Pilar Bardem

María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz (14 March 1939 – 17 July 2021) was a Spanish film and television actress. In 1996, she won the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Nobody Will Speak of Us When We're Dead.

She was the mother of Carlos, Mónica, and Javier Bardem.

Early life and career

Pilar Bardem was born to Barcelonian actor Rafael Bardem and Madrilenian actress Matilde Muñoz Sampedro in Seville on 14 March 1939, while her parents were working with the theatre company of Carmen Díaz. Three months old, she relocated with her family to Barcelona, and then to Madrid, where she spent her childhood. She travelled in a theatre tour for the first time at age 13, accompanying her parents. She made her debut onstage at age 18, in a play of Mourning Becomes Electra. Influenced by a Jesuit priest working in her school, she started medicine studies but dropped out in her third year, and started working as model for the likes of Loewe and Balenciaga.

She was a regular in the television series Compuesta y sin novio (1994), Hermanas (1998), El Inquilino (2004), and Amar en tiempos revueltos (2005–2007).

Bardem was the recipient of the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Premios ACE for Best Supporting Actress, the Valladolid International Film Festival Award for Best Actress, and two Spanish Actors Union Awards for her performances.

In 2015, she made her last film appearance in Gipsy King.

Activism

Pilar Bardem was often called "La Bardem", and was well known in Spain not only as an actress, but for her outspoken left-wing political views, particularly close to the party United Left. During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco she remained close to the clandestine Communist Party.

She toiled for "labor rights for actors, civil rights for women", and "a more liberal Catholic Church" (she affirmed a belief that women should be able to become priests). Bardem identified her long struggle, working several jobs at once to raise her children, as not uncommon. She was just "one of so many".

She was a vocal supporter of the Sahrawi cause. In December 2021, during a homage paid to her at the FiSahara, the Polisario delegate to Spain announced that she will be posthumously bestowed the Sahrawi citizenship.

In 2017 her children prepared a surprise tribute for her, in which 1,300 artists participated. During that event, and already ill, she expressed her desire to see the Third Spanish Republic proclaimed before her death. In her book La Bardem she related that her husband abused her. She got a formal church-endorsed separation in 1973. Afterwards, she was involved with several actors, among them Agustín González.

She lived in the Retiro district of Madrid Her body was later cremated in the Madrid town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.

Selected filmography Good Morning, Little Countess (1967) The Rebellious Novice (1971) Variety (1971) The Doubt (1972) La descarriada (1973) as Lucila Amor e Dedinhos de Pé (1992) Entre rojas (1995) La bicicleta (2006) Lilly the Witch: The Dragon and the Magic Book (2009) Source:

Awards and nominations

Informational notes