Tita Merello

Constantina de Jarque Castro (Barcelona, January 25, 1906-Valencia, January 23, 1937), best known as Tina de Jarque was a Spanish star, actress and singer. She was one of the most popular stars in the first decades of the 20th century participating in a multitude of magazines and various films in places like Germany or the United States. She was born in the midst of a family of circus artists well known at the time as they came from a great dynasty of trapecists and balanceists. She was a beautiful girl who from a very young age showed talent, who spoke four languages and who managed to quickly work an artistic career in the world of cinema, theatre and song. Her presentation in Madrid occurred in April 1921 in the late Romea theatre of Carretas Street.It was said that she was a woman of a kind heart, always ready to help anyone who asked but missed an image of frivolity and moral dissolute when she was a pioneer in showing herself naked in the scenes. From the beginning of the 1920s to the mid-30s she was one of the most consecrated artists on the national scene, possessing a robbing personality which she used to relate to very rich businessmen who constituted many problems for her.Tina was arrested in November 1936 in Madrid by Abel Domínguez, a former anarchist who was displeased by the discipline and rules of the army but who after stopping her was lost in love with her. She was subsequently accused of stealing jewelry and spying, so she was shot.