Spanish Singer Lola Flores Dies At 72

Lola Flores, one of this century’s leading Spanish singers and entertainers, died Tuesday of lung cancer. She was 72.

Flores, who had been suffering from cancer for several years, died at her family home on the outskirts of Madrid. Family sources told National Radio she had recently contracted pneumonia.

Known as “the Pharaonic One” or “Lola Of Spain,” Dolores Flores was born in 1923 in the southwestern town of Jerez de la Frontera. She began her singing and dancing career in Andalucian bars at the age of 10.

On screen, she is most remembered for her roles as the singing and dancing Mexican or Gypsy girl in Mexican, Spanish and American films.

A supporter of late Gen. Francisco Franco, Flores was said to have performed for the dictator every year on July 18, the anniversary of the rebellion by Franco and his nationalist forces which set off the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War.