Carmen Barajas Sandoval
Encyclopedia
Carmen Barajas Sandoval (born Mexico City, May 18, 1925) is a Mexican aristocrat
, film executive producer
, bestselling author and internationally known socialite
, famous for her Mexican and international films and later in her life, by her biographies of stars such as María Félix
and Jorge Negrete
.
Her mother was a descendant of Charles Louis Escoffier, Count of Bragny, a member of the House of Bourbon-Montpensier
. He was a director of the Royal Academy of Surgery
and personal physician to Louis XVI of France
. During the French Revolution
(1789–1799), Bragny left France and settled in Campeche, Campeche
, Viceroyalty of New Spain.
His father was the grandson of Fernando De Barajas Y De Fernán Nuñez, Count of Barajas.
The family home was located in the premises that today holds Mexico city's Stamp Museum.
After a few years, the family moved to the new and luxurious neighborhood called "Chapultepec Heights" now known as " Lomas de Chapultepec" where the family house still exists.
At a very young age she met Jorge Negrete
and became a very close friend of the actor's family. When Carmen was 15 years old, she asked him to give her a summer job as his assistant and immediately fell in love with the cinema industry where she worked for the vast majority of her life, working mostly as a producer.
Due to this friendship, and to her important career in the film industry, Carmen became friends with some of the most important people in Mexican Show Business, such as María Félix
, Dolores del Río
, Miroslava and Pedro Infante
. She was responsible for introducing the later to Jorge Negrete and therefore helped launch Infante's career.
In 1947, she married Luis Alfonso Lavalle but the marriage ended in divorce only six years later.
Carmen was related to 84 productions both in Mexico and internationally, working in the executive production department at Matouk Films and in 1960, she founded, along with some friends and family members, a company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films. They made several productions among we can count Batalla en el paraíso (A Battle in Paradise), A la sombra del Sol (In the Shadow of the Sun) & Vagabundo en la lluvia (Stranger in the Rain), Tiburoneros (Shark Hunters), Tlayucan
& Tarahumara. These films were a huge success and won several international prizes, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
in 1962 and the Palme d'Or
award at the Cannes Film Festival
in 1964 for Tarahumara.
After this, Carmen became a respected personality in the film industry and became a member at the Council of the Mexican Academy of Film.
Later in her life, along with her sister Edelmira, she created an haute couture
atelier
that quickly became a success in Mexico. Her creations were considered to have the same high quality as any European designer. International stars such as Sylvia Koschina, Christa Linder, and Angélica María
wore her creations on several premieres and red carpets around the world.
Nevertheless, the partnership with her sister ended a few years leater and Carmen ultimately closed the atelier
Due to her close relationship with France, and her efforts to improve the diplomatic affairs between France and Mexico, in 1986 Carmen received the Légion d'honneur
from President François Mitterrand
at the Élysée Palace
.
During this time, this group made several and important contributions to help abused women both in Mexico and internationally.
"The feminist struggle is the most important one in history ever" said Carmen who tells impressive numbers about abused women along history, both in her country and the world in her autobiographical book Gracias a la vida.
"I will never stop fighting to help anyone who is abused and discriminated" says Carmen who is also a passionate defender of the rights of homosexuals, Colored and the Jewish people's rights, and believes that every person has the duty of doing likewise.
"We cannot consider ourselves as civilized people until every form of discrimination has been eradicated. Women have been abused and discriminated for thousands of years because men believed we were second class humans. Even today in the 21st century, people in some countries still have the stupid idea that having a baby girl as a first born is a misfortune and let the baby die. This abomination has to be eradicated before anyone can call themselves as civilized.
I also have said over and over again that everyone has a right to love and be loved, and nobody on this earth has the right to tell anyone that their love for another human being is morally wrong just because they happen to be persons of the same sex. I also believe that no one can discriminate anybody just because they happen to worship a god who has a different name, or to humiliate or abuse someone just because they have a different skin tone, a different nationality or a different culture... It's vital we understand that we humans inhabit this tiny planet together and if we are to survive, it will have to be together, or not at all.
In the end antiblack, antifemale, antigay and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing - antihumanism.""
Carmen is also a defender of capital punishment against rapists and killers and, along with her feminist group changed Mexican legislation in order to apply stronger punishment against violence towards women.
