Biography:

Elisa Montés was born in Granada, Spain, on December 15, 1934, the daughter of actress Magdalena Penella Silva and Ramón Ruiz Alonso, a politician and former parliamentary deputy for the rightwing CEDA coalition, who was involved in the arrest and murder of the famous poet Federico García Lorca. Montés grew up with her three sisters, two of whom—Emma Penella and Terele Pávez—also became well-known actresses. In 1963, the three sisters shared the screen in La cuarta ventana, a crime story about three young women who love nightlife and fun, directed by Julio Coll.

In 1954, Montés debuted in Fernando Fernán Gómez’s drama El mensaje, set during the Spanish War of Independence. As a young actress, her performances garnered attention, and she was awarded two Spanish film prizes. In 1956, the Valladid International Film Festival honored Montés as Best Actress for her performance in Luis Lucia’s comedy La vida en un bloc. The Spanish Cinema Writers Circle also selected her as Best Supporting Actress in Las últimas banderas (dir. Luis Marquina), a historic drama set during the Peruvian War of Independence. Montés was also in Faustina, by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, which screened in competition at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. 

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Montés appeared in various Westerns. She played the female lead opposite Franco Nero in the Italian “spaghetti western” Texas, addio and opposite Yul Brynner in the US-Spanish co-production Return of the Magnificent Seven.

Montés’s name is credited to only one East German film production, Das Luftschiff. In Rainer Simon’s 1982 experimental feature film, she plays Doña Mathilde, the wife of inventor Franz Xaver Stannebein, a man who obsessively pursues his dream of developing an airship, which puts him in the midst of world politics.

Parallel to her cinema work, Montés appeared in Spanish television films and series. In 1981-82, she played the mother of two teenagers in the famous TV drama series Verano azul, about young people on summer vacation in a small costal town; the 19-part series drew 20 million viewers and has become part of Spain’s common cultural memory. Later in the 1980s, Montés took a break from screen acting to work on stage. She then returned to film for a short period before retiring in the mid-1990s.

In her over five-decade career, Elisa Montés performed in over one hundred national and international film productions, including fantasy, spy and crime films, as well as thrillers and Westerns. In 2017, the Almería Western Film Festival honored her with the ASFAAN (Andalusian Audiovisual Festivals Association) Award for her lifetime achievement in film and especially her performances in numerous Western, which were filmed in Almería among other places.

Festivals & Awards: