Actress Susana Canales Dies At 87

The protagonist of ‘Black Sky’, Mur Oti’s top melodrama, developed her career in film, theater, television, radio, and dubbing.

The Madrid actress Susana Canales has died in her hometown of natural causes at the age of 87. 

The daughter of actor Ricardo Canales was one of the most iconic interpreters of Spanish cinema of the 50s thanks to her starring role in Black Sky, the masterpiece of Manuel Mur Oti’s melodrama that concludes with traveling over the Segovia viaduct in a sequence considered one of the most captivating in our cinematography.

Susana Canales’s family had to go into exile at the beginning of the Civil War. That started her premature acting career in the theater of Argentina. She also made her film debut there, at age 9, with small roles in films such as Concert of Souls (Alberto de Zavalía, 1942) or With the Devil in the Body (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1947). One sin per month (Mario C. Lugones, 1949) was her first leading role.

The following year, Canales returned to Spain. Her first film here, Sangre en Castilla (Benito Perojo, 1950), would be fundamental for her professional and sentimental future since there she met the actor Julio Peña, whom she would soon marry.

In 1951, her performance as the unfortunate dressmaker Emilia de Cielo negro, enshrines Susana Canales as an indelible icon of Spanish cinema in the famous traveling in the rain.

At the end of her career, which ended in the mid-90s, she also worked on radio soap operas such as Sin tiempo para amar (1982, Radio España) or as a dubbing actress; for example, in Spain, she was the voice of Professor  Edna Krabappel in the first seasons of The Simpsons.

Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.

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