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Interview
marcela topor - 5 March 2017 2.00 h

'The girl off the telly'

Teresa Gimpera Each Wednesday evening El Punt Avui Televisió airs the series of interviews, Catalan Connections. Marcela Topor recently talked to the actress and symbol of the 1960s, Teresa Gimpera.
- marcela topor
You need no in­tro­duc­tion, you were a sym­bol of the Gauche Di­vine pe­riod and one of the most pop­u­lar ac­tresses in the 1960s.
I have been very lucky, but my ca­reer was all a co­in­ci­dence. I got mar­ried at 20 to es­cape from fam­ily, a co­in­ci­dence with many women of my age; we all mar­ried very young, just to be free. It was very dif­fi­cult in those times for a woman to be free. In the 1960s I started mod­el­ling by chance. My hus­band was work­ing at the Seix i Bar­ral pub­lish­ing house, and a friend pho­tog­ra­pher was there and took a photo of me, and au­to­mat­i­cally, I started doing thou­sands of pho­tos for com­mer­cials. In a few years, I be­came more pop­u­lar on TV than Franco him­self, I was the chica de la tele. I had three lit­tle boys at the time and they didn't feel very com­fort­able with peo­ple stop­ping and recog­nis­ing me on the street. I was so pop­u­lar that cin­ema di­rec­tors started to offer me parts in films. My first film was Vi­cente Aranda's Fata Mor­gana.
How did you find adapt­ing to the cin­ema?
Ter­ri­ble, I had a com­plex about it, be­cause my pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence was sell­ing a prod­uct. The first week of shoot­ing, I re­mem­ber we were in plaça Sant Jaume with lots of peo­ple around, and I felt so in­se­cure and un­com­fort­able, I asked how much it would cost me to leave the film, be­cause I felt I couldn't do it. But I couldn't af­ford it, so I stayed.
You've done 155 films so far, that's some­thing.
Yes, be­cause of my phys­i­cal at­trib­utes I had a lot of of­fers. Some­times my in­tel­lec­tual friends asked me why I was ac­cept­ing them, and I would an­swer: “If I don't do these films, will you pay me every month?” And now when I see some of these films, I re­alise it was the his­tory of Spain, es­pe­cially the con­flicts be­tween gen­ders, how men treated women in those times.
But a time comes when you de­cide to stop.
The last film had too many ex­plicit scenes. The di­rec­tor told me he would cut them but he didn't, and that was the last straw. So I went to Begur to set up a restau­rant with my sec­ond hus­band, Craig Hill. I had never cooked in my life but I bought a book by Paul Bo­cusse; I would spend a day to mak­ing one dish, but it was a big suc­cess. I spent five years there. It was a great time.
But you didn't give up film com­pletely. Ac­tu­ally, you have just done your first com­edy with Ven­tura Pons.
One day for lunch I told him, we've known each other for so many years, but never worked to­gether, I wanted to do a com­edy, and he of­fered me this com­edy as a pre­sent, Oh, quina joia!, I have a sense of hu­mour, but they never saw me like that, and that brought in other pro­jects.
Ac­tu­ally you play your­self, it's like your own bi­og­ra­phy.
We had a lot of fun, Ven­tura shoots very fast and I had a long script to learn and I had a re­ally good con­nec­tion with the main actor, my nephew in the film.
After that, you shot a short film with Manel Ciu­rana.
He is a ge­nius, the script and music were very good, and I play a posh lady liv­ing and work­ing in a spa, that's why it's called the Lady of 2012.
Then you re­leased Los del Túnel, in Madrid.
My part is very small but very chal­leng­ing, very long hours of film­ing in the dark and cold, but a great ex­pe­ri­ence. Every­one gets stuck in a tun­nel after an ac­ci­dent, and the in­ter­est­ing part is what hap­pens in­side and the re­la­tions be­tween the peo­ple.
What's your re­la­tion­ship with Eng­lish?
Thanks to my hus­band Craig. We met in 1965 in Italy while shoot­ing a film, and I had my prej­u­dices about Amer­i­can ac­tors, but he was just the op­po­site, kind and re­spect­ful. I al­ways say: falling in love with a beau­ti­ful woman is easy, but falling in love with a woman with three sons not just any man would ac­cept that. I learnt Eng­lish mostly by ear. I re­mem­ber the first time I went to Cal­i­for­nia I cried be­cause I found it so dif­fi­cult.
What about pro­jects?
If some­thing ap­peals, I do it, but I've worked a lot al­ready. I'm tired of this pro­to­col of image. In nor­mal life I don't use any make up, only lip­stick and sun­glasses, al­though peo­ple still recog­nise me. But you never know, my life is con­stantly chang­ing. They offer me parts of old ladies, but even with make up I don't give that image, and I'm 80!
What's your se­cret?
There is none! Peo­ple have no idea what I'm re­ally like. I like cook­ing, doing the house­work, doing petit point, I am very homey, noth­ing to do with so­phis­ti­ca­tion and glam­our. I have four grand­sons and four great grand­sons. I have lots of pro­jects but not enough time, like writ­ing a book, but not mem­oirs, be­cause I am very hon­est and I now some­body would be hurt, and I don't want that.
Which is the film you are most proud of?
I feel so lucky for being in El es­pir­itu de la Col­mena, one of the best films ever and one every­one should see be­fore dying.
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