November 19, 2024 • 26 mins
Disclaimer: Please note this episode contains themes and conversations about sex.
In this week’s episode of Señora Sex Ed, Ivonne Coll shares her journey as Miss Puerto Rico (1967), her time as a vedette, and her prolific career as an actress. Ivonne divulges the delicious details of her life full of self-love and romantic love.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Amiga. What were you like in your twenties?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ya, Moia, very studious. I spent a lot of time
in church. How about you, what were you like in
your twenties?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Oh, I was a hippie. I slept with everybody. Senora Yora, Senora.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Hi, Senora.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Welcome to Senora sex Ed.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Senora Sex Said is not your Mommy's sex Talk. This
show is la platica like you've never heard it before.
With each episode, we're breaking the stigma and silence around
sex and sexuality in LATINX communities.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Latinas have been hyper sexualized in popular culture, but notoriously
denied sex education. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between
Latinas from gen X to gen Z, covering everything from
puberty and body image to representation in film, television, and music.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
And just a reminder that in this show, a Senora
is a woman with a lot of life experiences and
stories to share. Maybe she's thirty, maybe she's forty, she's
fifty or older. Maybe she's trans, maybe she's sis.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Chapter fourteen, Be your Own Lover. On today's episode of
Senora sex Head, we are pleased in honor to have
actress of the stage and screen, Puerto Rico's own Yvonne Cole.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
When Yvonne Cole started her period, she was told it
meant that now she was a senorita.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Let me tell you when my first period came. You
know the girl. We had a girl who took care
of us because my mother was a beautician and she
was all the time working. So we brought someone that
was like the tenth kid from the woman who would
do our house in my little hometown when we moved
to the capital city. So she took care of us, Dora,
(02:09):
which my mother made a beauty parlor for her. Later
on in her life she became a hairstylist. Anyway, Dora
was the one that I said, Dora, I have blood,
what is this And she says, ah, you're a senorita.
Let me talk to your mom. And I'm like no, no, no,
no no. So she spoke to my mom and my
(02:31):
mom is like, yes, we have to buy you a bra,
and now you're a senorita. But nobody said anything else.
Nobody said what it meant that I could get pregnant,
that I could nada. It was you know, I'm from
another generation and that was like in the sixties or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Like many of our previous guests, Yvonne was in Catholic
school and grew up in an era where sex and
sexuality were not spoken about.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Nah, it was a different time. It was verbottom. You
don't speak about those things, you know. It's so weird
because you have to speak about those things, because that's
why girls get pregnant, you know. But I never got pregnant,
thank god, you know. But yeah, no, it was verbottom.
(03:23):
At Taijego, my mother took me to the store to
buy the bra and it was like a real tiny
bra with a lot of patting. No, I was in
Catholic school. Spanish nuns. Forget about that conversation forever. And besides,
I wanted to be a nun. I was so devout
(03:46):
and so oh it gives me. It was terrible. My
mother hated it because she was a hairstylist, and you know,
that's why she pushed me. I became Miss Puerto Rico
because my mother pushed me into the contest, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
With an impressive career as an act dress Yvonne Cole's
mother had a profound impact on her life trajectory.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
She's like, you can win it, we can do this.
I was tall, of course, and she did my hair,
so I won better, on on on and so stimpos.
It was a different time. The parents didn't have and
my mother, God bless her. My mother left her house
when she was nine years of age because her father
(04:27):
tried to rape her. And she never revealed this to
me until I lived in New York and I was
in my forties. Okay, she never said this to us.
But her mother died of tuberculosis, which was hunger poverty.
Their house had a dirt floor where she lived, and
(04:48):
she says that how she managed to escape that was
because she had handkerchief. But in those times, you would
take the handkerchief and put them nichols and the dimes
in it and make a nott and hide it. So
that's your stash, you know. So she had that stash.
And after this man drunk, after her mother died, this
(05:12):
man drunk came in tried to rape her, but she
fell asleep. She went out of that campo because she
lived in the mountains and Cajay. She went to the
road where the bus that went to the next town
would cross by. She got to the next town, which
is Kaguas and in Kawachi, gets down from from the
(05:36):
bus and she goes to a little cafeteria and Lamima
Plaza to get a coffee. The sennor what is such
a beautiful girl doing at this hour of the morning
around here, And she says, I'm looking for work, sir.