. In her autobiography Gracias a la Vida she tells how she became friends with some of the most important people in Mexico's show business, politics, presidents and multimillionaires.
Among her pretenders we can count Hollywood producer Ben Reyes, and Hollywood star Charles Korvin
.
Among her closest friends you can count some of the most important and influential people in Mexico.
Some of her international friends are: Dolores del Río
, Frank Sinatra
, Yves Montand
, HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
, Baron Alexis de Rédé
, Johannes, 11th Prince of Thurn and Taxis, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Jacques Gelman
and his wife Natasha, Baron Richard Di Portanova, Count Paul of Ganay, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Shah of Iran, and his wife ex-Empress Farah Diba, Baron Philippe de Rothschild
, the prominent French actor Gérard Philipe
, Baron Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt von Cramm, Prince David Mdivani, Count Curt Heinrich Eberhard Erdmann Georg von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow, Prince Pierre Raymond Doan, Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild
, Luis Buñuel
, Jean Renoir
, Liliane Bettencourt
and producer Luis Alcoriza
.
Carmen's imposing and flamboyant personality soon became famous among the show business personalities of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, her hard work got noticed quite soon and in 1951, at the age of 26, producer Antonio Matouk included her in his executive production team for a Buñuel movie called Los olvidados. Both Buñuel and Matouk were so impressed by young Carmen's hard and efficient work that she became the most important person in Matouk's team who immediately signed her as her principal executive producer.
Her cinema career spanned for 36 years. During this time she was related to 84 productions, mostly as executive producer but also in the overall production and distribution of the films as well. "Movies are magical, they can make you dream, they can make you laugh or cry or even take you into the future or the past, the movie industry is undoubtedly the ultimate dream factory"
Along her career Carmen worked with some of the most important stars, directors and producers of her time such as: Luis Buñuel, Jean Renoir, Emilio Fernández
, Ismael Rodríguez and particularly with Luis Alcoriza with whom she shared a long life friendship and with whom she made the vast majority of her films.
Among the movies she made, some were later included into the 100 best in Mexican history ever list, mostly the ones she made with Alcoriza and Buñuel, such as Los Olvidados, Él, La Cucaracha, El Ángel Exterminador, Tlayucan, La Ilusión viaja en Tranvía, Dos tipos de Cuidado, El Esqueleto de la Señora Morales, Tiburoneros & Doña Perfecta.
In the early 1970s, she partially retired from the industry, mostly because she thought that the movies that were made around that time had no quality whatsoever. "It is very sad to see the decline of the cinema that was once considered as the most important one in the Spanish speaking world. I my time, we cared about art, about making intelligent and inspiring movies with great productions and great stars, in the '70s , producers and directors only cared about how much money they could make, and, since sex it's a proven formula to sell anything, they focused on making cheap movies that only depicted prostitutes that were having soft core porn with third class comics and actors. This movies were indeed an economic success, but were the kind of movies that never stood the test of time, since people forgot them as soon as they left the movie theatre. No great stars ever participated in such movies nor any great star came from one of them. What this movies really were is poison to the once great Mexican movie industry."
In 1974, director Miguel Delgado offered her a large sum of money in order to work with him in a movie called Las Ficheras, but she refused, stating that she rather stay home than work in a piece of trash. "I don't need the money- said Carmen- I work for art. It will be an insult to all the great producers, directors and stars with whom I had the privilege to work with if I now decide to participate in such a disgrace." Carmen, however, did returned sometimes to make movies in the 1970s, all of them with friend Luis Alcoriza, because she thought that even if this movies had a sexual content, the stories did not focused on sex. Finally, in 1982, she made her last movie called Tac, Tac, han violado a una mujer, in Spain, again with Alcoriza. This movie had a strong feminist theme and won the "Critics Award" at Cannes Film Festival, and Carmen decided that this movie would be the perfect ending of her long career. Today Carmen says that Mexican cinema is slowly recovering from those "Annus Horribilis" although she still believes there's a long way to run. "There are some good stories out there, and good actors too, in recent years I've seen some great movies such as El Callejón de los Milagros, Conejo en la Luna, El Crimen del Padre Amaro or Arrancame la Vida I really do believe that if they continue to make this high quality films we will one day regain our prestige.... I hope to still be around to see it."
