Jose Luis Picon |
Málaga (EFE) this Wednesday, International Women’s Day, to pay tribute to the artist.
A plaque placed at number 10 Calle Refino in Málaga, where that humble corralón was, adds to the recognition received by Pepa Flores, separated from public life of her own free will.
“My sister is very grateful for this but she is not going to come, obviously. She likes all these things that they do to her because they are recognition of her career and her work, ”said Vicky Flores, Pepa’s sister, who attended the unveiling of the plaque.
Despite having won awards such as the Goya de Honor in 2020, Vicky assures that this plaque is the “most emotional” tribute that Pepa has received because she spent “the happiest time of her life” in this place.
In the corral that existed here, “with two patios and their corridors”, lived sixty families “in an example of coexistence and solidarity”, so that life developed within its walls as if it were “a town”.
“The children played in the yard and they wouldn’t let us go outside just to go to school,” a center that has since disappeared, Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús, located near where the Picasso Museum is now.
The family lived in this place until Vicky was 14 years old and Pepa, at 12, “already began to be Marisol”, because the fame she achieved allowed them to “improve their standard of living”.
“My parents didn’t want to go to a super-fantastic place then, but to something where we felt comfortable and comfortable with what we had and what we were,” he explains.
He also remembers that when his sister was tested to work in the cinema “the producer came and told the neighbors that he invited them to the Echegaray cinema, and all the neighbors went to see Pepi’s tests”, as they knew then her sister.
But even before achieving fame as Marisol, the residents of the corralón were aware of the art that Pepa treasured since her father “organized some magnificent theaters in which the girl danced and sang, because as a girl she was a whirlwind.”
“Everyone collaborated by putting up curtains, and when the priest came to give last rites to a sick neighbor, the doorways were painted and the sheets were removed, and this was an example of coexistence and solidarity.”
Vicky Flores considers that “it was time” for a plaque to be placed in the place where her sister was born because “she is the person who has taken Málaga and Spain around the world the most and still has fan clubs in Russia, Japan, in China or Greece, but no one is a prophet in his land.
Pepa, who lives in the Malaga neighborhood of La Malagueta, turned 75 last February and “the whole world has celebrated it, but not her”, jokes Vicky, who assures that they have been “always very close”.
The event was also attended by Tamara Esteve, daughter of Pepa Flores, who revealed that her mother has in her house “a ceramic that says Calle Refino, number 10, with two jasmines and two geraniums”, so, “although all the awards make him very excited, this is very symbolic ”.
This is corroborated by Vicky, who is sure that it will not take her sister many days to pass anonymously through the place to contemplate the plaque that remembers the place where she was happiest.
“In this house we were born and from here she came out as Marisol. Our parents told us that when they asked us where we lived, we should answer: At Refino Street, number 10, to serve God and you”.
