Dies at 78 the actress Pepa Arenós, the Rosalia of 'La Granja' and 'Ventdelplà'

BarcelonaThe well-known film, theater and voice actress Pepa Arenós (Barcelona, 1948) passed away this Sunday at the age of 78. For some, Rosalia from Ventdeplà is gone; for others, one of the actresses from the first Catalan soap opera, La Granja, where she also played a character named Rosalia; and even for others, the voice of Baba, the fortune-teller from Dragon Ball, one of the many characters she dubbed, has been silenced. In addition to being a great actress, Pepa Arenós showed a strong political commitment, first as an anti-Franco militant of Bandera Roja and the PSUC and, more recently, as an independence activist. She participated as a presenter at the September 11th celebration in 1976 in Sant Boi. In recent years, in addition to the 'Procés', she participated in the hundreds of rallies held to turn the Via Laietana police station into a space of memory. Her colleagues from the Via Laietana 43 platform confirmed her passing to the ARA newspaper.

Born in Gràcia, Pepa Arenós trained at the Theater Institute. She was part of the generation that pushed for the independent and committed theater of the 70s, an effervescent sector that demonstrated to demand municipal theater and better working conditions. Her career began as a young woman with the theater group El Camaleó and took off professionally with major projects, such as Peter Weiss' Marat-Sade, directed by Adolfo Marsillach (1969). She worked especially with the Adrià Gual Company, led by director Ricard Salvat, with whom she premiered memorable titles (Primera història d'Esther, Aigües encantades, Ronda de mort a Sinera and Les Bacants) and also shows like Dones i Catalunya, a production about the history of Catalonia from a feminist perspective (1983).Arenós worked under the direction of Jaume Melendres (Les llàgrimes amargues de Petra von Kant), Feliu Formosa (Les balades de Villon) and Esteve Polls (Romeu i Julieta, Fedra). With the Flotats Company, she performed in Una visita inoportuna, which was directed by Jorge Lavelli, among many other titles.

In parallel, she always worked in audiovisuals, starting with the televised theatre of the 70s on TVE in Catalonia and continuing through a series of TV3 shows that made her a beloved face, such as Tot un senyor (1989), La Granja (1990-92), Estació d'enllaç (1995-1997) and Ventdelplà (2005-2008). In her fifty-year career there are also other occasional roles, in titles such as La punyalada, El embrujo de Shanghai, Inconscientes or Lola, la película. She did radio and a good number of dubbings, especially in cartoons, where she exploited the potential of her iconic voice.