... aka Han Violado a una Mujer (Spain)
... aka Presage (International: English title)
... aka Agente Secretisimo (Mexico: poster title)
...aka There's a Stranger in the Rain (International: English title)
... aka The Door and the Woman of the Butcher
... aka Jôgo Perigoso (Brazil)
... aka Always Further On (International: English title)
... aka The Gangster (International: English title)
...aka In the Shadow of the Sun (International: English title)
...aka Safo 63 (International title)
... aka The Shark Hunters (International: English title)
...aka The Exterminating Angel (International: English Title)
... aka The Pearl of Tlayucan"
... aka Kill Yourself, My Love (International: English title)
... aka Young People (International: English title)
... aka Stray Bullet (US)
... aka "Skeleton of Mrs. Morales (US)
...aka La fièvre monte à El Pao
(France)
...aka The Soldiers of Pancho Villa (International: English Title)
... aka Death in the Garden (US)
... aka Evil Eden
... aka Gina (US)
... aka La Muerte en el Jardín (Mexico)
... aka The Diamond Hunters (UK)
... aka The Innocent (International: English title)
... aka The River and Death (US)
... aka Untouched (US)
... aka Illusion Travels by Streetcar (US)
... aka This Strange Passion (US: reissue title)
... aka Torments"
... aka Don't Be Offended Beatrice (International: English title)
... aka The Brute
(International: English Title)
... aka Overdoing It (International: English title)
... aka Daughter of Deceit (US)
... aka The Forgotten Ones (International: English title: literal title)
... aka The Young and the Damned"
... aka El rancho de la discordia (Mexico: subtitle)
... aka Adorables Rebeldes (Mexico)
... aka The Great Madcap (US)
... aka Nocturne of Love (International: English title)
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
, film executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
, bestselling author and internationally known socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
, famous for her Mexican and international films and later in her life, by her biographies of stars such as María Félix
María Félix
María Félix was a Mexican film actress and one of the icons of the golden era of the Cinema of Mexico and also one of the myths of the Spanish language Cinema for her life style and personality...
and Jorge Negrete
Jorge Negrete
Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno is considered one of the most popular Mexican singers and actors of all time....
.
Family
She was born Maria Del Carmen Barajas Y De Sandoval Paullada in Mexico City, Mexico. Her parents were Lorenzo Barajas and Edelmira Sandoval Paullada Escoffier.Her mother was a descendant of Charles Louis Escoffier, Count of Bragny, a member of the House of Bourbon-Montpensier
House of Bourbon-Montpensier
The House of Bourbon-Montpensier or Maison de Bourbon-Montpensier was a semi royal family. The name of Bourbon comes from a marriage between Marie de Valois, comtesse de Montpensier who married Jean de Bourbon - the duc de Bourbon...
. He was a director of the Royal Academy of Surgery
Académie Nationale de Médecine
Académie Nationale de Médecine, or National Academy of Medicine was created in 1820 by king Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the institution was known as the Académie Royale de Médecine...
and personal physician to Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
. During the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
(1789–1799), Bragny left France and settled in Campeche, Campeche
Campeche, Campeche
San Francisco de Campeche is the capital city of the Mexican state of Campeche, located at,...
, Viceroyalty of New Spain.
His father was the grandson of Fernando De Barajas Y De Fernán Nuñez, Count of Barajas.
Biography
Carmen was born on May 18, 1925 in Mexico City as a member of an old and aristocratic family from French and Spanish origins. She was the first born of a total of the 4 children that Edelmira De Sandoval Y Paullada Escoffier and Lorenzo Barajas y De Fernán Nuñez had.The family home was located in the premises that today holds Mexico city's Stamp Museum.
After a few years, the family moved to the new and luxurious neighborhood called "Chapultepec Heights" now known as " Lomas de Chapultepec" where the family house still exists.
At a very young age she met Jorge Negrete
Jorge Negrete
Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno is considered one of the most popular Mexican singers and actors of all time....
and became a very close friend of the actor's family. When Carmen was 15 years old, she asked him to give her a summer job as his assistant and immediately fell in love with the cinema industry where she worked for the vast majority of her life, working mostly as a producer.
Due to this friendship, and to her important career in the film industry, Carmen became friends with some of the most important people in Mexican Show Business, such as María Félix
María Félix
María Félix was a Mexican film actress and one of the icons of the golden era of the Cinema of Mexico and also one of the myths of the Spanish language Cinema for her life style and personality...
, Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
, Miroslava and Pedro Infante
Pedro Infante
José Pedro Infante Cruz , better known as Pedro Infante, is the most famous actor and singer of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema and is an idol of the Latinamerican people, together with Jorge Negrete and Javier Solís, who were styled the Tres Gallos Mexicanos . He was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa,...
. She was responsible for introducing the later to Jorge Negrete and therefore helped launch Infante's career.
In 1947, she married Luis Alfonso Lavalle but the marriage ended in divorce only six years later.
Carmen was related to 84 productions both in Mexico and internationally, working in the executive production department at Matouk Films and in 1960, she founded, along with some friends and family members, a company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films. They made several productions among we can count Batalla en el paraíso (A Battle in Paradise), A la sombra del Sol (In the Shadow of the Sun) & Vagabundo en la lluvia (Stranger in the Rain), Tiburoneros (Shark Hunters), Tlayucan
Tlayucan
Tlayucan is a 1962 Mexican comedy film directed by Luis Alcoriza and based on a novel by Jesús Murciélago Velázquez. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-Cast:* Julio Aldama as Eufemio Zárate* Norma Angélica as Chabela...
& Tarahumara. These films were a huge success and won several international prizes, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
in 1962 and the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
award at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in 1964 for Tarahumara.
After this, Carmen became a respected personality in the film industry and became a member at the Council of the Mexican Academy of Film.
Later in her life, along with her sister Edelmira, she created an haute couture
Haute couture
Haute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
atelier
Atelier
Atelier is the French word for "workshop", and in English is used principally for the workshop of an artist in the fine or decorative arts.Atelier may also refer to:* The Atelier Method of art instruction...
that quickly became a success in Mexico. Her creations were considered to have the same high quality as any European designer. International stars such as Sylvia Koschina, Christa Linder, and Angélica María
Angélica María
Angélica María Hartman Ortiz is an Mexican-American actress and a Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter. She is a legendary entertainer and is known as La Novia de Mexico .-Early life:...
wore her creations on several premieres and red carpets around the world.
Nevertheless, the partnership with her sister ended a few years leater and Carmen ultimately closed the atelier
Due to her close relationship with France, and her efforts to improve the diplomatic affairs between France and Mexico, in 1986 Carmen received the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
from President François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
at the Élysée Palace
Élysée Palace
The Élysée Palace is the official residence of the President of the French Republic, containing his office, and is where the Council of Ministers meets. It is located near the Champs-Élysées in Paris....
.
Feminism and anti-discrimination struggle
In 1975, Carmen was invited by her cousin, Anilú Elias Paullada to a feminist conference. From the first moment she became a passionate feminist and joined the (Women's National Movement).During this time, this group made several and important contributions to help abused women both in Mexico and internationally.
"The feminist struggle is the most important one in history ever" said Carmen who tells impressive numbers about abused women along history, both in her country and the world in her autobiographical book Gracias a la vida.
"I will never stop fighting to help anyone who is abused and discriminated" says Carmen who is also a passionate defender of the rights of homosexuals, Colored and the Jewish people's rights, and believes that every person has the duty of doing likewise.
"We cannot consider ourselves as civilized people until every form of discrimination has been eradicated. Women have been abused and discriminated for thousands of years because men believed we were second class humans. Even today in the 21st century, people in some countries still have the stupid idea that having a baby girl as a first born is a misfortune and let the baby die. This abomination has to be eradicated before anyone can call themselves as civilized.
I also have said over and over again that everyone has a right to love and be loved, and nobody on this earth has the right to tell anyone that their love for another human being is morally wrong just because they happen to be persons of the same sex. I also believe that no one can discriminate anybody just because they happen to worship a god who has a different name, or to humiliate or abuse someone just because they have a different skin tone, a different nationality or a different culture... It's vital we understand that we humans inhabit this tiny planet together and if we are to survive, it will have to be together, or not at all.
In the end antiblack, antifemale, antigay and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing - antihumanism.""
Carmen is also a defender of capital punishment against rapists and killers and, along with her feminist group changed Mexican legislation in order to apply stronger punishment against violence towards women.
