Libertad Leblanc

Libertad María de los Ángeles Vichich Blanco (Spanish pronunciation: [liβeɾˈtað ˈleβlaŋk]; 24 February 1938 – 29 April 2021[1]) was an Argentine film actress, famous for starring in several erotic films during the 1960s.

Libertad Leblanc
Libertad Leblanc in 1969
Born
Libertad María de los Ángeles Vichich

(1938-02-24)24 February 1938
Guardia Mitre, Río Negro Province, Argentina
Died29 April 2021(2021-04-29) (aged 83)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
OccupationActress

Leblanc was one of Argentina's platinum blonde sex symbols in the 1960s and 1970s, the buxom blonde appeared in a number of adult-oriented films often with nudity or sexual content such as Harassed (Acosada)(1964).[2][3] Many of her films were controversial; the 1968 film La Endemoniada was also known in English as A Woman Possessed, a vampirish horror film with explicit nudity. In 1967 she appeared in the lustful La Venus maldita. In 1969 she appeared in Deliciosamente amoral, again lined with controversy.

Leblanc also appeared in TV versions of Nana (the novel of Émile Zola), Lola Montès and Lady Hamilton.

She was offered a contract from Columbia Pictures, but her ex-husband refused to let her leave with her daughter to another country, so she declined the offer. Also, she was considered a "rival" of Isabel Sarli, who made the same style of films. Mirtha Legrand reunited both stars in 1994, when Libertad admitted that their "rivalry" was only a LeBlanc publicity stunt, so both film stars remained friends until their death.[4] Leblanc jokingly suggested Sarli getting rid of her pets. Isabel, for her part, showed Libertad up every time she brazenly took years off of the blonde diva's actual age. In the same manner, she told that she was a nineteen-year-old divorcée in the early sixties.[5]

Personal life

She was married and divorced to producer Leonardo Barujel.

Genius and lead figure
Leblanc with Guillermo Murray, her coworker in The Damned Venus, in the late 1960s

Libertad's paternal grandfather was a Slovenian landowner, settled in Río Negro. She was named by her father, a handy businessman who was murdered, whose skill she inherited. Naughty in her childhood, the widow mother found a second husband and entrusted the girl's education to a Catholic school, ruled by nuns. They expelled her four times, but then her grandmother bribed them with donations, so young Libertad was finally always readmitted. Following her marital failure, she kept herself marriageable, preferring have torrid and fleeting fancy men than a stable marital union. Big-bottomed men were repulsive to her: she felt attracted by brawny males. In her adult decades, she acquired an apartment in Madrid as well as another in Catalonia. Her mental inquisitiveness was one of her distinctive traits. Agnostic, amateur gardener, having a clear conscience was paramount for her.[6] Passionate about acting since a child, she used to take part in school plays as María de los Remedios de Escalada and Virgin Mary. In those years, she threw an inkwell against a nun's neck to the point of the latter had to be hospitalized because the former had made her bleed. Her father in law adored her and had set a lovely family up in Córdoba. He insisted that she was sweet enough to be Leonardo's wife, telling her: "you should give that crazy one up". In fact he was so glad with Libertad as daughter in law that he proposed her to replace her husband by another son of him, a brother in law, hence. Libertad was strongly resolute to become an artist against the familiar opposition and her former spouse's wishes, who expected that she would renew their married life after starving and getting penitent. However, success avoided it: with few money and still brilliant ideas she unexpectedly posed in bikini on a trampoline at a Venezuelan hotel while Graciela Borges answered journalists' questions, talking to them about Cannes, so photographers started to capture her and press workers approached to the then starlet, attracting attention that day. She also made put in every local cinema a poster stated "Libertad Leblanc, Isabel Sarli's rival". "I admired Isabel's career because when sixties started she had become a living goddess in American countries and even in Great Britain", she would confess decades later. Consequently, film directors and producers contracted Libertad, and soon her initial leading roles on screen turned out to be profitable enough to begin her independent life. And most important of all: Libertad deliberately made it without manager, she always would manage her own career. Thus, in her late twenties, the newly acclaimed actress took a stance as the self-made woman who did not want to remain subjected to anyone else.[7][8] Libertad shown two lines of artificial eyelashes and two wigs off simultaneously, with the result that she appeared on screen as a transvestite, of which she was deeply proud. Get carried away by what in German it's called "Sehnsucht", "Fernweh",[9] a very strong Eleutheromania made her went over Asia and Europe in her leisure. Her name means "freedom".[10] Rather, the actress lived in accordance with what her name means.[11]

Filmography

References
  1. Muere la actriz argentina Libertad Leblanc, mito sexual de los sesenta (in Spanish)
  2. Levine, Suzanne Jill (2001). Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-299-17574-0.
  3. Plazaola, Luis Trelles (1 January 1989). South American Cinema/ Cine De America Del Sur: Dictionary of Film Makers/ Diccionario De Los Productores De Peliculas. La Editorial, UPR. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-8477-2011-8.
  4. Libertad Leblanc mourns Isabel Sarli on Argentinian television, in Spanish language.
  5. Isabel Sarli and Libertad Leblanc, hosted by Mirtha Legrand, recent widow, in 1994 In Spanish.
  6. La libertad es libre / Freedom is free, published on Saturday 2nd, December in 2001 by Clarín (Buenos Aires) (in her original language).
  7. Maybe you didn't heard about her, posted a week later her death on La Crecida (Buenos Aires) (in Spanish).
  8. Murió la ex vedette y actriz Libertad Leblanc, un ícono del cine argentino / An argentine iconic film star, former vedette and actress Libertad Leblanc passed away, published on Friday 30th, April in 2021 by Clarín (Buenos Aires) (Spanish language).
  9. Strange words related to travels In Spanish.
  10. What her name means: LIBERTAD, Spanish word On Royal Spanish Academy.
  11. Viví en honor a mi nombre / I have lived in honor of my name, published on Friday 30th, January in 2004 by Cronista (Buenos Aires) (Spanish language).
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