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Watch video Pena, penita, pena (1947)María Dolores Flores Ruiz was born on 21 of January in 1923 in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz). Singer, dancer and actress, she passed on to the posterity with her artistic name of Lola Flores, although she is sometimes known as
La Faraona.
As a child she already danced and sang in her father´s tavern, Pedro Flores, and before she was twelve she was recognised as a dancer in the Flamenco atmosphere of Jerez. She sung pieces by Concha Piquer and Estrellita Castro, the last one being the great idol of Lola.
In 1939, at 16, she debuted in the Teatro Villamarta of Jerez de la Frontera with the show "Luces de España" (“Lights of Spain”), the leading dancing partners formed by Rafael Ortega and Custodia Marchena and the guitarist Melchor de Marchena.
Lola Flores sung
Bautizá with Manzanilla.
In 1958 she married the guitarist Antonio González Batista,
El Pescaílla, who had three children, all recognised figures in the singing world: Dolores, better known as
Lolita Flores,
Antonio Flores and
Rosario Flores. She was also linked up to
FC Barcelona Gustavo Biosca.
Of strong presence, between 1939 and 1987 starring in diverse films, where she usually played the role of a gypsy. In 1962 she received the Lazo de Dama de Isabel la Católica (Dame Ribbon from Isabel the Catholic) and in 1967 was awarded with the gold medal for the Círculo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Circle).
She died in her home of El Lerele in 16 May of 1995 at the age of 72. The cause of her death was breast cancer that was diagnosed in 1972. Her chapel of rest is in the Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid (Cultural Centre in the Villa of Madrid), in Plaza de Colón.