Mexican actress (1945–2020)
Cecilia Romo |
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| Born | (1945-12-05)5 December 1945
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| Died | 30 August 2020(2020-08-30) (aged 74)
Mexico City, Mexico |
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| Occupation | Actress |
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| Spouse(s) | Raul Domingo González Soto (divorced)
Alfonso Ravelo (divorced)
Guillermo Coelho (?-2020; her death) |
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| Children | 4, including Claudia Romo Edelman |
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Cecilia Romo, also known as Ceci Romo (5 December 1945 – 30 August 2020) was a Mexican film, theatrical, and television actress. Prior to her professional acting career, which began in the 1980s, she was a member of Mexico women's national basketball team during the 1960s.[1] Romo, who appeared in more than 30 theater productions during her career, was often cast as rebellious or comedic characters.[1] Her telenovela and television roles became popular throughout Mexico and Latin America during the 1990s.[1]
Biography
Early life and career
Romo was born on 5 December 1945, in Mexico City.[1][2] She was raised in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.[2] Her mother, Cecilia Santillan de Romo, was a high school teacher, while her father, Luis Romo Maconde, owned and operated several pharmacies and medical laboratories.[1]
An athlete, Romo played for Mexico women's national basketball team during the 1960s.[1] She then enrolled at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and received her bachelor's degree in 1978.[1] Romo worked as an economist for the Mexican government before becoming a talent manager for advertising models.[1]
Acting career
In the early 1980s, Romo received a phone call at her agency looking for extras for the American science fiction film, Dune, which was filming in Mexico at the time.[1] Romo, who was 38-years old at the time, decided to sign up as an extra for film herself.[1] She enjoyed the experience and quickly decided to pursue acting as a career.[1] She was soon cast in the 1985 film, Los Náufragos del Liguria, which focused on a group of shipwreck survivors.[1] Romo soon found on-screen acting roles in Mexican television during the mid and late 1980s as well, launching a decades-long professional TV career.[1]
Romo was taller than most other television actresses, but became popular with audiences in Latin America and Mexico for her comedic facial expressions and gift for slapstick comedy.[1] For example, in the 1990s telenovela De pocas, pocas pulgas, Romo enters a doctor's office, scaring the patient "with a syringe the size of a hunting rifle," according to the New York Times.[1] In the TV Azteca telenovela Prófugas del destino (2010-2011), Romo utilized her trademark comedic facial expressions to play Madre Lourdes, a mother superior who discovers that several of the women in her convent are actually escaped fugitives disguised as nuns.[1]
Romo also appeared in more than 30 professional theatrical plays and musicals, including the Spanish-language, Mexican productions of Hello, Dolly!, La Cage aux Folles, and Mame.[1] In 2003, she appeared in the American film, Out of Time, starring Denzel Washington.[2]
In 2012 interview for the program "Momentos de Telenovela" on Televisa San Luis [es], Romo discussed the range of characters she had played on stage and screen, which were often rebellious, but also comedic, "I've played all the nuns in the world: mother superior, the kitchen nun, the garden nun. All of them! In comedies, dramas, theater, musicals."[1] Actress Mayra Rojas [es], who appeared opposite her in several productions, noted that "She [Romo] played a lot of villains, but the roles that she was most known for were playful and cheeky, because she was like that."[1] Romo's villainous roles included a witch and evil nurses and nuns.[1]
Romo was known for a personal and professional sense of humor.[1] On the set of her final television series, Como tú no hay 2 (2020), Romo began whistling like a stereotypical truck driver to catch the attention of the crew and her co-stars.[1] She and the show's writers ultimately incorporated her whistle into her character, Doña Remedios, a traditional healer in a local market.[1]
Death
Cecilia Romo died from complications of COVID-19 in Mexico City, on 30 August 2020, after a 169-day battle with the illness during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico.[1][2] She had been hospitalized several times during her treatment for COVID-19 and its complications, including anemia and three pulmonary hemorrhages.[2] Romo died just five months after she filmed her final episode of Como tú no hay 2.[1]
Romo was survived by her third husband, film editor Guillermo Coelho; two of her four children, diplomat Claudia Romo Edelman and Luis Roberto Ravelo Romo; and two grandchildren.[1] Her two other children, Adriana González Romo and Raúl González Romo, both died from genetic disorders as toddlers.[1] Romo's previous marriages, to civil engineer Raul Domingo González Soto and musician Alfonso Ravelo, ended in divorce.[1]
Filmography
Telenovelas
Other television series
Films
References
External links
