While many actresses chose that profession because they dreamed of cameras since they were children, or because they grew up on sets, Leticia Calderón did it by chance when she was a teenager. An untimely phone call that changed his life.
His father was a man who wanted to be an actor but they didn’t let him.and to fulfill that dream and not be left wanting, she agreed to participate as an extra in films by Angélica María and Enrique Guzmán. She also participated in the children’s storytelling program Cachirulo.
That was the background of the Calderón family with acting, a career that neither interested nor attracted Leticia. Nor did soap operas attract his attention, content that was watched by his mother to the point of naming a German shepherd dog Yara because of the soap opera that Angélica María starred in in 1979.
An advertisement on television altered his destiny. Young producer Valentín Pimstein for the soap opera sparkle and the Calderón family saw an opportunity for Lety to try her luck. He attended the casting and competed against Mariana Levy, Usi Velasco, Nailea Norvind and Lucerito, who was selected to take the starring role.
“1982 was the year of auditions. I remember that the director of the Centro de Capacitación Artística, Mireya Asúnsolo, said ‘if I don’t talk to you in September, forget it.’ The auditions were in May. Anyway, September and October went by and my mom told me ‘hey Lety, I don’t think I’ll be doing it anymore.’ It wasn’t something that kept me up at night, it wasn’t my goal.”the actress tells Isabel Lascuráin on her program Open the box.
Happy to have participated, Calderón felt she was well served by trying in a medium that did not attract her attention. However, in an unusual event, Before saying goodbye to 1982, his home phone rang to receive news that seemed straight out of a movie.
“In December, I remember that Mireya Asúnsolo called the house and said that one night before she had dreamed of my name on a marquee, that she already had her 20 teenagers, but that she was going to make an exception in accepting me in the group as teenagers at the CEA. I joined in January (1983)”, he recalled.
Asúnsolo’s dream was an omen that she wanted to follow. She took it as a revelation that would help Calderón become an actress and one of the most outstanding graduates of Televisa’s CEA, the institution she was directing at the time. Lety took advantage of superstition to join the Artistic Training Center.
After entering classes, she immediately received a job offer at her young age, 14 years old. The least of it was debuting without preparation, what was worrying was violating a rule established by Televisa: CEA students could not be hired to work as actors and actresses while they were in their first year. Touched by the goddess of fortune, Calderón received special permission.
“The first thing I do is (the soap opera) Amalia Batista. (…) Mr. Valentín Pimstein came to audition, because he wanted to launch someone, and I was left. It was forbidden to work before the end of that year, which was all ’83, because we at the CEA were studying. They gave me the authorization. I cashed my first check when I was 14 years old, from Susana Dosamantes’ daughter, they dyed my hair black,” she said.
The initial contract was for 30 chapters but the success of the soap opera extended to 300 episodes, which caused a conflict in Lety, because she was also studying secondary education. When she turned 15, she finished high school to enter high school, this at the same time that she was studying acting.
The fatigue, the pressure to carry out both educational universes and the stress were taking their toll on her physically and emotionally until her father spoke to her. Without imposing on her, he urged her to make a choice about her future. He was open to the possibility that his daughter would decide to forgo the future of a college career, although he also felt comfortable giving up acting after the good start he was having.
“My dad saw me and said, ‘Leticia, I see that you’re killing yourself, so choose now whether you’re going to be an actress or continue in school, but you have to give up something now.’ Something that another dad would have said, ‘You finish my schooling first,'” she said.
They say that to choose is to give up. Leticia Calderón took the baton of her future in a profession that has her in the place she is, as that of a leading actress. For her, nothing is impossible, So he doesn’t rule out the idea of one day achieving his goal of obtaining a university degree.
