Moria Casán

Moria Casán
Casán in the 1970s.
Born	Ana María Casanova (1946-08-16)August 16, 1946 (age 67)
Occupation(s)	actress, producer, dancer, tv host, vedette/showgirl
Years active	1962 – present
Height	5 ft 6 in (1.68 m)
Children	Sofía Gala (born 1987)
Website	monumentalmoria.com.ar

Ana María Casanova (born August 16, 1946), known by her stage name Moria Casán, is an Argentine actress, television host, producer, media personality and supervedette. Her Net worth is estimated to be around $100 million. She is one of the most important women in Argentine showbusiness. She has had a long career in cinema, theatre and television; and was a sex symbol in the 1970s and 1980s. Her only daughter, Sofía Gala, is an actress.

Career

Casán was born in Buenos Aires. Following in the footsteps of Argentine revue diva Nélida Roca, Moria Casán became a stage sex symbol and chorus girl. She started as a dancer but immediately acquired major roles due to her versatility, powerful voice and on-screen presence. She worked with outstanding revue actors during the 1970s, such as Adolfo Stray, Don Pelele, Pablo Barbieri, Juan Verdaguer, and José Marrone. She was the first revue girl to demand to leave sexual comments directed at her person off the stage, and to be placed at an equal level with a man. This significant change revolutionized the revue genre locally, and numerous prospective female stars took their cues from Casán in subsequent years.

Moria Casan was asked to express her opinion about a wide spectrum of topics in most of the country's leisure magazines. She became known for her musical shows and on television as a TV hostess and producer. She was the first to have the protagonist role in music halls on TV, both as dancer and actress. Most of her film career has been made up of picaresque comedies, acting with well-known comedians as Alberto Olmedo, Jorge Porcel, and her friend, Susana Giménez. She married fellow actor Mario Castiglione in 1986, with whom she had a daughter, and, following an acrimonious divorce, remarried with Luis Vadalá.

Casán became among the most recognizable figures in Argentine television, and hosted numerous local variety shows since Monumental Moria in 1989, including A la cama con Moria in the early 1990s (in which guests were interviewed in a suggestively ample, round bed), Amor y Moria (Love and Moria) in the late '90s, and her 2000 talk show, Entre Moria y Vos (Between Moria and You). She has also apperaed in the theatre, notably in Sebastián Moncada's Brujas (Witches), between 1991 and 1996. Casán ran a much-publicized, though unsuccessful, 2005 campaign for a seat in the lower house of Argentina's National Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, on the Movimiento Federal de Centro, a new center-right party she created.

After many years in the entertainment industry, Moria evolved into a "show woman" – a Latin American term for a woman who can actually perform, rather than being a mere sex symbol – based on her multi-faceted talent and a peculiar phrasing that became popular among people of all ages. Her later appearances included those in the popular sitcom, Doble vida, and in recurring seasons of Bailando por un Sueño (Dancing for a Dream), where she appeared between 2006 and 2008 as a contest judge. Remaining active in the theatre, in 2009 she performed in Une visite inopportune, by local playwright Copi, and directed by the French dramatist Stéphan Druet. She has also established a restaurant and an actors' and dancing school, the Escuela de Arte Moria Casán.

Among the phrases she popularized are "si queres llorar, llorá" (if you want to cry, cry), "a-hora!" (right now!), "te lo pido por favor!" (I am asking you please!), "se colgaron de nuevo" (they're hung-up again), and more recently "what pass? quá pasa papi?" ('what pass,' what's happening daddy?) or "cuando fumo me siento una geisha" (when i smoke i feel like a geisha) among many, many others.

Selected filmography

Comedy films
Funes, un gran amor	1993	Funes, a great love
Brigada explosiva contra los ninjas	1986	Explosive brigade against the ninjas
Brigada explosiva	1986	Explosive brigade
El telo y la tele	1985	The hotel and the TV
Se acabó el curro	1983	The scam ended
Un terceto peculiar	1982	A peculiar threesome
Amante para dos	1981	Lover for two
Las mujeres son cosa de guapos	1981	Women are a macho thing
Te rompo el rating	1981	I'll break your rating
A los cirujanos se les va la mano	1980	The surgeons are going too far
Los hijos de López	1980	López's Sons
Así no hay cama que aguante	1980	This way no bed will hold up
Expertos en Pinchazos	1979
Encuentros muy cercanos con señoras de cualquier tipo	1978	Close encounters with ladies of any kind
Con mi mujer no puedo	1978	With my wife I can’t
El gordo catástrofe	1977	The catastrophic fatso
Clínica con música	1974	A clinic with music
Los doctores las prefieren desnudas	1973	The doctors prefer them nude
Los caballeros de la cama redonda	1973	The knights of the round bed

External links

• Official website
• Moria Casán at IMDb
• Moria Casán at Cinenacional.com (in Spanish)