Social life
Carmen has been well known among the Mexican and international jet setJet set
"Jet set" is a journalistic term that was used to describe an international social group of wealthy people, organizing and participating all around the world in social activities that are unreachable to ordinary people...
. In her autobiography Gracias a la Vida she tells how she became friends with some of the most important people in Mexico's show business, politics, presidents and multimillionaires.
Among her pretenders we can count Hollywood producer Ben Reyes, and Hollywood star Charles Korvin
Charles Korvin
Charles Korvin was a film and television actor. The Piešťany, Hungary-born actor moved to the United States in 1940 after studying at the Sorbonne. Korvin made his stage debut on Broadway in 1943 using the name Geza Korvin...
.
Among her closest friends you can count some of the most important and influential people in Mexico.
Some of her international friends are: Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Yves Montand
Yves Montand
-Early life:Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, the son of poor peasants Giuseppina and Giovanni Livi, a broommaker. Montand's mother was a devout Catholic, while his father held strong Communist beliefs. Because of the Fascist regime in Italy, Montand's family left for France in...
, HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
The Duke of Kent graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on 29 July 1955 as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Scots Greys, the beginning of a military career that would last over 20 years. He was promoted to captain on 29 July 1961. The Duke of Kent saw service in Hong Kong from 1962–63...
, Baron Alexis de Rédé
Baron Alexis de Rédé
Alexis Dieter Rudolf Oscar von Rosenberg, 3rd Baron de Redé was a prominent aristocratic aesthete, collector of French 18th-century furnishings and decorative arts, and socialite both in European circles and in New York. It was not generally realized that he was writing his memoirs...
, Johannes, 11th Prince of Thurn and Taxis, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Jacques Gelman
Jacques Gelman
Jacques Gelman was a producer of Mexican films.Gelman was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. During the 1920s, he worked as a still photographer in European motion picture studios, and became a distributor of French films. He arrived in Mexico just before the outbreak of World War II, and as a...
and his wife Natasha, Baron Richard Di Portanova, Count Paul of Ganay, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
Shah of Iran, and his wife ex-Empress Farah Diba, Baron Philippe de Rothschild
Philippe de Rothschild
Baron Philippe de Rothschild was a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty who became a Grand Prix race-car driver, a screenwriter and playwright, a theatrical producer, a film producer, a poet, and one of the most successful wine growers in the world.-Early life:Born in Paris, Georges Philippe...
, the prominent French actor Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe was a prominent French actor, who had appeared in 34 films between 1944 and 1959.-Career:...
, Baron Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt von Cramm, Prince David Mdivani, Count Curt Heinrich Eberhard Erdmann Georg von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow, Prince Pierre Raymond Doan, Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild
Marie-Hélène de Rothschild
Marie-Hélène de Rothschild was a French socialite who became a doyenne of Parisian high-society and was a member of the prominent Rothschild banking family of France....
, Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
, Liliane Bettencourt
Liliane Bettencourt
Liliane Bettencourt is a French heiress, socialite, businesswoman and philanthropist. She is one of the principal shareholders of L'Oréal and, with a fortune estimated at US$23.5 billion, is one of the wealthiest people in the world.-Biography:...
and producer Luis Alcoriza
Luis Alcoriza
Luis Alcoriza de la Vega was a respected Mexican screenwriter, film director, and actor. His 1962 film Tlayucan was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.- Screenwriter :...
.
Cinema career
Carmen first contact with the cinema industry was in 1940. She was then 15 years old and a friend of her family who worked in the business offered her a summer job as a script girl. From the very first moment, she fell in love with the making of films and returned every time she had vacations from school. She was eager to learn everything she could and was soon known for being the first one to arrive into the set and the last one to leave at night. Her desire to be in that world led her to ask her friend and neighbor Jorge Negrete, for a job. He gladly took her under his wing and he hired her as his assistant. Carmen was determined to learn as much as she could from every aspect of a production. She was known for going around the set asking questions to everyone she ran into. After 5 years of working with him, Negrete help her by including her as production assistant in his friends' movies.Carmen's imposing and flamboyant personality soon became famous among the show business personalities of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, her hard work got noticed quite soon and in 1951, at the age of 26, producer Antonio Matouk included her in his executive production team for a Buñuel movie called Los olvidados. Both Buñuel and Matouk were so impressed by young Carmen's hard and efficient work that she became the most important person in Matouk's team who immediately signed her as her principal executive producer.