She was nine. She had never worked, you know, I mean,
(05:58):
she was poor. She would go to school to get
the bread and the milk to bring it to her
mom instead of her eating. So she said that to
him and he said, well do you do you know
how to take care of kids? And she's like, yeah,
I know, and so he said, okay, I'll give you
a job. He was a Venezuelan man that brought a
(06:19):
beauty shop with his wife to Puerto Rico because they
wanted to franchise beauty shops all over the island. And
at twelve years of age, she who started sweeping the
floors of that beauty shop, was doing her first permanent
wave on a little box that they put for her,
and she was doing so at age eighteen, they sent
(06:41):
her to Fahar the wors even my father to put
another franchise of the beauty shop. So my mother was
like an incredible woman that I respect so much and
I cannot match her. I cannot match her.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
We'll be taking a quick break. Don't miss us.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Thanks for sticking around. We are back.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Despite her childhood trauma, Yvonne's mother did not raise her
to fear men.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
She was self sufficient and that's what she taught me,
that I could do it by myself alone, without money,
without any help from anybody, with my talents and my intelligence.
That's why she gave us a real good education at
that time. It was Catholic school, of course, because that's
one of the best disciplines that you learned to educate
(07:42):
yourself in Catholic school. And my nuns in Fahardo, which
is my hometown, were from North America. They didn't speak,
so I had to communicate and learn English by proxy.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
With school at the forefront, Yvonne was educated by nuns
and her ballet teacher was none other than Walter Mercado.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
And Walter Mercado lived on Seba, the next town. He
would come to my town and give me ballet classes.
So I started with Walter Mercado to dance at age five,
and at age six and seven, I was giving my
first ballet show with him in a military base in
(08:29):
his hometown in Seba.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
The time Yvonne spent with the nuns was in some
way her introduction to acting and performing.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
I love the nuns. I love them, and they even
put me their illifor labito for a skit that they
did in the school. And that was the first time
that I was like in a costume, you know, of
a nun. So I decided. That's when I decided, right
(09:02):
then and there that was going to be a nun.
But I think I decided it because it was so theatrical,
you know, the whole thing and the and the rituals
and everything. The Catholics that Pierre came from. There, I
would give Catechism every Saturday, I would baptize kids in
(09:22):
in the poor neighborhoods. I would go with them and
and do and do the the clothing for the poor
people and ment them. And but I think it was
all my acting. My I didn't know that I was
an actor. In those Catholic schools. There were no skits
(09:43):
of anything, you know, you didn't have any drama, you
didn't present any nada no as that was it.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
The skit with the nuns in Catholic school and her
mother's encouragement to compete for MESP Puerto Rico so would
become important steps on Yvonne's journey to becoming an actress.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
I was a student at the University of Puerto Rico
of psychology. I was in social studies. So I thought
at the time that when my mother proposed to me
to get into the contest, I thought it would be
a good idea to go into it win it so
(10:25):
that she wouldn't have to pay for my master's degree.
That was my motivation, and ten thousand dollars were offered
if you wan. So I got in and I won,
and the ten thousand dollars never appeared.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
After winning Miss Puerto Rico, Yvonne's life took some unexpected turns,
first while living on a hippie commune and later as
a type of showgirl known as of a debt Yomi.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
If with the hippie a wun a commune, I went
into a commune, La Comuna de Carajo was called, and
so in that commune there were many artists. Tita Paco Lopez,
which was my companion Ela Tortugas. He takes care of
(11:14):
the the tortoise and things in the special beach here
in Puerto Rico. It So I went to be a hippie.
And then when I was a hippie, two of viricha
CON's dancers were my dear friends from whatever, and they said,
Yvonne Hector is doing a show at the Flamboyan Hotel.
(11:38):
They need show girls. So I went and I auditioned
for the show girl. So I became a show girl
the Sad de Vegas, you know, with a little bikini
and the thing, and then you walk around with the
music and that's all you do. But they heard me
singing in the shower. So the producer would hear me
in the shower from his room singing, and so he
(12:02):
proposed to me, why are you not the death of
the show? The dead in those times in Puerto Rico
ra Kuna umberra Erra, Marie Antonia, the Mexico Va, It's rich.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yvonne knew that life as a show girl wasn't for
her long term, but her experiences singing in some of
the best clubs in Puerto Rico poister for a future
in movies. And television.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
And tusis Mio or record Classico and toss. He tested
me and he said, yes you can, and we're going
to develop a person and we're going to develop a
personality for you. You're going to be hey Worth and Dietrick.
