10 years without Paco Spain, the transformist who dared to dress as a woman during Francoism

Some of the people who met him commented that he lived as a queen and died like a quasi Pordiosoro.Paco Spain was one of the first artists of his generation who went up to the stage dressed as a woman when Franco had not yet died.For several years, he savored the honeys of his art's success and earned espuertas money.He started laughing and applause with his songs, dances and phrases of the house (such as "Ladies, Knights and Mariquitas Sympathizers"), he rubbed shoulders with the flower and cream of home folklore, and even woke up jealousy and envy.But the times of fat cows marched, and their inability to reinvent themselves to preserve their place among the transformists of the moment led him to ruin and oblivion.

Francisco Morera García, better known for his aka Paco Spain, was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on November 20, 1945, a few years before Franco introduced homosexuals as citizens to pursue within the law of lazy and thugs (Interestingly, he came to the world on the same day that the dictator went to the other neighborhood - although 30 years before—).He had charisma already from a very young age, and more than once he sang in the parishes and children's festivals that were organized in his area, and presented himself at the local stations of his city imitating Joselito."He sang songs from the Spanish songbook," he explained about his first artistic concerns."It was very good in the Canary Islands, every week there was a program on Radio Las Palmas on Saturdays, and I was always a guest artist,".

With sixteen years, when he was already beginning to be known on the islands, he made his bags and left the Isleta neighborhood to try his luck in Barcelona, where at first they rejected him more than once because of his physical appearance."It was not easy," he said."I spent fifteen days looking for work and they didn't give me.They did evidence and everything (as a singer), because it was the only way;If not, I had to scrub dishes.There came a time that was very desperate when I did not find work [...] At that time the transvestite was very fashionable, and I was accustomed to dressing from China in the carnival of my land, and then I told myself: 'If I sing, I can do it dressed as a girl' ".

After overcoming a test to work in the Barcelona at night, in the Chinese neighborhood, he was hired (and baptized as Paco Spain) to give couplet and mess for the attendees to that premises.At first, he did it by wearing pants (although makeup like a woman) and earned just 400 pesetas per day.After time he began to acquire popularity in the scoundrel scene of the city, where in the difficult years of the late -pharmism he seemed to blow a greater wind of freedom of freedom."The first times I felt very self -conscious.I felt as nude on the track.It was cold believing that it was ridiculous.I thought: 'What need to be dressed as a woman to do this?'.But, if he did not, he did not eat.Little by little I had to get used to and I liked it, "he would later confess the Canary, who defined himself as a bisexual man, and ended up falling in love with a dancer of his show with whom he had his two children, RicardoAnd Mariángels - who did not prevent his male lovers from also having -.

In 1975, the owner of the room in which Paco worked decided to take it to Madrid.There, the artist spent four years acting as a presenter and showman (first figure) of the Gay Club party hall, located on the bass of the National Hotel and with capacity for almost 500 people.Paco's admirers, who became an emblem of that mythical disco thanks to shows like Crazy, Crazy Cabaret, have always highlighted their great ability to laugh at himself and how brave he was in his day to dare to get on a stageDressed with women's clothes at a time when transvestism could be a reason for denunciation in accordance with the Law of Danger and Social Rehabilitation."I acted with Franco, and in the dressing room there was a bulb that lit from the outside when the police came to the premises, and then, instead of dress, we put pants, but we went to work the same.In the end, the police left us for impossible, "the artist himself would remember in a 2006 interview.