Her cinema career spanned for 36 years. During this time she was related to 84 productions, mostly as executive producer but also in the overall production and distribution of the films as well. "Movies are magical, they can make you dream, they can make you laugh or cry or even take you into the future or the past, the movie industry is undoubtedly the ultimate dream factory"
Along her career Carmen worked with some of the most important stars, directors and producers of her time such as: Luis Buñuel, Jean Renoir, Emilio Fernández
Emilio Fernández
Emilio "El Indio" Fernández was an actor, screenwriter and director of the cinema of Mexico. He is best known for his work as director of the film Maria Candelaria which won the Grand Prix at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.-Early life:Fernández was born in Mineral del Hondo, Coahuila...
, Ismael Rodríguez and particularly with Luis Alcoriza with whom she shared a long life friendship and with whom she made the vast majority of her films.
Among the movies she made, some were later included into the 100 best in Mexican history ever list, mostly the ones she made with Alcoriza and Buñuel, such as Los Olvidados, Él, La Cucaracha, El Ángel Exterminador, Tlayucan, La Ilusión viaja en Tranvía, Dos tipos de Cuidado, El Esqueleto de la Señora Morales, Tiburoneros & Doña Perfecta.
In the early 1970s, she partially retired from the industry, mostly because she thought that the movies that were made around that time had no quality whatsoever. "It is very sad to see the decline of the cinema that was once considered as the most important one in the Spanish speaking world. I my time, we cared about art, about making intelligent and inspiring movies with great productions and great stars, in the '70s , producers and directors only cared about how much money they could make, and, since sex it's a proven formula to sell anything, they focused on making cheap movies that only depicted prostitutes that were having soft core porn with third class comics and actors. This movies were indeed an economic success, but were the kind of movies that never stood the test of time, since people forgot them as soon as they left the movie theatre. No great stars ever participated in such movies nor any great star came from one of them. What this movies really were is poison to the once great Mexican movie industry."
In 1974, director Miguel Delgado offered her a large sum of money in order to work with him in a movie called Las Ficheras, but she refused, stating that she rather stay home than work in a piece of trash. "I don't need the money- said Carmen- I work for art. It will be an insult to all the great producers, directors and stars with whom I had the privilege to work with if I now decide to participate in such a disgrace." Carmen, however, did returned sometimes to make movies in the 1970s, all of them with friend Luis Alcoriza, because she thought that even if this movies had a sexual content, the stories did not focused on sex. Finally, in 1982, she made her last movie called Tac, Tac, han violado a una mujer, in Spain, again with Alcoriza. This movie had a strong feminist theme and won the "Critics Award" at Cannes Film Festival, and Carmen decided that this movie would be the perfect ending of her long career. Today Carmen says that Mexican cinema is slowly recovering from those "Annus Horribilis" although she still believes there's a long way to run. "There are some good stories out there, and good actors too, in recent years I've seen some great movies such as El Callejón de los Milagros, Conejo en la Luna, El Crimen del Padre Amaro or Arrancame la Vida I really do believe that if they continue to make this high quality films we will one day regain our prestige.... I hope to still be around to see it."
Filmography
Carmen has been involved in the production of 84 films:- Tac-Tac (1982)
... aka Han Violado a una Mujer (Spain)
- Tres Mujeres en la HogueraTres Mujeres en la HogueraTres Mujeres en la Hoguera is a Mexican motion picture categorized as drama and thriller. It was filmed in 1976.- Synopsis :...
(1979) - Las Mariposas Disecadas (1978)
- Las Fuerzas Vivas (1975)
- Presagio (1975)
... aka Presage (International: English title)
- El Muro del Silencio (1974)
- Paraíso (1970)
- El Oficio Mas Antiguo del Mundo (1970)
- Trampa para un Cadáver (1969)
- ¡Persiguelas y... Alcanzalas! (1969)
... aka Agente Secretisimo (Mexico: poster title)
- Romeo contra Julieta (1968)
- Vagabundo en la LLuvia (1968)
...aka There's a Stranger in the Rain (International: English title)
- La Puerta y la Mujer del Carnicero (1968)
... aka The Door and the Woman of the Butcher
- Juego Peligroso (1967)
... aka Jôgo Perigoso (Brazil)
- 5 de chocolate y 1 de fresa5 de chocolate y 1 de fresa5 de chocolate y 1 de fresa is a 1968 Mexican film. The story involves a student at a convent who undergoes a radical transformation after consuming strange "mushrooms"....
