Model composition: Who was Sara Montiel?

Sara Montiel together with James Dean (photo taken from Rohmerin's blog)

Just five days ago, two very well-known women (for different reasons) died on the 8th April. The two of them may be quite unknown for our students, one of them was Margaret Thatcher and the other was Sara Montiel. We can take advantage of this and practice the past simple to talk about life events, as we did with Jane Austen or Frida Kahlo.

Sara Montiel was born as Mª Antonia Abad in Campo de Criptana in 1928. When she was just 15 years old, she took part in a talent show and won. She started making films in Spain and, very soon, she decided to go to America to start making films there. In 1954, she made her first Hollywood film called Veracruz with  very big actors like Gary Cooper. She came back to Spain and became a great diva and star.

At the beginning of the 1970s, she decided to stop making films in Spain and dedicated her work to singing. She has been married four times, the first in California, the second in Rome, the third in Palma de Mallorca with her great love, Pepe Tous, with whom she adopted two children and the fourth a few years ago with a Cuban men much younger than her.

Sara has sung together with her own son and other Spanish artists and has conducted two TV programmes in Spain. She wasn't ill and her death took everybody by surprise even though she was 85 years old.

Did you know her? Have you seen any of her films?

Jane Austen's biography.

Wikipedia

We are starting to write short biographies in our 2nd of ESO classes and the two examples we have in our course book are male. That is the reason why I am giving you the model and the information to write about this woman called JANE AUSTEN.

Model:

v  Jane Austen was a _____________________________.   She wrote _____________. v  She was born in  _______________________________. Ø  When she was a child, ______________________________. Ø  When she was older, _______________________. v  In ______________________, she _______________________________. Ø  The next year, she ______________________________. She died in ____________.

Information to fill the biography:

• Date and place of birth: 1775, Hampshire, England.
• Early life: quite life, educated at home (did not go to school) after typhus illness, liked writing poems and short novels.
• Later life: Never got married, attended family meetings and read aloud her novels.
• Date of illness and death: Beginning of 1816 started to feel ill, July 1817 died.

There is a huge number of Jane Austen's fans and many of them have created websites and blogs about her and her works, you can find more information about here in those pages.

Now, it's your turn: Write Jane Austen's biography in a short comment in the blog!

WHITNEY HOUSTON

Whitney was born in New Jersey in 1963 in a family which promoted her passion for music, especially gospel music. At the age of 20, she was discovered by Clive Davis at a New York club where she was singing and treated her to sign a contract with Arista ( a records company) and she started to make albums which were very popular and sold very well.

She had great hits during her lifetime such as  "Saving All My Love for You", "The Greatest Love of All", "I Wanna Dance with Somebody", "I'm Every Woman" or "I Have Nothing" and "Run to You"... The list is so long, as is the list of the prizes received troughout the world and the number of albums sold. According to the Guinnes Book of World  Records, she is "the most awarded female artist of all time". She also tried her best as an actress with the films The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale or The Preacher's Wife.

Even though her singing and professional career was spectacular, her personal life was more troublesome. She married the also singer Bobbi Brown, who has had several problems with law, and had her only child, Bobbi Kristina. She died only a few days ago and was buried today at the age of 48. Rest in peace Whitney.

CHARLES DICKENS

If life lasted long enough, Charles Dickens would be 200 years old these days. I would like to pay a little homage to this great Victorian author in the second hundred anniversary of his birth.

He was born Charles John Huffan Dickens on the 17th February 1812 in Porstmouth, Hampshire and went to live in London at the age of 10. In the times of the industrial revolution and eldest son to a difficult father who went to prison, he was one of the children who worked hard under hard conditions in one of those new factories that started to develop in Britain at the time. He described these harsh conditions and I think he would be shocked to learn that they continue still two centuries after his death.

A multifaceted married man, throughout his life was actor, parliamentary and newspaper reporter apart from his works as a writer. He wrote in installments some of his most popular novels such as Oliver Twist, he wrote a lot of novels like Christmas Carols, David Copperfield, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations in which he depicts the Victorian times with strong realism.

You can also visit where he lived in London

FRIDA KAHLO

For my students of 1st of Bachillerato and 4th of ESO,



 WHO WAS SHE?
 She was a Mexican painter and artist, born in Coyocoán in 1907. Born in a multicultural big family, her father was a jewish German and her mother was Mexican; she suffered polio and then a strong accident that caused her great pain and over 30 surgeries throughout her life, she represented all this suffering in her paintings. She died very young, at the age of 47.

 WHY IS SHE IMPORTANT?
She was a revolutionary for her time, not leading the life girls were supposed to live then. She married very young to a Mexican muralist called Diego Rivera - 20 years her senior, and had several other relationships both with other men and women; she was also part of the communist party and she had a special view of what feminine beauty was. She is now considered a representative of the surrealist trend.

 WHY IS SHE IMPORTANT FOR ME?
In my opinion, getting over all the pain she suffered and being able to do what she needed to do, such as painting, travelling or having a social life makes her a singular woman, apart from her artistic value which is now recognised worldwide.

 You can find a portrait of her here among other places

 You can have a tour at her house here