Mari Carmen Díaz de Mendoza

Carmen Diaz de Mendoza with her parents

María Carmen Díaz de Mendoza Larrabeiti (born December 1927) is a Spanish theatre actress.

Life

Mari Carmen Díaz de Mendoza was born in Madrid towards the end of 1927. Her parents, es and Carmen Larrabeiti, who were both actors, had married the previous year. He paternal grand parents were also theatre people. Although Mari Carmen made one or two film appearances, the focus of her own acting career was the theatre.

She embarked on her stage career in the 1940s at the Theatre of María Guerrero, originally purchased by her grandfather, the theatrical impresario Fernando Díaz de Mendoza y Aguado, back in 1908. In 1944 she appeared in a play based on Dostoyevsky's "Demons", playing opposite es. Another early role was in the Spanish translation of "Time and the Conways" by J. B. Priestley, in which she appeared with Guillermo Marín and es. A few months later she transferred to the Teatro Español, in June 1945 appearing in "Hamlet" with Marin and es.

During the next few years she appeared in "Tres de madrugada" by Claudio de la Torre (1946), "Cuento de cuentos" by es (1947) and after setting up her own theatre company, in "Víspera de bodas" by Eduardo Manzanos (1948), in which Milagros Leal and es also appeared.

She was part of the production of En la ardiente oscuridad by Antonio Buero Vallejo, which had its triumphant premier in December 1950 at the Teatro María Guerrero. There were other successes during the early 1950s in the theatre that still bore her grandmother's name, including "María Antonieta" (1952) and "El jefe" (1953) by es, "Berkeley Square" (1952) by John L. Balderston and "Recién llegada" (1953), by Keith Winter.