Míriam Colón

Colón, (birth name: Míriam Colón Valle;[note 1]) was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on August 20, 1936.[2] She was a young girl in the 1940s when her recently divorced mother moved the family to a public housing project called Residencial Las Casas in San Juan. She attended the Román Baldorioty de Castro High School in Old San Juan, where she actively participated in the school's plays.[2] Her first drama teacher, Marcos Colón (no relation) believed that she was very talented; with his help, she was permitted to observe the students in the drama department of the University of Puerto Rico. She was a good student in high school and was awarded scholarships that enabled her to enroll in the Dramatic Workshop and Technical Institute and also in The Lee Strasburg Acting Studio in New York City.[3]

External audio
Colón's debut in "Los Peloteros" on YouTube

In 1953, Colón debuted as an actress in Los Peloteros (The Baseball Players), a film produced in Puerto Rico, starring Ramón "Diplo" Rivero, and in which she played a character called "Lolita."[3] That same year, Colón moved to New York City, where she was accepted by Actors Studio co-founder Elia Kazan after a single audition,[4][5] thus becoming the Studio's first Puerto Rican member.[6] In New York, Colón worked in theater and later landed a role on the soap opera Guiding Light. On one occasion she attended a performance of René Marqués' La Carreta (The Oxcart). That presentation motivated her to form the first Hispanic theater group, with the help of La Carreta's producer, Roberto Rodríguez, called "El Circuito Dramático".[7]

Colón and James Arness in Gunsmoke, 1970

In 1954 she appeared on stage in "In The Summer House" at the Play House in New York City.[8] Between 1954 and 1974, Colón made guest appearances in television shows such as Peter Gunn and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She appeared mostly in westerns such as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The High Chaparral, and Have Gun, Will Travel. Colón appeared in the 1961 film One-eyed Jacks as "the Redhead". In 1962, she was featured as the co-star in a teleplay written by Frank Gabrielsen, and produced for the TV series The DuPont Show of the Week. The title of the hour-long episode was "The Richest Man in Bogota", and it aired on 17 June 1962.[9] It starred Lee Marvin as Juan de Núñez, and Miriam Colón as "Marina" (not Medina-Saroté, as in the original H.G. Wells story, The Country of the Blind). Co-starred as Anita Chavez in the 1963's Thunder Island, the screenplay of which actor Jack Nicholson wrote.

In 1979, she starred alongside fellow Puerto Rican actors José Ferrer, Raúl Juliá, and Henry Darrow in Life of Sin, a film in which she portrayed Isabel la Negra, a real-life Puerto Rican brothel owner. In 1983, she played the mother of Tony Montana (played by Al Pacino) in Scarface. She was also cast as "María" in the 1999 film Gloria, which starred Sharon Stone. In 2013, Colón was cast in the role of Ultima, a New Mexico Hispanic healer, in the movie Bless Me, Ultima based on the novel by Rudolfo Anaya.[10] She appeared in Season 1 of the TV series Better Call Saul in 2015, as Abuelita.

Puerto Rican Travelling Theater

In the late 1960s, Colón founded The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater company on West 47th street in Manhattan, New York. The company presents Off-Broadway productions onsite and also goes on tour. She was the director of the company and she appeared in the following PRTT productions:[11]

• The Ox Cart (1966–1967)[12]
• The Boiler Room (1993)[13]
• Simpson Street
• Señora Carrar's Rifles

The play The Ox Cart (La Carreta), written by Puerto Rican dramatist René Marqués, was first produced in 1953. It was directed by Roberto Rodríguez and starred Colón. The success of the play allowed Rodríguez and Colón to form the first permanent Hispanic theatrical group and for the group to have its own space, Teatro Arena, located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th street.[14]

National Medal of Arts

In 1993, Colón received an Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater. In 2000, she received the HOLA Raúl Juliá Founders Award, presented by the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA).

Colón's biography, titled Míriam Colón: Actor and Theater Founder, was written by Mayra Fernandez in 1994.[9][10]

In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Colón the National Medal of Arts for her contributions as an actress. The citation reads as follows: "Ms. Colón has been a trailblazer in film, television, and theater, and helped open doors for generations of Hispanic actors."[15]

Colón was married to George Paul Edgar from 1966 until his death in 1976.[16] Colón lived the final years of her life in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her second husband, Fred Valle, whom she married in 1987.

Colón was an avid collector of ancestral arts including: pre-Columbian, tribal African, historic Native American and other tribal art. She also collected Mid-East artifacts, abstract paintings and modern sculpture. A signed Pablo Picasso sketch in crayon that she owned brought $6500 at auction on June 16, 2019. At her death, she owned at least six signed movie posters of Al Pacino's Scarface and at least seven signed Scarface soundtrack albums.[17]

Colón died on March 3, 2017, at the age of 80, in New York City of complications from a pulmonary infection.[18]

• In The Summer House (1954)
• The Innkeepers (1956)
• The Wrong Way Lightbulb (1969)

• List of Puerto Ricans
• History of women in Puerto Rico

• Bosworth, Patricia (September 12, 1971). "'Look, Let's Have Justice Around Here'". The New York Times. New York City: The New York Times Company. p. D5. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
• Garfield, David (1980). "Appendix: Life Members of The Actors Studio as of January 1980". A Player's Place: The Story of The Actors Studio. New York City: MacMillan. p. 277. ISBN 978-0025426504.
• Moreno, Sylvia (June 13, 1989). "Lessons Feature Hispanic 'Heroes'". Newsday. Melville, New York: Patrick & Charles Dolan and Altice USA. p. 30. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
• Míriam Colón at IMDb
• Míriam Colón at AllMovie
• Míriam Colón at the Internet Broadway Database
• Miriam Colón bio at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater
• Miriam Colon's Interview on NBC Latino
• Miriam Colon Interview at the WNYC Archives