to be able to travel and meet people, as he recounts in his memoirs. She also recalled that she did not intend to direct her steps towards those beauty pageants that became so popular in the 70s, but the director of the newspaper “Sur” encouraged her to present herself to the Miss Costa del Sol newspaper. That award meant leaving her beloved Malaga in 1973 not to return until three decades later, “ill and disoriented, lying on a mattress, in a minivan” and with the threat of a serious brain tumor, as reflected in his memoirs.

After win the title of Miss Spain, where he met Chicho Ibáñez Serrador, member of the jury, received the first offer to work in the cinema from the hands of producer José Luis Dibildos. Together with José Luis Garci, who was still a screenwriter, he wrote “Vida conyugal sana”, with Ana Belén and José Sacristán at the helm of the cast. The role of Amparo Muñoz was quite testimonial but sufficient for that first contact with someone who longed to dedicate himself to the cinema.

Vicente Aranda offered him a larger role in “Clara is the Price”, which led to sharing the screen with the person who was in a sentimental relationship at the time, Máximo Valverde. In the book he recalls the good memories of that shoot, especially thanks to Aranda, who “kept repeating that the camera had fallen in love with me. Vicente knows how to create a very pleasant atmosphere among his actors, he made the task easy for me. With him I discovered another way to love cinema. Except for Fernando León de Aranoa, I have not been so comfortable with any director ”.

On the contrary, he was not in good tune with Juan Luis Galiardo, who closed the third protagonist and with whom he would coincide again, two decades later, in “Familia”.

Not yet six months had passed when a new proposal arrived, “Tocata y fuga de Lolita”, also produced by Dibildos but with Antonio Drove as director and Arturo Fernández as a co-star. All three were shot before the decisive event in Manila, where the film would be settled in July 1974. winner of Miss Universe; Aware of the publicity involved, the producers pinned their hopes on this award for a better launch of the titles.

What was supposed to be a dream turned into a nightmare which led her to resign the throne, the first to do so, just six months after being crowned. Strenuous days, eternal trips, fainting spells, absolute control and even plans to kidnap her, he says, accumulated until they led to his drastic decision, which led to threats and retaliation among other negative consequences, such as not receiving a single cent of the prize. As he recalls in his memoirs, as soon as the storm passed, he signed an exclusive contract with a production company with which he did not shoot, “they never found the right movie”; she somehow related it to the warning they gave her not to go back to work if she gave up her title. Or, to put it in a more graphic way and in his own words: “I measured the forces with a giant. And I wasn’t David ”.

After this parenthesis, his first film was the anodyne “Sensualidad”, in which he shared the bill with Fernando Fernán Gómez, one of his favorite actors. Nor does he keep very good memories of this film, especially because of the harassing attitude of its director, Germán Lorente, who was about to be fired for this reason; much to Amparo Muñoz’s despair, he had to reject another with Carmen Sevilla, which led to a demand from the producer.

Eloy de la Iglesia offered him to star in “The other bedroom”, with whom he would end up marrying after three months of engagement, Patxi Andión, who had started his acting career shortly before after making a name for himself as a singer-songwriter. Another well-known filmmaker, Javier Aguirre, brought them together again in a minor film, the previously mentioned “Act of Possession”, based on the story “Two mothers” by Miguel de Unamuno and probably the least fortunate of his adaptations. The echoes of the milestone reached in Manila were increasingly distant, but the offers continued to reach him as the protagonist, as in “Del amor y de la muerte” by the recently deceased Antonio Giménez Rico, who more than 40 years later continued to have words of praise for her: “her job was not that of an actress, but she had talent; With a little preparation and more filming, she would have been a hell of an actress: She had a raw natural talent and she was wonderful to work with; She stood out for her photogenic and personal charm, you put the camera in front of her and you were left with your mouth open”.

It was also at the end of the 70’s when he met the producer Elías Querejeta, a decisive person both in his life and in his career. The best stage of her life then began, as she herself recalled in her memoirs: she took part in two of her next productions, “Mamá cumple 100 años”, by Carlos Saura, with whom she did not get along much, and “Dedicatoria”, by Jaime Chávarri. In between, he shot in Mexico the co-production “El gambler”, which was to be the first of four planned, but his passage through the Aztec country was the beginning of a long period of professional and personal decline, from which it would be difficult for him to leave, with Minor works except for a few cases in which it was directed by Pilar Miró, Fernando Méndez Leite, Jaime Camino and Emilio Martínez-Lázaro.

In her last stage as an actress, she was able to alternate productions by relevant directors such as Imanol Uribe and Jaime Chávarri with other more insubstantial works. However, two promising debuts stand out from this period, the risky “Fotos” by Elio Quiroga and, especially, “Familia”, directed by Fernando León de Aranoa. For many it is one of her best works and where she reached a maturity worthy of praise as an actress. Unfortunately, he did not receive any more offers of this nature and his movie star faded away with minor roles until he fell ill and died.

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