(13:01):
The makeup is Di Trick and the hair will be
read like Hayworth. Gave me a Hayworth, give me a
Dietrich to yah yell mean sign yeahs own personally that
is Simo Sun de cantando in a cafeeatro in old
San Juan that was like for hippies and people from
(13:23):
the media right then, and there were the owners of
the best club in town, Puertas. Immediately I got hired
for Puetas because I had the style that they were,
that they were used to have, and my shows in
Oo Puerta were were famous because I would sit on
the piano what Michelle Fiffer did many years after in
(13:45):
a movie that she with the Baker Boys or something
like that, Yolo Tabaci and then Porto Rico and Los Angeles.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Piano cantando I and give you any thing but love
baby quit caircosa in.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
English and Spanish. You know, we would do twenty minutes sets,
four sets a night. It would start at twelve midnight
and at four o'clock in the morning. And so this
is how I developed into what then became. I had
a TV show as a singer because they were looking
(14:26):
for somebody to compete with it ischak On because it
Ischakong had left the station. I had no idea. They
offered me to get you know, to come to this
meeting at the Channel eleven. So I went with all
these producers and they offered me a variety show, a
one hour variety show, because they knew that I could sing,
(14:48):
that I could dance.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Eventually, Yvonne's talents on stage would lead her to meet
Francis Ford Coppola and land a role in The Godfather
Part two.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
So that's how I kind of like and from there
Joses show escuando Vienna Francis for Coppola Puerto Rico to
look for the things for The Godfather Part two, for
the for the singer for the act, and he happens
to have studied with the Puerto Rican director Senor moment In.
(15:24):
He was not here, but his partner, who was a
friend of mine, was here and he I was doing
a theater play where I would sing Likeakara. That was
what I would do in that play. It was ridiculous.
That was the only thing I did that And so
polkem and he said, you have to leave this and
(15:45):
let's go and meet these people who are here looking
for location and for an act. And that's how I
met Copola. He took me over to the nightclub where
they were seeing another act. Then we went in the
car and in the car they asked me, so what
do you do And I said, oh, I see nostalgia
from Cuba from Puerto Rico. Little did I know they
(16:05):
were looking for that islesparati esparati no importa no in
porta huh. And so that's how I ended up in
The Godfather. And then when I came back to Puerto
Rico from The Godfather after filming it in Santo Domingo,
and and Coppo I gave me a name so that
(16:26):
I would have my first credit.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
After working on the Godfather. Yvonne knew for certain that
you wanted to study to become a serious actor.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
I don't want to with this sexy thing. I want
to study acting. Por Kejobi a Paccino on the set
preparing himself before he kisses his brother on the mouth
to kill him. And when I saw that, I saw
him sodra Quilo's tranquil. And then all of a sudden,
(16:55):
he started to after Coppola spoke to him, started to
get red and red action, and he started to walk
la quellesuo para lakara, yoe, how do you do that?
And Strasburg was there filming, and they introduced me to Strasbourg,
and he said, you can when you come to New York,
you can study with me, because if Francis got you here,
(17:18):
I don't have to audition you. You can come in
and study with me.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It was then that Yvonne would embark on the next
chapter of her life to pursue acting in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
So he took me to Los Angeles, far away from
Puerto Rico to develop as an actor, so that I
wouldn't be tempted to sing. They wouldn't be tempted to
call me to sing in Puerto Rico, so I would
be just focused on learning a new language and knew
everything because I was entering a world that I had
(17:50):
no clue. I came to Lay in nineteen seventy five
when feminism was growing, and I became a feminist, of course,
and then I moved to New York in seventy nine.