(1967) - La Primera Comunión (1966)
- La Soldadera (1966)
- Tarahumara (Cada vez más lejos) (1965)
... aka Always Further On (International: English title)
- El Gángster (1965)
... aka The Gangster (International: English title)
- Viva Maria!Viva Maria!Viva Maria! is a 1965 comedy-adventure film starring Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau as two women named Maria who meet and become revolutionaries in the early 20th century. It also starred George Hamilton as Florès, a revolutionary leader. It was co-written and directed by Louis Malle, and...
(1965) - A la Sombra del Sol (1965)
...aka In the Shadow of the Sun (International: English title)
- El Pecador (1964)
- Amor y Sexo (1963)
...aka Safo 63 (International title)
- Tiburoneros (1963)
... aka The Shark Hunters (International: English title)
- The Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....
(1962) - El Angel Exterminador (1962)
...aka The Exterminating Angel (International: English Title)
- TlayucanTlayucanTlayucan is a 1962 Mexican comedy film directed by Luis Alcoriza and based on a novel by Jesús Murciélago Velázquez. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-Cast:* Julio Aldama as Eufemio Zárate* Norma Angélica as Chabela...
(1962)
... aka The Pearl of Tlayucan"
- Suicídate mi Amor (1961)
... aka Kill Yourself, My Love (International: English title)
- Muchachas que Trabajan (1965)
- Los Jóvenes (1961)
... aka Young People (International: English title)
- Guantes de Oro (1961)
- Bala Perdida (1960)
... aka Stray Bullet (US)
- El Esqueleto de la señora MoralesEl Esqueleto de la señora MoralesEl Esqueleto de la señora Morales is a 1960 Spanish language black comedy film based on Arthur Machen's 1927 short story "The Islington Mystery"...
(1960)
... aka "Skeleton of Mrs. Morales (US)
- La Tijera de Oro (1960)
- Los Ambiciosos (1959)
...aka La fièvre monte à El Pao
La fièvre monte à El Pao
La fièvre monte à El Pao is a 1959 film by director Luis Buñuel....
(France)
- El Hombre del Alazán (1959)
- Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe (1959)
- El Cariñoso (1959)
- Escuela de Rateros (1958)
- La Cucaracha (1958)
...aka The Soldiers of Pancho Villa (International: English Title)
- A Media Luz los Tres (1958)
- Morir de Pie (1957)
- La mort en ce jardinLa mort en ce jardinLa mort en ce jardin is a 1956 film by director Luis Buñuel based on the novel by Jose-Andre Lacour.Amid a revolution in a South American mining outpost, a band of fugitives - a roguish adventurer , a local hooker , a priest , an aging diamond miner and his deaf-mute daughter - are...
(1956)
... aka Death in the Garden (US)
... aka Evil Eden
... aka Gina (US)
... aka La Muerte en el Jardín (Mexico)
... aka The Diamond Hunters (UK)
- El Inocente (1956)
... aka The Innocent (International: English title)
- Tizoc (1956)
- El Río y la Muerte (1955)
... aka The River and Death (US)
- La Vida No Vale Nada (1955)
- Los Heroés Están Fatigados (1955)
- Sombra Verde (1954)
... aka Untouched (US)
- La visita Que No Tocó el Timbre (1954)
- La Ilusión Viaja en Tranvía (1954)
... aka Illusion Travels by Streetcar (US)
- Gitana Tenías Que Ser (1953) (story)
- ÉlÉl"Él" was the Spanish entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1982, performed in Spanish by Lucía.The song was performed twelfth on the night, following Belgium's Stella with "Si tu aimes ma musique" and preceding Denmark's Brixx with "Video, Video". At the close of voting, it had received 52 points,...
