THE actress Pepa Flores from Málaga is 77 on February 4. She is known throughout Spain and Latin America as ‘Marisol’.
You’ve probably done it. You turn on the telly at the weekend, and on a Spanish channel you’re greeted by the face of a very young and very pretty girl, belting out a song at a glass-shattering level of decibels. The film is over-bright, over-lit and in gaudy colour. It’s from the 1960s and impossibly optimistic in tone. Welcome to Marisol.
Pepa Flores, the young actress who ‘became’ the phenomenon known as Marisol, was born in Málaga city (where she still lives) on February 4, 1948. She took the role of Marisol for the first time in 1960, in a film called, “Ray of Light” (Rayo de Luz). Her parents had signed a “lifetime exclusive” contract with the Spanish movie producer Manuel Goyanes, and the 12-year-old Pepa became an overnight sensation: highly admired, very rich, and deeply unhappy.
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In the 1960s, the public was not as cynical as it is today. People were easily manipulated into accepting – indeed, enthusing over – ‘concepts’ that showbiz barons dreamt-up in order to grab our money (think of The Beatles, “Goldfinger”, “Thunderbirds”). There were Marisol dolls, Marisol T-shirts, Marisol lipsticks … she made 20 films and in 1985 (just in time to work with a very young malagueño called Antonio Banderas), she walked away from fame and money, never to return – at least not as Marisol.

Recently, Pepa has explained why she turned her back on stardom.
Rumours have long circulated that unnamed managers, wanting her to remain child-like because ‘the little girl with the big voice’ was their gravy-train, injected her with chemicals to hinder the onset of puberty. It now transpires that Pepa suffered far more abuse than that!
“They took me to a chalet so they could see me naked,” she says, pointing out that her ‘minders’ made sure that she stayed separated from her parents, alone and friendless. Though they might have enjoyed her nakedness in private, her team was anxious to keep her looking child-like. If there was any possibility of the public glimpsing her, they flattened her breasts by wrapping her tightly in bandages beforehand.
Travelling from location to location, she says she was forced to share a bed with ‘Encarna’, a much older woman, who used to beat her up. And Encarna had no compunction about allowing men into the shared bed. “It’s so ironic,” says Pepa today, “They wanted Marisol to be a beacon of pure virginity, an emblem of Franco’s Christian nation, and all the time the abuse was going on behind the cameras. I learned more about sex in Encarna’s bed than I’d ever have known if I’d stayed in school.”
Disgusted with the Spanish media in general, Pepa refused to attend the 2020 Goyas (Spain’s domestic version of the Oscars), where she was supposed to receive a lifetime achievement award.
As early as 1961, Columbia Pictures recognised Pepa’s talent and tried to buy out her Spanish contract, but Manuel Goyanes refused to part with her. “To him I was just a business asset,” she says. As soon as she could, Pepa stopped taking new projects, and swore never to play ‘Marisol’ again.
As a young adult in the 1980s she went back to using her real name, Pepa Flores, and started appearing in the kind of films she had always wanted to make – movies with Andalucían themes, and plenty of flamenco dancing (“Blood Wedding”, “Carmen” and “The Trial of Mariana Pineda”). It was during the shooting of these productions that she met and danced with the love of her life, Antonio Gades. She and the flamenco star had three children together. Gades died in 2004.
Today, in her 70’s, Pepa lives quietly in the centre of Málaga. She has no wish whatsoever to return to the bright lights of showbusiness. “It’s curious,” she says, looking back philosophically. “They wanted to showcase my ability, but the only way they could think of to treat me ended by turning me against it all.”
The Olive Press wants to take the occasion of her birthday to wish Pepa happiness, fulfilment and a long life.