I spent ten years in New York doing theater work only,
and I lived off of the theater in New York
(18:11):
because I worked all the time. I also did Broadway,
a Broadway show at the beginning. Then I did like
five Broadway shows. I went back to la in nineteen
ninety when I was forty two already, so I was
old enough for them not to put me as a
(18:31):
sexy thing or anything. So savy latinas in Hollywood of
a certain age, two parts only Mama, Grandma. When have
you seen Meryl Street playing any of those? When have
you seen Judith Dench playing a grandma?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yvonne reflects on the limited range of acting roles ridden.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
For latinas pernostros solonos, Danio and Ton says, when I
got that Grandma at the end, because I was gonna
be retiring to put I want to come back to
Puerto Rico, to my house because I don't pay rent
here and it's my house.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
As it turns out, one of Yvonne's most well known
roles was that of the grandmother on Jane the Virgin,
a part that she still has some complicated feelings about.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
I didn't want to it was, you know, it was
in Spanish everything I had to say in Jane the Virgin,
and I told them I've studied so hard, so many
ways of learning this language, and now you have me
speaking Spanish only.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
We hope you're enjoying this conversation. Stay tuned, there's more
to come.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
We hope you enjoyed the break and are ready to
listen to the rest.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yvonne's time in La left an impact on her in
more ways than one. Her introduction to feminism changed her
perspective of herself as a sexualized being.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
It was a liberating experience because I came from a
very Muchista country. It is still very Muchista, and women
are seen as objects all the time, and I was
an object also in my TV show that I was
doing down there when I was being a singer dancer,
(20:21):
so they would dress me sexy all the time. That's
what would sell. So it was very liberating to understand
that my mind was what was important from now on
in society, as opposed to how I looked, that's what
(20:42):
feminism brought to my mind. In Puerto Rico, it wasn't
there yet, but I was in the States and I
was soaking this and with people around me, writers that
were feminists and were rebels, and hinted, Tinta alake yokonzel,
I'm in tally that because here in our countries, you know,
(21:05):
it's male oriented. It's men who determine everything. And so
I was. I was used to know that I liked it,
but I was used to that, and then to find
out that you don't have to be beholden to that,
that you have your own opinion, that you can go
here and say, no, I'm as good as you.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yvonne reminisces about her hippie days and the era of
free love that she lived through.
Speaker 7 (21:29):
My priority was my career, and love was just to
have a little fun, especially like in the when I
was a hippie, you know, you would do it with
anybody and everybody or whatever it was, you know.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Sixties to seventies. So free love. I did a lot
of that, had a lot of lovers, lots and lots
and lots of lovers, but I never married. When I
was a singer dancer here in Puerto Rico. It was
(22:05):
a bigger than life kind of persona. So it was
not like attached to having a boyfriend or being validated
to having a boyfriend. You know, it was me. I
would go alone to everything. I would be presented fabulously
with my gowns, with my old culture gowns from my designers.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Although yvon dated and had many many lovers, she was
always more committed to her career than to having a
boyfriend or a husband.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
And I could have a date, but relationships like men
didn't see me like for like I could be. I
remember somebody told me, no, you're not supposed to be
a wife or something like that. Because I was not
going to be a wife. Submitted, you know, I subjugated
to home life when my life was in the arts.
(23:03):
I married my career is what happened here, you know.
And I did have a very big sexual life.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
At the end of our interview, we asked Yvonne what
advice she might have for her younger self.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
My younger self, Wow, I never thought about that. You know.
My message for me as a younger woman would be
trusting yourself a little bit more. It's gonna be all right.
(23:42):
You are not alone. You're part of the energy of
the universe. And that's what I believe in. In that
energy that keeps us alive, and the fact that we
wake up every day and can breathe and can think
and can speak, that those are gifts that you cannot
(24:07):
take for granted.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
My takeaway after talking to Yvonne Cole is that we
really and truly have so much to learn from Senoras.
Yvonne is one of those Senoras that has lived many, many,
many many lives and takes a lot of joy and
pride in telling her story and in talking about the
(24:29):
many lives that she's lived, the places she's been, her experiences,
the movies she start in, and the multitude of lovers
that she's taken. I loved hearing Yvonne talk about her
time living on a hippie commune, about sleeping with men, women,
anybody that she felt like sleeping with. This was truly
a joy to talk with Yvonne Cole, and it's one
(24:52):
of the reasons why we wanted to do this podcast
to hear from older Latinas like her who have incredible
experiences to share.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Next time on Senora Sex said. We're joined by Eden
and Jay, healthy relationship advocates and creators of Bresciosa Night,
a queer and lesbian LATINX party.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
The first year, we just focused on finding the perfect
sperm donor in our eyes, So that was literally like
buying a house. Like you and your partner sit down,
you literally write all the things and qualifications that you
want in like this magical donor, and then you cross
reference and then you.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, it's crazy choo.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Senora Sex Said is a co production between Locator Productions
and Mike Udura Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
This show is executive produced by Mala Munios and bios FM.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Also executive produced by Jasel.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Pants, produced by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Creative direction by Mala Munos.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Story editing by Biosafem, music.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Direction by Prisol Lomelili, and.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Music produced by Brian Bazo
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Inst to Gi
Amiga. What were you like in your twenties?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ya, Moia, very studious. I spent a lot of time
in church. How about you, what were you like in
your twenties?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Oh, I was a hippie. I slept with everybody. Senora Yora, Senora.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Hi, Senora.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Welcome to Senora sex Ed.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Senora Sex Said is not your Mommy's sex Talk. This
show is la platica like you've never heard it before.
