Argentina Mercedes González Morel Valerio Urea[1][2] (December 20, 1920 – October 2, 2013), commonly known as Monica Boyar, was a Dominican-born American nightclub singer,[3] who was popular in the 1940s and 1950s for her calypso, and Afro-Cuban style songs.
[1] She was initially a soprano singing voice, but found that she disliked that and switched to a tenor, which was followed by a contralto in her later years.
[1] During the 1939 New York World's Fair she made a concerted effort to persuade Americans to adopt the Dominican Republic's native dance, the merengue.
Among her numerous nightclub engagements was a December 1955 performance at the Viennese Lantern, at 242 East 79th Street in Yorkville, Manhattan.
Boyar appeared in the Broadway production by Tennessee Williams, Summer and Smoke (1948), as the character "Rosa Gonzalez".
[1] She also starred as the Hawaiian wife named Emmaloa in the stage production of 13 Daughters (1961), a short-lived Broadway musical by Eaton Magoon Jr..[1][7] Her first husband was Federico Horacio "Gugu" Vásquez Henríquez.
[6] She was widowed when her husband was captured and executed after landing at Luperón, Puerto Plata in 1949 as part of a plot against Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.
[1] Boyar died on October 2, 2013, in Las Vegas, from complications due to stroke at age 92.