Mercedes Prendes

Mercedes Prendes (14 April 1903 – 2 July 1981) was a Spanish actor. During a long career, notably between 1927 and 1940, she took a number of cinema roles, and towards the end of her career she appeared regularly in television dramas. It is nevertheless principally as a stage actress that she built her career and made her reputation.

Biography Mercedes Prendes Estrada was born in Gijón, the first-born of three siblings who grew up to become notable as stage and screen actors. Her parents had married in 1902: her mother, born Mercedes Estrada Arnaiz (1881–1950), was originally from El Ferrol in the north-western province of Coruña. Juliet in 1943, Desdemona and Titania, both in 1944, also with important roles in "Richard III" (1946) and "Hamlet" (1949). Although her focus was relentlessly on the European classics, her starring stage roles during the 1940s extended far beyond Shakespeare, however. She portrayed Antigone in 1945 and featured as Leonore in Schiller's "Fiesco" (1949). Naturally Golden Age Spanish repertoire also featured prominently, with lead roles in "Castigo sin venganza" (1943), "La discreta enamorada" (1945), "La malcasada" (1947) and "Fuenteovejuna" by Lope de Vega. There were performance in "La dama duende" (1942) and "La devoción de la cruz" by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Among more modern works, Mercedes Prendes appeared in Agustín de Foxá's Baile en capitanía (1944).

In 1949 Mercedes Prendes and Carlos Martínez de Tejada (?-1972), her actor husband, teamed up together to set up their own theatre company. For the next three years undertook several tours in Latin America, reprising some of Prendes' earlier roles and presenting the Spanish classical repertoire more generally.

In 1955 Mercedes Prendes accepted a teaching professorshipat the Royal Copnservatory of Madrid (now part of the Royal Higher Academy of Dramatic Arts). Four years later she won the National Theater Prize with a performance of William Inge's "Vuelve, querida Sheba". In contrast to her stage and television successes, none of the handful of movies in which Prendes participated between 1927 and 1939 made much of an impression on commentators.