With each episode, we're breaking the stigma and silence around
sex and sexuality in LATINX communities.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Latinas have been hyper sexualized in popular culture, but notoriously
denied sex education. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between
Latinas from gen X to gen Z, covering everything from
puberty and body image to representation in film, television, and music.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
And just a reminder that in this show, a Senora
is a woman with a lot of life experiences and
stories to share. Maybe she's thirty, maybe she's forty, she's
fifty or older. Maybe she's trans, maybe she's sis.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Chapter fourteen, Be your Own Lover. On today's episode of
Senora sex Head, we are pleased in honor to have
actress of the stage and screen, Puerto Rico's own Yvonne Cole.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
When Yvonne Cole started her period, she was told it
meant that now she was a senorita.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Let me tell you when my first period came. You
know the girl. We had a girl who took care
of us because my mother was a beautician and she
was all the time working. So we brought someone that
was like the tenth kid from the woman who would
do our house in my little hometown when we moved
to the capital city. So she took care of us, Dora,
(02:09):
which my mother made a beauty parlor for her. Later
on in her life she became a hairstylist. Anyway, Dora
was the one that I said, Dora, I have blood,
what is this And she says, ah, you're a senorita.
Let me talk to your mom. And I'm like no, no, no,
no no. So she spoke to my mom and my
(02:31):
mom is like, yes, we have to buy you a bra,
and now you're a senorita. But nobody said anything else.
Nobody said what it meant that I could get pregnant,
that I could nada. It was you know, I'm from
another generation and that was like in the sixties or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Like many of our previous guests, Yvonne was in Catholic
school and grew up in an era where sex and
sexuality were not spoken about.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Nah, it was a different time. It was verbottom. You
don't speak about those things, you know. It's so weird
because you have to speak about those things, because that's
why girls get pregnant, you know. But I never got pregnant,
thank god, you know. But yeah, no, it was verbottom.
(03:23):
At Taijego, my mother took me to the store to
buy the bra and it was like a real tiny
bra with a lot of patting. No, I was in
Catholic school. Spanish nuns. Forget about that conversation forever. And besides,
I wanted to be a nun. I was so devout
(03:46):
and so oh it gives me. It was terrible. My
mother hated it because she was a hairstylist, and you know,
that's why she pushed me. I became Miss Puerto Rico
because my mother pushed me into the contest, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
With an impressive career as an act dress Yvonne Cole's
mother had a profound impact on her life trajectory.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
She's like, you can win it, we can do this.
I was tall, of course, and she did my hair,
so I won better, on on on and so stimpos.
It was a different time. The parents didn't have and
my mother, God bless her. My mother left her house
when she was nine years of age because her father
(04:27):
tried to rape her. And she never revealed this to
me until I lived in New York and I was
in my forties. Okay, she never said this to us.
But her mother died of tuberculosis, which was hunger poverty.
Their house had a dirt floor where she lived, and
(04:48):
she says that how she managed to escape that was
because she had handkerchief. But in those times, you would
take the handkerchief and put them nichols and the dimes
in it and make a nott and hide it. So
that's your stash, you know. So she had that stash.
And after this man drunk, after her mother died, this
(05:12):
man drunk came in tried to rape her, but she
fell asleep. She went out of that campo because she
lived in the mountains and Cajay. She went to the
road where the bus that went to the next town
would cross by. She got to the next town, which
is Kaguas and in Kawachi, gets down from from the
(05:36):
bus and she goes to a little cafeteria and Lamima
Plaza to get a coffee. The sennor what is such
a beautiful girl doing at this hour of the morning
around here, And she says, I'm looking for work, sir.
