Ágata Lys(1953-2021)
- Actress
- Cinematographer
- Soundtrack
Actress (b. Valladolid, Spain, Dec. 3, 1953). After having studied
simultaneously Philosophy and Art and Speech (both careers remained
unfinished), she became a household name overnight as one of the pretty
and "bespectacled" hostesses of the top-rated TV contest "1, 2, 3,
Responda Otra Vez", where she popularized what was going to be her
early screen persona: platinum blonde-dyed hair, provocative ways and a
sensuality always ready to break out. She made her film debut in 1972,
at 19, and acquired an enormous popularity thanks to her tremendous
sex-appeal and a clever promotion campaign that exploited a certain
similarity between her looks and those of the late Marilyn Monroe to
the extent of making a successful movie named precisely "The New
Marilyn" (1976). She kept this image for a while (especially in her
spectacular TV appearances in the mid-70s), but eventually got tired of
it and decided to cut off her hair completely (she did it herself with
a pair of scissors borrowed from a filming kit) and let it grow its
natural dark colour again. Blonde or brunette, Lys grabbed a long
string of femme fatale roles in films of each and every genre
(thrillers, comedies, dramas, westerns, etc.) and turned into some kind
of domestic myth at that time. (She also had the advantage of owning a
fine diction that matched her thought-provoking voice perfectly, so,
unlike some other actresses of that era, she didn't need to be dubbed.)
Anyway, after leading her bold image one step further in the late 70s,
she decided to stop making films and concentrate on her theatrical
work, that she had started in 1973 playing Dª Inés de Ulloa in
Zorrilla's "Don Juan Tenorio" with her own company. In the 1980s she
focused her activity on recording music (which she did with real gusto
and vocal dexterity), performing in both musical shows and dramatic or
comic plays in which she displayed an image far removed from the one
that shot her to fame and even making more sporadic appearances on TV
(playing, for example, a splendid Portia on a small-screen adaptation
of Shakespeare's "The Merchant Of Venice"). The late 80s saw her
returning to the movies and scoring some films of uneven success and
quality, although she has always risen to the occasion. In any case,
she is still an underestimated actress, though she has proved capable
of giving such amusing characterizations as that of "Avisa A Curro
Jiménez" (1978), where she seemed almost unrecognizable. Now she leads
a rather reclusive life when not working (in contrast to the antics and
eccentricities of her early career) and, although she has never
married, she enjoys a very stable relationship with Fernando, her
partner of some 20 years. Hers is really one of those examples of
body-with-a-brain-on-top-to-match, and hopefully she will still be
around for a large number of years.