(1953)
... aka This Strange Passion (US: reissue title)
... aka Torments"
- No Te Ofendas, Beatriz (1953)
... aka Don't Be Offended Beatrice (International: English title)
- Dos Tipos de Cuidado (1953)
- La Isla de las Mujeres (1953)
- El Bruto (1953)
... aka The Brute
The Brute
The Brute is a 1953 Mexican drama film directed by Luis Buñuel and starring Pedro Armendáriz and Katy Jurado.-Cast:*Pedro Armendáriz as Pedro*Katy Jurado as Paloma*Andrés Soler as Andrés Cabrera*Roberto Meyer as Carmelo González...
(International: English Title)
- Se Le Pasó La Mano (1952)
... aka Overdoing It (International: English title)
- Carne de Presidio (1952)
- La Miel Se Fue de la Luna (1952)
- Hambre Nuestra de Cada Día (1952)
- Doña PerfectaDoña PerfectaDoña Perfecta is a 19th century realist novel by Benito Pérez Galdós from what is called the first of Galdós's three epochs in his novels of social analysis.-Plot summary:...
(1951) - Canasta Uruguaya (1951)
- Los Enredos de una Gallega (1951)
- 21. La hija del Engaño (1951)
... aka Daughter of Deceit (US)
- El Siete Machos (1951)
- Una Gringuita en México (1951)
- Si Usted No Puede, Yo Sí (1951)
- Los OlvidadosLos olvidadosLos Olvidados is a 1950 Mexican film directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel....
(1950)
... aka The Forgotten Ones (International: English title: literal title)
... aka The Young and the Damned"
- Huellas del Pasado (1950)
- Si Me Viera Don Porfirio (1950)
... aka El rancho de la discordia (Mexico: subtitle)
- Mala Hembra (1950)
- Yo Quiero Ser Hombre (1950)
- Hipólito, el de Santa (1950)
- La liga de las Muchachas (1950)
... aka Adorables Rebeldes (Mexico)
- Tú, Solo Tú (1950)
- Un Cuerpo de Mujer (1949)
- El Gran CalaveraEl Gran CalaveraEl Gran Calavera is a 1949 Mexican comedy film directed by Luis Buñuel.-Cast:*Fernando Soler ... Ramiro*Rosario Granados ... Virginia*Andrés Soler ... Ladislao*Rubén Rojo ... Pablo*Gustavo Rojo ... Eduardo*Maruja Grifell...
(1949)
... aka The Great Madcap (US)
- Los Amores de una Viuda (1949)
- Negra Consentida (1949)
- Flor de Caña (1948)
- Enrédate y Verás (1948)
- Nocturno de Amor (1948)
... aka Nocturne of Love (International: English title)
- Una Extraña Mujer (1947)
- El Ahijado de la Muerte (1946)
Books
Carmen Barajas Sandoval has published seven bestelling books:- Galileo (Editorial Continental, México, 1958) is a lightweight biography of the great physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. Out of stock.
- Chopin (Editorial Continental, México 1958) is a biography on the French-Polish virtuoso pianist and piano composer of the Romantic period. This book is considered by the Chopin Foundation as the only accurate book on the artist's life.
- Gracias à la Vida (Joaquín Porrúa Editores, México, 1986) is her autobographical book where she relates her life and the interaction she had with some of the most important and impressive people in the 1940- 1970 era.
- Una Muja Llamada María FélixMaría FélixMaría Félix was a Mexican film actress and one of the icons of the golden era of the Cinema of Mexico and also one of the myths of the Spanish language Cinema for her life style and personality...
(EDAMEX, México, 1993) is a book with an easy narrative style in which Carmen relates her longlife friendship with one of Mexico's ultimate divas. - Con el alma el un hilo (Editorial Praxis, México, 1995) is a book divided in 3 parts, each one containing a sad story of 3 unrelated women in Mexico's early 20th century. This book is now considered as a reliable document about women's life conditions in Latin American countries.
- Jorge NegreteJorge NegreteJorge Alberto Negrete Moreno is considered one of the most popular Mexican singers and actors of all time....
: Aspectos Desconocido Del Idolo Cinematografico (EDAMEX, México, 2001) is a biography of one of the most popular Mexican singers and actors of all time and the friendship they shared until Negrete's death. - Angélica MaríaAngélica MaríaAngélica María Hartman Ortiz is an Mexican-American actress and a Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter. She is a legendary entertainer and is known as La Novia de Mexico .-Early life:...
: La Novia de Mexico (Reader's Digest, Mexico, 2005) is a biography of superstar Angélica María.