She was nine. She had never worked, you know, I mean,
(05:58):
she was poor. She would go to school to get
the bread and the milk to bring it to her
mom instead of her eating. So she said that to
him and he said, well do you do you know
how to take care of kids? And she's like, yeah,
I know, and so he said, okay, I'll give you
a job. He was a Venezuelan man that brought a
(06:19):
beauty shop with his wife to Puerto Rico because they
wanted to franchise beauty shops all over the island. And
at twelve years of age, she who started sweeping the
floors of that beauty shop, was doing her first permanent
wave on a little box that they put for her,
and she was doing so at age eighteen, they sent
(06:41):
her to Fahar the wors even my father to put
another franchise of the beauty shop. So my mother was
like an incredible woman that I respect so much and
I cannot match her. I cannot match her.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
We'll be taking a quick break. Don't miss us.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Thanks for sticking around. We are back.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Despite her childhood trauma, Yvonne's mother did not raise her
to fear men.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
She was self sufficient and that's what she taught me,
that I could do it by myself alone, without money,
without any help from anybody, with my talents and my intelligence.
That's why she gave us a real good education at
that time. It was Catholic school, of course, because that's
one of the best disciplines that you learned to educate
(07:42):
yourself in Catholic school. And my nuns in Fahardo, which
is my hometown, were from North America. They didn't speak,
so I had to communicate and learn English by proxy.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
With school at the forefront, Yvonne was educated by nuns
and her ballet teacher was none other than Walter Mercado.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
And Walter Mercado lived on Seba, the next town. He
would come to my town and give me ballet classes.
So I started with Walter Mercado to dance at age five,
and at age six and seven, I was giving my
first ballet show with him in a military base in
(08:29):
his hometown in Seba.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
The time Yvonne spent with the nuns was in some
way her introduction to acting and performing.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
I love the nuns. I love them, and they even
put me their illifor labito for a skit that they
did in the school. And that was the first time
that I was like in a costume, you know, of
a nun. So I decided. That's when I decided, right
(09:02):
then and there that was going to be a nun.
But I think I decided it because it was so theatrical,
you know, the whole thing and the and the rituals
and everything. The Catholics that Pierre came from. There, I
would give Catechism every Saturday, I would baptize kids in
(09:22):
in the poor neighborhoods. I would go with them and
and do and do the the clothing for the poor
people and ment them. And but I think it was
all my acting. My I didn't know that I was
an actor. In those Catholic schools. There were no skits
(09:43):
of anything, you know, you didn't have any drama, you
didn't present any nada no as that was it.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
The skit with the nuns in Catholic school and her
mother's encouragement to compete for MESP Puerto Rico so would
become important steps on Yvonne's journey to becoming an actress.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
I was a student at the University of Puerto Rico
of psychology. I was in social studies. So I thought
at the time that when my mother proposed to me
to get into the contest, I thought it would be
a good idea to go into it win it so
(10:25):
that she wouldn't have to pay for my master's degree.
That was my motivation, and ten thousand dollars were offered
if you wan. So I got in and I won,
and the ten thousand dollars never appeared.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
After winning Miss Puerto Rico, Yvonne's life took some unexpected turns,
first while living on a hippie commune and later as
a type of showgirl known as of a debt Yomi.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
If with the hippie a wun a commune, I went
into a commune, La Comuna de Carajo was called, and
so in that commune there were many artists. Tita Paco Lopez,
which was my companion Ela Tortugas. He takes care of
(11:14):
the the tortoise and things in the special beach here
in Puerto Rico. It So I went to be a hippie.
And then when I was a hippie, two of viricha
CON's dancers were my dear friends from whatever, and they said,
Yvonne Hector is doing a show at the Flamboyan Hotel.
(11:38):
They need show girls. So I went and I auditioned
for the show girl. So I became a show girl
the Sad de Vegas, you know, with a little bikini
and the thing, and then you walk around with the
music and that's all you do. But they heard me
singing in the shower. So the producer would hear me
in the shower from his room singing, and so he
(12:02):
proposed to me, why are you not the death of
the show? The dead in those times in Puerto Rico
ra Kuna umberra Erra, Marie Antonia, the Mexico Va, It's rich.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yvonne knew that life as a show girl wasn't for
her long term, but her experiences singing in some of
the best clubs in Puerto Rico poister for a future
in movies. And television.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
And tusis Mio or record Classico and toss. He tested
me and he said, yes you can, and we're going
to develop a person and we're going to develop a
personality for you. You're going to be hey Worth and Dietrick.
