Amelia Bence
Born to Belarusian Jewish immigrants, Bence began her career at a young age, studying with Alfonsina Storni at the Lavardén Children's Theater and with Mecha Quintana at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música y Declamación (National Conservatory of Music and Speech).
Bence's acting in La guerra gaucha (1942), one of the most important films in the history of Argentine cinema, gave her recognition and earned her leading role offers.
In her free time, she worked in an acting group led by Pedro Aleandro, the brother of Ben Molar, where she participated in the play Las campanas by Julio Sánchez Gardel.
[19] After a long theatrical season with Luis Arata and inconsequential participation in El forastero,[20][21] she filmed La vuelta al nido with José Gola.
[23] In 1938, Leopoldo Torres Ríos gave Bence her first starring role in film in Adiós Buenos Aires, where she played a showgirl "Luisita" living a bohemian life.
In the wake of her successful theatrical season, Bence filmed El matrero (1939)[27] in Tucumán Province, in which she played "Pontezuela", a girl who falls in love with the character of Agustín Irusta, is accused of a crime and is rejected by her father.
[33] That same year she starred in Carlos F. Borcosque's La casa de los cuervos, based on a novel by Hugo Wast,[34] which won her the Premios Sur for Best Actress from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Argentina.
[35] In early 1942, Bence filmed El tercer beso, directed by Luis César Amadori and co-starring Pedro López Lagar and Silvia Legrand.
[39] The film starred Bence and Sebastián Chiola, Ángel Magaña, Enrique Muiño, and Francisco Petrone and is set at the turn of the nineteenth century in northern Argentina.
Scriptwriters Hómero Manzi and Ulises Petit de Murat, wove the disparate stories of the characters into an overview of the gauchos' revolt against Spanish rule.
In 1943, she agreed to work with Pedro López Lagar on Son cartas de amor, a romantic story set at the time of the Spanish Civil War, in which she received an award for Best Actress from the Cuban Federation of Film and Theater Editors.
[44] The cover of the magazine Antena for December 1943 announced the upcoming release of Julio Saraceni's Nuestra Natacha,[44] based on a play by Alejandro Casona.
San Miguel Studios next put all three of its stars,[46] Mecha Ortiz, María Duval and Bence in one film, Las tres ratas (1946), under the direction of Carlos Schlieper, which fared much better with the public and critics.
[53] In 1947, Bence won the Writers Association award for Best Actress and the inaugural prize for the Hispanoamericano de Cinematografía in Madrid for her role as a wealthy but weak and vulnerable lady, mistreated by an evil nephew in Daniel Tinayre's murder drama, A sangre fría.
[54] For her role in Momplet 's La otra y yo (1949), which co-starred Enrique Álvarez Diosdado and Fernando Lamas, she dyed her hair blond to play two different characters—the film star "Dora Nelson" and the clothing designer "Matilde García".
[55] Bence again starred opposite Diosdado in Danza del fuego,[56] in which played Elena Valdez, a successful concert pianist who died on her wedding night after falling out the window of her home, tortured and believing herself guilty of a crime.
As they continued with the tour, Bence and Closas worked on the play "Mi marido y su complejo", which they opened for the first time in Rosario and then took it to Buenos Aires, Rio Cuarto, Mendoza, San Juan and Córdoba.
Returning to Argentina, Bence was persuaded by Cecilio Madanes to perform in "Así es la vida" with the company of Luis Arata and Eva Franco.
[79] In 1962, Bence joined an entourage including César Tiempo, Máximo Berrondo, and Enrique Serrano and appeared at the International Film Festival of India, where she met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at an official reception for foreign artists.
[87] Directed by Enrique Carreras, Luis Saslavsky and Fernando Ayala, she starred with Tita Merello and Ángel Magaña in La industria del matrimonio, a film shot in episodes, where she played a wealthy spinster.
[91] From Colombia, she went to Venezuela and debuted at the Municipal Theater of Caracas with four works: "Cándida", "Un inocente adulterio", "Un dios durmió en casa" and "Los amantes".
Bence performed on tour at Rosary College Theater at the University of Connecticut, Boston, Chicago and at the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington, DC, where her audience was 1,200 spectators.
[95] Back in Argentina, she did "La valija" with Justo José Rojas and Aldo Cura in Santiago del Estero, Salta, Jujuy and Córdoba, touring for four months.
[97] Upon returning to the United States in September 1975, she opened "Doña Rosita, la soltera" by Federico Garcia Lorca and personally met four-time Oscar-winning actress, Katharine Hepburn.
Bence spent almost two years out of work and in 1989 traveled to Cuba to attend the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, where she met Fidel Castro at a reception.
[107] She had a supporting role in the series Con alma de tango (1995) alongside Luisa Kuliok and Gerardo Romano, which had an international run throughout Latin America and in some European countries such as Italy, Israel and Turkey.
[110] After participating in "Sin condena" and "Alta comedia" in the mid-1990s,[111] she was hired in 1999 to do a play at the XIV International Festival of Hispanic Theater, but due to technical problems it was canceled.
[113] She returned to television in 2004 joining Pablo Granados and Pachu Peña in the comic series No hay dos sin tres, for which she was nominated in 2005 for the category of "Special Participation in Fiction" for the Martín Fierro Awards.
[118] In late 2009, a tribute in her honor was held by the Northern Region of the Argentine Society of Writers, in which the Mayor of San Isidro presented a poetry anthology and designated the hall with Bence's name.
[6] In November 2010, the journalist Daniel Gómez Rinaldi published a book entitled Amelia Bence: Los ojos más lindos del mundo, a biography of the actress.
