On Friday night, August 22nd, 2003, singer and actress Magdalena Nile del Río, known as Imperio Argentia, died at the age of 92. Although she was not a flamenco singer, her songs and films are forever etched in the collective memory of flamenco artists and fans of a certain era.
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She was born of Spanish parents in Buenos Aires in 1906 and debuted in silent film in the nineteen-twenties achieving international fame during the first half of the thirties. With her charisma and her sweet, melodic voice applied to flamenco cadences she won over audiences both in Spain and abroad. During Spain’s civil war she made a film in Germany in which all she sang all the songs in German, and became a cult figure among the gay community of that country.
More than the folkloric image of the tamborine and polkadots, her look was more of the ‘mantilla’ and she came to personify a stereotypical image of Spain for half the world paving the way for other singer-actresses such as Lola Flores, Carmen Sevilla and Sara Montiel who mixed flamenco references with other tipically Spanish elements to create an entire cinematographic genre. She continued making moves until the nineteen-eighties filling roles appropriate to her age.