(13:01):
The makeup is Di Trick and the hair will be
read like Hayworth. Gave me a Hayworth, give me a
Dietrich to yah yell mean sign yeahs own personally that
is Simo Sun de cantando in a cafeeatro in old
San Juan that was like for hippies and people from
(13:23):
the media right then, and there were the owners of
the best club in town, Puertas. Immediately I got hired
for Puetas because I had the style that they were,
that they were used to have, and my shows in
Oo Puerta were were famous because I would sit on
the piano what Michelle Fiffer did many years after in
(13:45):
a movie that she with the Baker Boys or something
like that, Yolo Tabaci and then Porto Rico and Los Angeles.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Piano cantando I and give you any thing but love
baby quit caircosa in.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
English and Spanish. You know, we would do twenty minutes sets,
four sets a night. It would start at twelve midnight
and at four o'clock in the morning. And so this
is how I developed into what then became. I had
a TV show as a singer because they were looking
(14:26):
for somebody to compete with it ischak On because it
Ischakong had left the station. I had no idea. They
offered me to get you know, to come to this
meeting at the Channel eleven. So I went with all
these producers and they offered me a variety show, a
one hour variety show, because they knew that I could sing,
(14:48):
that I could dance.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Eventually, Yvonne's talents on stage would lead her to meet
Francis Ford Coppola and land a role in The Godfather
Part two.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
So that's how I kind of like and from there
Joses show escuando Vienna Francis for Coppola Puerto Rico to
look for the things for The Godfather Part two, for
the for the singer for the act, and he happens
to have studied with the Puerto Rican director Senor moment In.
(15:24):
He was not here, but his partner, who was a
friend of mine, was here and he I was doing
a theater play where I would sing Likeakara. That was
what I would do in that play. It was ridiculous.
That was the only thing I did that And so
polkem and he said, you have to leave this and
(15:45):
let's go and meet these people who are here looking
for location and for an act. And that's how I
met Copola. He took me over to the nightclub where
they were seeing another act. Then we went in the
car and in the car they asked me, so what
do you do And I said, oh, I see nostalgia
from Cuba from Puerto Rico. Little did I know they
(16:05):
were looking for that islesparati esparati no importa no in
porta huh. And so that's how I ended up in
The Godfather. And then when I came back to Puerto
Rico from The Godfather after filming it in Santo Domingo,
and and Coppo I gave me a name so that
(16:26):
I would have my first credit.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
After working on the Godfather. Yvonne knew for certain that
you wanted to study to become a serious actor.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
I don't want to with this sexy thing. I want
to study acting. Por Kejobi a Paccino on the set
preparing himself before he kisses his brother on the mouth
to kill him. And when I saw that, I saw
him sodra Quilo's tranquil. And then all of a sudden,
(16:55):
he started to after Coppola spoke to him, started to
get red and red action, and he started to walk
la quellesuo para lakara, yoe, how do you do that?
And Strasburg was there filming, and they introduced me to Strasbourg,
and he said, you can when you come to New York,
you can study with me, because if Francis got you here,
(17:18):
I don't have to audition you. You can come in
and study with me.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It was then that Yvonne would embark on the next
chapter of her life to pursue acting in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
So he took me to Los Angeles, far away from
Puerto Rico to develop as an actor, so that I
wouldn't be tempted to sing. They wouldn't be tempted to
call me to sing in Puerto Rico, so I would
be just focused on learning a new language and knew
everything because I was entering a world that I had
(17:50):
no clue. I came to Lay in nineteen seventy five
when feminism was growing, and I became a feminist, of course,
and then I moved to New York in seventy nine.
