Sara García Hidalgo (8 September 1895 – 21 November 1980) was a Mexican actress who made her biggest mark during the "Golden Age of Mexican cinema". During the 1940s and 1950s, she often played the part of a no-nonsense but lovable grandmother in numerous Mexican films. In later years, she played parts in Mexican telenovelas.
García is remembered by her nickname, La Abuelita de México ("Mexico's Grandmother").
Life and career
1895–1917: Childhood
Sara García Hidalgo was born on 8 September 1895 at Orizaba Veracruz. Her parents were Andalusian, Isidoro García Ruiz, an architect, and his wife Felipa Hidalgo de Ruiz in 1895. They moved from Havana, Cuba. to Veracruz. Her father was hired for various jobs there. Sarita was the only survivor of their eleven children.
In 1900, a storm caused the Santa Catarina river (which separated the family house from Sara's school) to overflow and knock down the bridge that crossed it. The children could not return to the other side of the river until the evening. Don Isidoro believed that he had lost his only daughter. The anguish caused him to suffer a stroke days later. Doña Felipa decided to sell her business, a papier-mâché factory, and travel to Mexico City to intern her husband into the Sociedad de Beneficencia Española de México (Spanish Welfare Society of Mexico). He died shortly after arriving. However her mother was contracted as the housekeeper there.
At age 9, Sara entered the prestigious Las Vizcaínas school as an intern. In 1905 a typhus epidemic invaded Mexico. Sara became infected and infected her mother Felipa, who died. She remained in the charge of the director of the institution, Cecilia Mallet,. Her good behavior and excellent grades allowed García to stay in school. The director of Las Vizcaínas noticed her great sensitivity and artistic inclination and directed her into painting. She also became a teacher and she had her students perform plays.
1917: Film debut in silent films
Sara started her film career at age 22 when she was still a teacher. One day she decided to stroll by the Alameda and discovered the newly founded Azteca Films studios. She was curious, and came in. She was fascinated by everything she saw. From that moment she thought that she could also act, even if it was only in the theater. One day, watching Mimi Derba filming, (the first Mexican film diva,) an actor and official of Azteca Films noticed her curiosity and invited her to participate in what would be her first film En defensa Propia "In self-defense" (1917). After that she began auditioning in the theater where she started getting small roles. Her diction and voice gave her prestige and she became part of the most outstanding companies of that time: Mercedes Navarro, Prudencia Grifell and the sisters Anita and Isabelita Blanch. In one of her tours throughout the Mexican Republic, she met Fernando Ibáñez, whom she had seen during the filming of "La soñadora" (1917).
1918–1947: Golden Age of Mexican cinema and La Abuelita de México
In 1918, she married Fernando Ibáñez. They toured throughout Mexico and Central America, until at a stop in Tepic, she gave birth to a girl, whom they named Fernanda Mercedes Ibáñez García. Sara decided to take care of her daughter, and stopped touring. Her absence bothered Fernando, who began to get involved in several affairs, then became entangled with the head of the company. Sara divorced her husband and left with her daughter. Years later her ex-husband became sick, and returned home. Sara cared for him, even paying his expenses, until his death in 1932. Established firmly in the theater, she began to be called to work in the cinema. Her daughter Fernanda also ventured into the cinema with the movie "La madrina del diablo" (1937) in which she played Jorge Negrete's girlfriend. Outside the sets, Negrete courted her, though Sara disapproved. The romance ended abruptly and the following year (1938) Fernanda married the engineer Mariano Velasco Mújica, leaving to live in Ciudad Valles, Tamaulipas. A little more than two years later Fernanda became ill with typhoid fever and died on October 17, 1940. Due to her strong personality Sara survived her daughter 40 years.
García would later continue her extensive career in film and sacrificed her beauty when she decided, at the age of 40, to have her teeth removed so that her mouth would look like that of an older woman. She thought that thus she would be able to star as self-sacrificing ladies and better personify the roles they gave her.