page_title: Tita Merello
section_title: Legitimate theater and recording beginnings (1923–1933)
hierarchical_section_title: Tita Merello / Biography / Legitimate theater and recording beginnings (1923–1933)
caption_attribution_description: Español: Tita Merello eligiendo su vestuario.
context_page_description: Tita Merello was a prominent Argentine film actress, tango dancer and singer of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema. In her 6 decades in Argentine entertainment, at the time of her death, she had filmed over thirty movies, premiered twenty plays, had nine television appearances, completed three radio series and had had countless appearances in print media. She was one of the singers who emerged in the 1920s along with Azucena Maizani, Libertad Lamarque, Ada Falcón, and Rosita Quiroga, who created the female voices of tango. She was primarily remembered for the songs "Se dice de mí" and "La milonga y yo".
  She began her acting career in theater and may have made silent films. She debuted on the first sound movie produced in Argentina, ¡Tango!, with Libertad Lamarque in 1933. After making a series of films throughout the 1930s, she established herself as a dramatic actress in La fuga, directed by Luis Saslavsky. In the mid-1940s, she moved to Mexico, where she filmed Cinco rostros de mujer, which earned her an Ariel Award from the Mexican Academy of Film. She returned to Argentina and starred in Don Juan Tenorio and Filomena Marturano, which were subsequently taken to the theater.
context_section_description: In 1923, she got a part as a show girl in the revue Las modernas Scherezadas playing at the renowned Teatro Maipo, performing with the stars Luis Arata, Pepe Arias, and Marcos Caplán. The show's playbills are dated 1924 and list her as the star "La vedette rea". She sang "Trago amargo", a tango,  to wide acclaim. That same year, she was in the cast of Cayol's Revue ¿Quién dijo miedo?
  In 1925, she performed in the revue Mujeres, flores y alegría, in which she sang the tango "Pedime lo que Querés" by Francisco Canaro with lyrics by Juan Andrés Caruso. Later that year she premiered the tango "Leguisamo Solo" by Modesto Papavero, which had been written as homage to Uruguayan jockey Irineo Leguisamo. The tango appeared in the revue En la raya lo esperamos by Luis Bayón Herrera at the Teatro Bataclán.
  She finally was asked to play a role in a dramatic play, El Lazo; her performance earned her an introduction to Pascual Carcavallo, owner of the Teatro Nacional. In 1927, she returned to the Maipo theater to perform the tango "Un tropezón" with Elías Alippi and Sofia Bozán. The performance was criticized harshly by Carlos Gardel, considered the greatest tango performer at the time.
  Merello alternated acting with a few forays into recording. In 1927, she recorded two songs for the Nacional-Odeon disc label: "Te acordás reo" and "Volvé mi negra". Between 1927–29 she recorded 18 tangos, in her typical theatrical style. Between 1929 and 1930, she recorded twenty songs for the label RCA Victor, including "Tata... Llevame pal centro", "Che... Pepinito", and "Te has comprado un automovil". In 1930, she performed onstage in El rancho del hermano.
  In 1931, Merello began working at the Revista Voces (Voices Magazine). She was paid 200 pesos for the first article she published. In addition, she wrote pieces for the publisher Abril's Revista Nocturno (Night Magazine) and obtained a journalist's press card.
  A big opportunity presented itself in 1931. Libertad Lamarque had been playing the role of Doce Pesos in "El conventillo de la Paloma" for two years and had over 1,000 performances. She was ready to quit the production and she offered the part to Merello, who quickly accepted. The following year, in 1932, as part of the Compañia de Canaro she worked on the play "La muchachada del centro" and performed the tangos "La muchachada del centro" and a milonga "Me enamore una vez" in the play. It was very successful, running for nearly 900 performances.
caption: Tita Merello working in the wardrobe room, c. 1930.
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