I spent ten years in New York doing theater work only,
and I lived off of the theater in New York
(18:11):
because I worked all the time. I also did Broadway,
a Broadway show at the beginning. Then I did like
five Broadway shows. I went back to la in nineteen
ninety when I was forty two already, so I was
old enough for them not to put me as a
(18:31):
sexy thing or anything. So savy latinas in Hollywood of
a certain age, two parts only Mama, Grandma. When have
you seen Meryl Street playing any of those? When have
you seen Judith Dench playing a grandma?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yvonne reflects on the limited range of acting roles ridden.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
For latinas pernostros solonos, Danio and Ton says, when I
got that Grandma at the end, because I was gonna
be retiring to put I want to come back to
Puerto Rico, to my house because I don't pay rent
here and it's my house.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
As it turns out, one of Yvonne's most well known
roles was that of the grandmother on Jane the Virgin,
a part that she still has some complicated feelings about.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
I didn't want to it was, you know, it was
in Spanish everything I had to say in Jane the Virgin,
and I told them I've studied so hard, so many
ways of learning this language, and now you have me
speaking Spanish only.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
We hope you're enjoying this conversation. Stay tuned, there's more
to come.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
We hope you enjoyed the break and are ready to
listen to the rest.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yvonne's time in La left an impact on her in
more ways than one. Her introduction to feminism changed her
perspective of herself as a sexualized being.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
It was a liberating experience because I came from a
very Muchista country. It is still very Muchista, and women
are seen as objects all the time, and I was
an object also in my TV show that I was
doing down there when I was being a singer dancer,
(20:21):
so they would dress me sexy all the time. That's
what would sell. So it was very liberating to understand
that my mind was what was important from now on
in society, as opposed to how I looked, that's what
(20:42):
feminism brought to my mind. In Puerto Rico, it wasn't
there yet, but I was in the States and I
was soaking this and with people around me, writers that
were feminists and were rebels, and hinted, Tinta alake yokonzel,
I'm in tally that because here in our countries, you know,
(21:05):
it's male oriented. It's men who determine everything. And so
I was. I was used to know that I liked it,
but I was used to that, and then to find
out that you don't have to be beholden to that,
that you have your own opinion, that you can go
here and say, no, I'm as good as you.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yvonne reminisces about her hippie days and the era of
free love that she lived through.
Speaker 7 (21:29):
My priority was my career, and love was just to
have a little fun, especially like in the when I
was a hippie, you know, you would do it with
anybody and everybody or whatever it was, you know.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Sixties to seventies. So free love. I did a lot
of that, had a lot of lovers, lots and lots
and lots of lovers, but I never married. When I
was a singer dancer here in Puerto Rico. It was
(22:05):
a bigger than life kind of persona. So it was
not like attached to having a boyfriend or being validated
to having a boyfriend. You know, it was me. I
would go alone to everything. I would be presented fabulously
with my gowns, with my old culture gowns from my designers.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Although yvon dated and had many many lovers, she was
always more committed to her career than to having a
boyfriend or a husband.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
And I could have a date, but relationships like men
didn't see me like for like I could be. I
remember somebody told me, no, you're not supposed to be
a wife or something like that. Because I was not
going to be a wife. Submitted, you know, I subjugated
to home life when my life was in the arts.
(23:03):
I married my career is what happened here, you know.
And I did have a very big sexual life.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
At the end of our interview, we asked Yvonne what
advice she might have for her younger self.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
My younger self, Wow, I never thought about that. You know.
My message for me as a younger woman would be
trusting yourself a little bit more. It's gonna be all right.
(23:42):
You are not alone. You're part of the energy of
the universe. And that's what I believe in. In that
energy that keeps us alive, and the fact that we
wake up every day and can breathe and can think
and can speak, that those are gifts that you cannot
(24:07):
take for granted.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
My takeaway after talking to Yvonne Cole is that we
really and truly have so much to learn from Senoras.
Yvonne is one of those Senoras that has lived many, many,
many many lives and takes a lot of joy and
pride in telling her story and in talking about the
(24:29):
many lives that she's lived, the places she's been, her experiences,
the movies she start in, and the multitude of lovers
that she's taken. I loved hearing Yvonne talk about her
time living on a hippie commune, about sleeping with men, women,
anybody that she felt like sleeping with. This was truly
a joy to talk with Yvonne Cole, and it's one
(24:52):
of the reasons why we wanted to do this podcast
to hear from older Latinas like her who have incredible
experiences to share.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Next time on Senora Sex said. We're joined by Eden
and Jay, healthy relationship advocates and creators of Bresciosa Night,
a queer and lesbian LATINX party.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
The first year, we just focused on finding the perfect
sperm donor in our eyes, So that was literally like
buying a house. Like you and your partner sit down,
you literally write all the things and qualifications that you
want in like this magical donor, and then you cross
reference and then you.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, it's crazy choo.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Senora Sex Said is a co production between Locator Productions
and Mike Udura Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
This show is executive produced by Mala Munios and bios FM.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Also executive produced by Jasel.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Pants, produced by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Creative direction by Mala Munos.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Story editing by Biosafem, music.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Direction by Prisol Lomelili, and.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Music produced by Brian Bazo
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Inst to Gi
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