Carlos Sanzol spoke with the family of the famous trans star of the 90s and reviewed archives to write the book on which the series was based. Here he tells the time he saw her, what the reaction of the actress's military father was and what stands out about her life path.
“Everywhere you looked there was a field and a sick father. There were still no traces of Rita Hayworth in Hilda Courvoisier's life. She still had not given birth to Gerardo, the female-son that one day he was going to betray her.", writes journalist Carlos Sanzol. Hilda Courvoisier is the mother of Cris Miró. And this prayer is the beginning of Female. Cris Miro, live and die in a country of males, Sanzol's book that served as the basis for the series Cris Miró (She). The story of someone who challenged the social norms of her time by becoming one of the most beloved and respected stars of revue theater during the 1990s. But things, of course, were not easy.
The sentence that follows is something he told Cris Miro -and Cris Miró- to Rodolfo Braceli in 1995: “I'm not going to say that at first my parents liked it, because they, like everyone, make projects for their children. And since I was born a boy, they projected something different. Over the years they realized that my happiness was going elsewhere. They learned what they had to learn... that the children they have are not children... they are people. And that people should act according to what they feel”. that year Cris Miro She became the first trans star to head the Maipo Theater revue in Buenos Aires.
Cris Miro He was born in 1965 in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Belgrano. His parents, Hilda and Gerardo Elías Virguez, called the baby “Gerardo,” but since childhood, his older brother Esteban said, “Everyone mistook him for a girl.”. She put on makeup, wore her hair long, wore her mother's dresses, chose the dolls. From there, from that beginning, Sanzol tells the life of Cris Miró, a book dedicated “to those who still do not understand.”
So Sanzol account: "Gerardo had ways that did not correspond to those of other male children. He played like girls did. He thought of himself as a her and rejected everything that had traits of he. His brother noticed. His father remained silent. Hilda denied: she still did not want to understand that her son, in reality, had been born a female, like the treacherous Rita Hayworth.".
And he says: “Once upon a time there was a teddy bear. Once upon a time there was a teddy bear that the boy Gerardo put on makeup. Once upon a time there was a teddy bear that the boy Gerardo made up and dressed like a bear, with “a” for woman, for feminine. Once upon a time there was a teddy bear that the boy Gerardo made up and dressed like a bear, with “a” for woman, for feminine, which connoted his most genuine desire: that of A male that could become, deliberately, female".
The book Sanzol It came out in 2016 and was published again, by the Milena Caserola publishing house, in 2024. And for a few days it has also been as ebook, it can download for free from Bajalibros until Tuesday the 13th.
There will be hard moments, like when he tried to make a tutor fall in love with him, and tender moments, like when he talked to his father, who had been in the military.
Here, the first: “Gerardo felt pretty standing on that corner, dressed like a lolita, waiting for that man who was around 20 years old and with whom all her classmates were in love. He must have been nervous, especially because the young man was the brother of Esteban's friend. What if she discovered his deception? But he... he was so in love".
That meeting is going to end badly. The preceptor will rush to talk to Cris's brother, so that he can in turn tell his parents who Gerardo was. Then one day the father spoke. Sanzol He leaves the story in Cris's mouth, quoting that Braceli interview: “I was sixteen years old: one day dad called me and said: “Well, what's going on with your life?” I spoke with him with complete sincerity... Dad listened to me that time. She listened to me in silence. All the time he looked at me deeply. When I finished speaking she stood up, took a step... and gave me a big, big hug... Afterwards the matter was not talked about anymore. I continued to grow with your support".
That long work of the journalist had pasta series and the series - which can be seen on TNT and Flow - was made, directed by Martín Vatenberg and Javier Van de Couter.
But does the series say the same thing as the book? Sanzol responds to Infobae:
– The big difference between the series and the book is that the series only stops at telling the four years from 1995 to 1999 in which Cris is famous, everything that happens to her from that moment until her death in the year 99. The The book takes Cris' entire story from his birth, and even tells the life of his father and mother.
– Why did you decide to tell the story of Cris Miró?
– Well, it all started in 2010. I worked at the newspaper La Nación, in the Espectáculos supplement, I was doing a note that was a comparison of the vedettes of that time and those of before. When I hand the note to my editor, my editor tells me: “Cris Miró is missing, why don't you add her?” And then what I did was see how little there was on the web about Cris. From there I began to understand that it was good to talk about this process of identity construction because it was a fairly strong process.
– How was it?
– Cris had to build himself and his identity against a very adverse which was the nineties. The first thing I did was talk to her brother, Esteban Virguez. And there I understood that Cris's story was an interesting story to tell. And well, from there it was six years until the book came out for the first time.
– Did you expect the response that the series had?
– At some point I imagined it, but well, I am still surprised by the massiveness it took. I knew that Cris's character had recently begun to have a certain revaluation and certain relevance, but hey, it's still that, surprise.
– Have you ever seen her?
-I was 16 years old, I lived in Mendoza. I think this was in 1996... I was at a bowling alley with some school friends and Cris was at that time doing a theater tour with a play called Crazier than a cow and he went along with part of the cast to that bowling alley where I was. I saw her there, just as a glimpse and, well, the truth is that she generated in me what most of the testimonials in the book tell us, a feeling of magnetism that she had and of aura, that it shocked you to see it. She was a person who did not go unnoticed when she entered a place and she passed that on to me.
– And that is seen in the book…
– The book made me remember my adolescence and part of my youth in the 90s and I was able to reconstruct the 90s, that climate of pizza with champagne, the obscenity of power, the fervor of the nights, because well, in the 90s it had enough culture at night, there were many clubs that somehow remained in the collective imagination, like Aveporco, El Dorado, Morocco, so well, it's telling that a little. The book addresses Cris's entire life, from the moment he was born in 1965 until he died on June 1, 1996. But, also, what I was interested in telling was all that adverse context in which Cris it is developing. And so you can go through the history of the country a little from Cris' own story.
– What did you expect and what did you find in the research?
– I did not go with expectations but in the talk I had with Esteban, the brother, in 2010, he told me almost all of his experience with his sister and a little of what I could see, the conclusion I can take from Cris's life , is that he was a person who had a very brave personality because he could be what he wanted to be, he reconnected with his most genuine desire, beyond all mandates, whether family mandates or social mandates, and he did it in complete freedom. .
-And will that be what impacts today?
-What is being revalued at this moment, it seems to me, is the figure of a person who lived a freedom, who understood freedom as the connection with your most genuine desire, and not responding to commands that come from other people. . That was what I learned the most and what I value most about Cris. But she also has another thing, Cris, that I admire a lot, which is that she was a very determined person, she was asked to do the Maipo and she did it, she was very motivated by action, regardless of the results it could have. She wasn't a scared person or anything. And that seems to me to be good as a reflection of the book as well.
Something of all this, perhaps, can be seen in a dialogue that Sanzol reproduces in Female. Cris Miró with Mirtha Legrand, in 1995:
—Mirtha Legrand (ML): I don't know, my love, how to treat you
—Cris Miró (CM): Why?
—ML: And I don't know: miss, sir... You voted, right?
—CM: Of course.
—ML: And, at what table? Did you vote at the men's table?
—CM: Yes.
—ML: Sure… And, what is your real name? Do you want to say it?
—CM: My real name is what I feel. And the one I want is Cris Miró.