One of the great singers of Latin America died,
Olga Guillot, `Queen of Bolero,’ reigned for decades
Fans from Mexico City to Buenos Aires to Miami are mourning the death of singer Olga Guillot.
Like the late Celia Cruz, Guillot always wore the pain of being in exile on her sleeve — and like many of her older fans, she yearned for the Cuba of old and was a vivid representative of it for those fans.
“Pobrecita mi Cubita linda (My poor little Cuba),” she said late last year at the premiere at Hialeah Senior High School of 50 Años de Exilio (Fifty Years of Exile), a documentary produced by Univision on the history of Miami’s Cuban exile community.
Guillot disliked Fidel Castro — and never hid it.
On the documentary, she recounts how she decided to go into exile after officials with Cuba’s new revolutionary government came to her home to dictate where she could and could not perform after all night clubs and casinos were shut down.
Until the end, she was joining exile demonstrations against Castro.
One of her final public appearances in Miami was March 25 at the Ladies in White march in Little Havana, organized by Gloria Estefan and attended by hundreds of thousands of Cubans dressed in white.
Here she is, singing Miénteme (Lie to Me),
