Queta Lavat, woman full of experience

Along with film and television, Queta Lavat also stood out on stage and her debut was with the actor Jorge Mistral, with whom years later she would share scenes in cinema in The right to be born (1952), at the Teatro Arbeu, with Spanish works such as Don Mendo's revengeby Pedro Muñoz Seca.

He worked nine years in a row with Enrique Rambal at the Teatro del Músico with a repertoire of Spanish works. Additionally, in the IMSS theaters, she starred The inspector generalby Nikolai Gogol; The bourgeois gentlemanby Molière; The human beastby Émile Zola, among many more.

He also worked with Manolo Fábregas and Silvia Pinal in the work let's get divorcedat the Teatro de los Insurgentes, and in the musical Ring, ring, love callsat the Forest Theater.

“I feel that theater is a wonderful school. It gives you a lot of ease, security and it is beautiful, because you are feeling that what you are doing, in a comedy style, people are having fun, or are sorry for you. The reaction and response of the public is beautiful,” she said in an interview for TV UNAM, in 2018.

His most recent work is in January 2018, when he starred in Conversations with mom, along with the actor Jesús Ochoa, at the Teatro 11 de Julio. In it, she recreated the mother of a man over 50 years old, who, due to financial problems, suggests selling the place where she lives, which reveals the secrets of the octogenarian woman, who is in a relationship with a man 11 years younger. Of such a premiere, she told this newspaper at the time:

“It is a real treat, because it is a little piece of life. It's what all mothers go through with their children; We always have disagreements and joys with them. Everything is beautiful in this play, we had a delicious time and I think the audience feels that way too.

“Don Jesús is a charm. He is a wonderful human being who I love very much. Theater is hard and I'm not old enough, several times I rejected it, but now, with this work, I'm happy," Queta Lavat coined five years ago.

Jesús Ochoa declared that the leading actress, then 88 years old, was “a gem. She has not been well valued on the Mexican scene and is her first star. In this story, the mother wins over the son and gets him out of her problem with a smile.”

One of the memories that the actress keeps in her apartment is the stone head of Hugo, the name of the character that her son Pablo Carrillo, a sports journalist from Image Televisionin the film The stone book (1969), by Carlos Enrique Taboada.

The piece survived the last scene of the film in which the golden statue receives a series of blows with a mallet and she decided to keep it and display it in her home, as a souvenir of her son's performance. Because Queta Lavat was a wife, she is the mother of four children (Pablo, Armando, Teresa and Enrique) and an actress at the same time.

In the interview for TV UNAM, in 2018, for the broadcast Being a woman in Mexican cinemahosted by Karina Gidi, Lavat emphasized about her different roles.

“As for my children, I had four, I had a wonderful mother-in-law and a divine mother. So, either one or the other helped me. My husband (Armando Carrillo Ruiz) was a cinematographer too, he was a technician, and he always agreed, because he was in one studio and I was in the other. Also, he met me at the cinema, in the movie The Pearl, which was the second film I made. Finished The schoolgirls and María Elena Marqués told me 'now we are going to Acapulco to film, a divine movie', with Pedro Armendáriz, Gabriel Figueroa and Indio Fernández, the staff," he recalled.

“I got married when I was 23 (years old) and it gave me time to make a lot of films, I went from one film to another, fortunately. (My cousin) she told me 'I already got you in, now you know whether you come back or not, it depends on you.' And so yes. Fortunately, film after film, (I was) very lucky and a great recommendation, which was my job,” she noted.

This is how she took stock of her role as a woman at the beginning of her career, breaking the customs of only dedicating herself to her family.

“Although my parents supported me and were fascinated by going to see my movies, my mother accompanied me and, when she couldn't, an aunt. She went with someone, especially if it was a location. I had to make a movie, very young, The Lady of the Dawn, in 1950, which I did in El Salto in San Luis Potosí. The cast was Emilio Tuero, María Douglas, Beatriz Aguirre, Andrés Soler and I played a little role there, of a teacher, very nice. So I went to the location there, because it was with a chaperone, not alone. It wasn't until I was three or four years into filmmaking that I was already on my own," shared the winner of the Distinctive Medal of the National Association of Actors (Anda) 2016, for five decades of career.

And the kisses with the actors? Queta Lavat revealed that in a scene with Luis Aguilar they had to kiss and, although it made her nervous, she managed it.

“You don't know how I suffered! It was the first time they kissed me in a movie and I was very embarrassed. And more than that, he really liked her little wine, she brought her little amphora. The first kiss and smell of mezcal! If they are going to kiss you, they kiss you and go ahead. Several gave me my kisses, but they were respectful, because poor them,” she said.

And age as an actress, does it matter? “Most of my colleagues don't want to go through 40, 50, or even 70. They want to stay young and that's where we screw them up. I have all the years in the world and I am very happy. My little wrinkles are experiences, but not all of us think like that,” she concluded.

in dubbing

She lent her voice to the Spanish dubbing of Katharine Hepbrun in films such as The Farsante, The African Queen and Adam's Rib. She also did it for Susan Hayward in Tomorrow I'll Cry and David and Bathsheba, while in the film The Satanic Dr. No she gave voice to Moneypenny and in The Return of Agent 007, to Colonel Rosa Klebb.

As for series, she was the voice of Anna Maria Verdugo in El Zorro (1957); and in Star Trek, she had different characters. She was also the voice of Miss Rottenmeier in the anime series Heidi, in 1974; Ultra Sonic, Super's wife, in the Jetsons cartoon series and was Sayuri in Agent S-5. She also played Mafalda's mother in the Mexican dubbing version of the Argentine animated series.