Monang Carvajal was a Filipina film actress best known for her roles in thriller and horror movies. She was dubbed as "The Queen of Horror Pictures".

Biography

Carvajal was born in Manila

Manila

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

 in 1898, the daughter of sarswela

Zarzuela

Zarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...

 actors. By the age of four, she was appearing on stage, appearing alongside her parents. In her teens, she was touring the bodabil

Bodabil

Bodabil was a popular genre of entertainment in the Philippines from the 1910s until the mid-1960s. For decades, it competed with film, radio and television as the dominant form of Filipino mass entertainment. It peaked in popularity during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines from 1941 to 1945...

 circuit together with Manuel Silos

Manuel Silos

Manuel Silos is an award-winning Filipino film-maker from the 1920s through the 1950s. He began his career by making silent movies together with his brothers. As a bodabil actor and comedian, Silos used the stage and screen name Santo Tulia...

 as a comedy duo known as "Monang & Sano". Silos would later become a prominent film director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

.

Carvajal made her film debut in 1920, in the silent film El Trust de los Tenorios. Soon, she found herself frequently cast in horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

s, often as a monster, a witch (mangkukulam) or some other supernatural being. Along her roles in this vein were in such films as Sumpa ng Aswang (1935), Gamu-Gamong Naging Lawin (1937),
Halimaw (1941), and Malaya, Mutya ng Gubat (1948).

Carvajal was also adept as a film comedian as well, appearing in comic roles in Ay Monang (1939),
Victory Joe (146), and Principe Amante (1950). In 1962, she would be nominated for a FAMAS Best Supporting Actress award for her role in El Filibusterismo

El filibusterismo

El filibusterismo , also known by its English alternate title The Reign of Greed, is the second novel written by Philippine national hero José Rizal. It is the sequel to Noli Me Tangere and like the first book, was written in Spanish. It was first published in 1891 in Ghent, Belgium...

, Gerardo de Leon

Gerardo de León

Gerardo de León was a Filipino actor turned film director, who made his acting debut in the 1934 film Ang Dangal....

's film version of Jose Rizal

José Rizal

José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda , was a Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reform in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is regarded as the foremost Filipino patriot and is listed as one of the national heroes of the Philippines by...

's second novel. Thirty two years earlier, Carvajal had appeared in a silent film version of Rizal's first novel, Noli Me Tangere

Noli Me Tangere (novel)

Noli Me Tangere is a novel by Filipino polymath José Rizal and first published in 1887 in Berlin, Germany. Early English translations used titles like An Eagle Flight and The Social Cancer, but more recent translations have been published using the original Latin title.Though originally written in...

.

Carvajal maintained an active film career until nearly the end of her life, appearing in Mga Bilangong Birhen (1977). She died from cancer at Cardinal Santos Medical Center in June 1980.

Family

Her brothers, Jose Carvajal and Alfonso Carvajal, as well as her daughter Perla, her granddaughter, Baby Delfino, and great-granddaughter, Alma Concepcion, all had careers as actors in the Philippines' film industry.

Monang Carvajal's son Ernesto and grandson Maurice were film make-up artists who specialized in prosthetics.

Filmography (sound films)

• 1930 – Noli me Tangere
• 1932 – Sa Labi ng Lumang Libingan
• 1933 - Ang Aswang
• 1933 - Doctor Kuba
• 1934 - X3X
• 1935 - Himala ni Bathala
• 1935 - Sumpa ng Aswang
• 1937 - Gamu-gamong Naging Lawin
• 1940 - Hali
• 1941 - Mariposa
• 1941 - Panibugho
• 1941 - Binibini ng Palengke
• 1941 - Manilena
• 1941 - Halimaw
• 1941 - Palaris
• 1941 - Serenata sa Nayon
• 1946 - Ligaya
• 1947 - Si Juan Tamad
• 1947 - Maling Akala
• 1947 - Oh, Salapi!
• 1948 - Malaya (aka Mutya sa Gubat)
• 1949 - Gitano
• 1950 - Doctor X
• 1954 - Dalaginding
• 1954 - Dambanang Putik
• 1954 - Mabangong Kandungan
• 1955 - Tagapagmana
• 1955 - Indian Pana
• 1956 - Anak Dalia
  Child of Sorrow (film)
  Child of Sorrow is a 1956 Philippine crime film directed by Lamberto V. Avellana. The film was selected as the Philippine entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 29th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee...
  
  
• 1961 - The Moises Padilla Story
  The Moises Padilla Story
  The Moises Padilla Story is a 1961 Philippine drama film directed by Gerardo de León. The film was selected as the Philippine entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 34th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee...
  
  
• 1976 - Mga Bilanggong Birhen

External links