| La Chelito | |
|---|---|
 Portela-Audet in the early 20th-century | |
| Born | Consuelo Portela Audet 1885 Placetas, Las Villas, Cuba |
| Died | 20 November 1959(1959-11-20) (aged 73–74) Madrid, Spain |
| Other names | Consuelo Portela-Audet, Consuelo Portela, La Bella Chelito |
| Occupation(s) | Cuplé singer, business person |
Consuelo Portela Audet (1885–1959), commonly called La Bella Chelito and La Chelito, was a Cuban-born Spanish cuplé singer from the early 20th-century, and a theater business owner. She was a pioneer in the genre of picaresque cuplé.
Biography
She was born in Placetas, Las Villas, Cuba, to Spanish parents Antonia Audet and Isidro Portella. Her father was the captain of the Civil Guard in Cuba. She started singing at the age of 14, while living in Cuba and performed at the Payret, Molino Rojo and Alhambra theaters. She had critics including clergy, who labeled her as “libidinous satan” in the Diario de la Marina, the Cuban newspaper.
In 1910, her family returned to Spain. She performed mostly in the theaters in Barcelona and Madrid. In 1915, an erotic novel about the life of Chelito was written by Joaquín Belda in the work "La Coquito"; which was later made into a 1977 film of the same name, released in Spain. Her only film appearance was in the silent film El Conde Maravillas (1927) by José Buchs.
After she retired from stage in 1928, she built and managed the Muñoz Seca Theater in Plaza del Carmen, Madrid in 1930. She also owned and managed the Salón Madrid; the Hall Encomienda, which became, after a reform, the Teatro Nuevo; and the Kursaal that she acquired in 1919 and renamed the Chanteclair.
Other notable "Queens of cuplé" were La Fornarina and Raquel Meller.
References
- "Review: The Plan". Cineuropa. Retrieved 2022-09-23.
- ^ "Consuelo Portella Audet". Real Academia de la Historia (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-09-23.
- "Consuelo Portella Audet". El País (in Spanish). 2006-05-05. ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
- "LA CHELÍTO y su época". Archivo ABC (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain. November 28, 1959. p. 14. Retrieved 2022-09-23.
- ^ "Chelito, la bella cantante de cuplé que dio calabazas a un rey de España por el amor de un cubano". Todo Cuba (in Spanish). 2018-05-08. Retrieved 2022-09-23.
- Anastasio, Pepa (2016). "Erotismo feminista en España 1910-2015: Del dildo de la Chelito al posporno de De La Puríssima". Letras Femeninas (in Spanish). 42 (1): 37–54. doi:10.14321/letrfeme.42.1.0037. ISSN 0277-4356.
- Aguilar, Carlos (2014-10-30). Guía del Cine (in Spanish). Ediciones Cátedra. p. 1192. ISBN 978-84-376-3332-9.
- Fernández, Tomás; Tamaro, Elena (2004). "Biografia de La Bella Chelito" [Biography of La Bella Chelito]. En Biografías y Vidas, la enciclopedia biográfica en línea. Retrieved 2022-09-25.