Beatriz Noloesca

American comedian and actor

• Born: August 20, 1903
• Birthplace: San Antonio, Texas
• Died: April 4, 1979
• Place of death: San Antonio, Texas

Nolesca was one of the great vaudeville actors, known throughout the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean for her self-produced working-class Latin American theatrical productions. She performed for more than four decades, entertaining and inspiring several generations of Hispanic Americans.

Early Life

Beatriz Noloesca (BEE-ah-trihs noh-loh-EHS-kah) was born Beatriz Escalona Pérez on August 20, 1903, to parents Escalona and Simona Pérez. A child of working-class Mexican American immigrants, Noloesca spent her formative years between her birthplace San Antonio, Texas, and her parents’ place of origin, Galeana, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. She spent most of her childhood with her relatives in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, which is where she cultivated a proclivity for the theater. At the age of ten, she was already absorbed with theatrical entertainment, and she sold bouquets of flowers just to make enough money for admission to Teatro Independencia. Her work in the field of theatrics as “La Chata,” a sassy and strong-willed yet sweet Mexican American maid, was undoubtedly tempered by her job selling food and drinks as a young child to working-class Mexican Americans in San Antonio. She picked up the dialect and replicated the mannerisms of those she encountered on the railways while helping to support her family as an adolescent.

Life’s Work

At the age of sixteen, Noloesca worked at the Teatro Zaragoza, which was located in the Mexican American community in San Antonio. At the age of eighteen, she was hired to be an usherette and box-office attendant in the newly built Teatro Nacional in 1920. It was during this time that Noloesca was spotted on stage at the Teatro Nacional competing in a local hosiery company-sponsored beautiful legs contest, which she won, and she was offered a position in the Cuban Spanish dance troupe Los Hermanos Areu. Noloesca debuted with the company at the Teatro Colón in El Paso, Texas, the same year and began developing the endearing comedic character “La Chata” Noloesca. José Areu, the Cuban American owner of the company, met Noloesca and eventually married her. Shortly after, Noloesca had her only child, Belia Areu, in Mexico City on October 31, 1921. Belia went on to become an accomplished performer in her own right. Noloesca toured with Areu throughout Mexico and the Southwest of the United States, performing everything from dramatic performance to risqué burlesque and comedy. As she became seasoned as a thespian, she began to favor comedy more than other popular genres of stage. Her role as “La Chata” was so revered among the working class in the communities in which the troupe toured that it became a lucrative source of income, and she and her husband were able to rent their own theater in Los Angeles.

In 1930, Areu and Noloesca divorced, and she subsequently left Los Hermanos Areu. She formed her own company, Atracciones Noloesca, which survived for six years in the midst of the Great Depression, which significantly decreased the audiences and consequently decreased the number of Spanish-speaking theaters in the Southwest. During this time, she performed, managed, and hired for the company, normally hiring local Spanish-speaking women from the San Antonio area and periodically hiring men. A famous thespian of note she hired was Mexican actor Eusebio Pirrin, who is known for his role as Don Catarino. Noloesca eventually decided to seek out other cities with enlarging Spanish-speaking populations, such as Chicago and New York, where she found a receptive community of Hispanic Americans.

In 1936, Noloesca met and married immigrant worker José de la Torre. That same year, she revamped her company, changing the name to Beatriz Noloesca “La Chata” Compania Mexicana. She traveled with her new husband, daughter, and four San Antonian actors, performing sketches consisting of singing, dancing, and comedy. The staple of the show was the character “La Chata” Noloesca, reciting comedic dialogue with a male counterpart, most times performed with her husband. Noloesca was able to travel and sustain her career throughout the 1940’s, performing throughout the United States, Mexico, and Cuba. In the early 1950’s, after Noloesca’s divorce from her second husband, she returned with her daughter to her native San Antonio, Texas, where she worked in radio and television programs, on KCOR and KWEX-TV. She then married Ruben Escobedo, a San Antonio musician. She continued to perform as “La Chata” Noloesca throughout the 1970’s, doing her last show at a benefit performance in August, 1977. She died in San Antonio on April 4, 1979.

Significance

Noloesca was a trailblazer for Latinas in the field of entertainment. She was justly honored by the Mexican National Association of Actors in 1975 for her creation and performance of the character “La Chata” (an endearing term which means “button nose”) Noloesca (an anagram of her last name “Escalona”), which has been considered a personification of the Latin American working class. This is one explanation for her popularity among underclass Latin Americans in major urban centers throughout her career.

Bibliography

Arrizon, Alicia. Latina Performance: Traversing the Stage. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. This book examines Latina performances, including theatrical personalities such as “La Chata” Noloesca.

Ramirez, Elizabeth. Chicanas/Latinas in American Theatre: A History of Performance. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2000. This book studies the Latino Theater’s transformation from its pre-Spanish origins to the current American theater history.

Ybarra-Frausto, Tomás. “La Chata Noloesca: Figura del Donaire.” In Mexican American Theatre: Then and Now, edited by Nicolas Kanellos. Houston, Tex.: Arte Publico Press, 1983. This book is a collection of works about the Mexican American influence on American theatre.