Soledad Miranda

Soledad Miranda was born Soledad Rendón Bueno on 9 July 1943 in Seville, Spain. Soledad (whose name translates as solitude or loneliness) was the niece of the famous Spanish singer-actress-flamenco dancer Paquita Rico. At age 8, Miranda made her professional debut when she was hired as a flamenco dancer and singer, first in the "Youth Galas" at the Seville Fair and San Fernando theatre, and then on a tour throughout southern Spain.

At age 16, Miranda moved to Madrid and drew an artistic stage name out of a hat. She made her film debut in 1960 as a dancer in a musical called La bella Mimí. She was often in the tabloids as the rumored girlfriend of the most famous bullfighter of the time, Manuel Benítez (El Cordobés).

Miranda went on to appear in over 30 films from 1960 to 1970. There were epic adventures (Ursus, Cervantes); horror films (Sound of Horror, Pyro); dramas (Canción de cuna, Currito de la Cruz); comedies (Eva 63, La familia y uno más); and even a Spaghetti Western (Sugar Colt). She also released a couple of yé-yé pop records in the mid-1960s.

After taking nearly two years off to raise her son (see "Personal life"), she turned to acting with a role in the western 100 Rifles (1969). She went on appear in additional films and in Spanish television shows. Director Jess Franco, for whom Miranda had done a small role in his musical Queen of the Tabarin Club nearly a decade before, made Miranda his frequent star in films including Count Dracula, Eugenie de Sade, Vampyros Lesbos, She Killed in Ecstasy, Nightmares Come at Night and The Devil Came from Akasava. Miranda took the stage name Susann Korda (alternately spelled Susan Korday).[2]

In 1964, Miranda had made a trio of films in Portugal. José Manuel da Conceiçao Simões, a Portuguese racecar driver, was a producer and also acted in them. In one of the films, Un día en Lisboa (A Day in Lisbon), they played a couple traveling between Estoril and Lisbon. After a secret courtship, the pair married in 1966. In April 1967, Miranda gave birth to a son, Antonio. Her husband retired from racing and took a job in the auto industry.

On the morning of 18 August 1970, after completing the filming of The Devil Came from Akasava, Miranda and her husband were involved in a collision with a small truck near Lisbon. Simões suffered minor injuries, but Miranda died as a result of major head and back trauma.[3] She and Jess Franco had started filming her next project (Justine) which he abandoned after her death. He had also planned to feature her in his 1970 film, X-312: Flight to Hell.[4]