Spanish actress Margarita Lozano died on Monday February 7 at the age of 90, local authorities announced.
"
The town hall of Lorca decrees three days of mourning after the disappearance of the actress and adopted daughter of the town, Margarita Lozano
", tweeted this Spanish municipality located in the south-east of the country, where the actress grew up.
Born in 1931 in Tetouan, Morocco, then under the Spanish protectorate, to a soldier father who was stationed there, Margarita Lozano began by studying fashion before abandoning them to follow her passion and become an actress.
She made her theater debut in Madrid.
She notably played in
Viridiana
, a drama by Spanish director Luis Buñuel, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1961. Very popular with Italian directors, she worked with Pier Paolo Pasolini in
Porcherie
(1969), and with Sergio Leone in the western
For a Fistful of Dollars
(1964) with Clint Eastwood.
She then retired from the stage and screens to devote herself to her family, but returned to Italian cinema in the 1980s in several films by the Taviani brothers or in
La messe est finie
by Nanni Moretti.
Her friend, Spanish architect Simon Angel Ros, explained that she left "
in peace
": "
Her heart slowly weakened, she did not suffer
," he told local media.