Cruz, Celia

(b. 21 October 1925 in Havana, Cuba; d. 16 July 2003 in Fort Lee, New Jersey), singer and actress known as the Queen of Salsa.

Cruz was born Úrsula Hilaria Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso in the working-class Santos Súrez neighborhood of Havana to Simón Cruz, a railroad worker from Los Palacios, Cuba, and Catalina (“Ollita”) (Alfonso) Cruz, a homemaker from Pinar del Río, Cuba. Cruz had two sisters and one brother. At the age of six she was enrolled at Santos Súrez Public School No. 6, also called República Mexicana. She attended the Academy of the Oblate Sisters, a Catholic school for black girls, where she studied typing, shorthand, and English. In 1938 Cruz attended the Escuela Normal de Maestras, a teacher’s school, where she entered singing contests to make extra money and to win food prizes.

Many relatives lived in the Cruz home, and Cruz often sang for them and for friends and neighbors who stopped to listen outside the house. Carnival season exposed Cruz to music at an early age. She idolized Paulina Álvarez and emulated her singing style before finding her own signature presence. Although her mother supported her singing, Cruz’s father had reservations because of the machismo and decadence associated with the entertainment scene.

In 1950 Cruz became the lead vocalist for La Sonora Matancera, a popular all-male Cuban dance band. She replaced Myrta Silva, who returned to Puerto Rico. On the first day of rehearsal, Cruz met her future husband, the trumpet player Pedro Knight, who assisted her with musical arrangements. Cruz initially was not accepted by the Cuban public. Some fans of the band objected to Cruz’s dark skin and large nose and mouth, considered the strong contralto of her voice unusual, or resented her for not being Myrta Silva. Not until her first recording with the La Sonora Matancera, “Mata Siguaraya” (1951), was released did audiences accept Cruz. Cruz’s talent, self-confidence, patience, and professionalism won over not only the Cuban public but also her father.

La Sonora Matancera was included in the Guinness Book of World Records as the musical group that had the most radio programs, the largest number of recordings issued, and singers of the most nationalities. Two of the songs Cruz recorded with the group, “El Yerbero Moderno” and “Burundanga” (1957), for which she received her first gold record, are considered standards of the Cuban genre. In the early 1950s Cruz met the band-leader Tito Puente, who became one of Cruz’s most important and frequent collaborators.

On 15 July 1960 Cruz and La Sonora Matancera left Cuba for Mexico to live and perform in exile. In Mexico, Cruz discovered her adaptability and flexibility in working with different bands, different musical styles, and international audiences. She sang afros, rumbas, guarachas, sones, tangos, boleros, mariachis, flamenco, guaguancó, and santeria chants. Cruz spread the Cuban style throughout the world in music and in film. She toured Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize (then British Honduras). In 1961 Cruz became a permanent resident of the United States.

The day after her mother died in 1962, Cruz requested permission to return to Cuba for the funeral. Considered a traitor by the Cuban regime, Cruz was denied entry, an act she never forgave. On 18 June 1962, Cruz became the first Hispanic woman to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City. On 14 July 1962, Cruz married Knight, who later became her agent and musical director. In 1964 Cruz gave a debut stage performance at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, a popular center for black American artists and performers. Cruz also gave many performances at the Palladium in New York City, a mecca for Cuban musicians. Cruz joined Puente’s orchestra in January 1966. The release of their first album, Celia Cruz y Tito Puente, Cuba y Puerto Rico Son (1966), was followed by an extensive tour, which separated Cruz and Knight, who was still part of La Sonora Matancera. In 1967 Knight reasoned that he was married to Cruz and not to his band and thereafter devoted his time to Cruz’s career.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Cruz was the only woman member of the Fania All-Stars, a group of Latin musicians drawn from Fania Records artists. In 1974 the bandleader and music producer Johnny Pacheco and his partner, the promoter Jerry Masucci, used the Fania All-Stars and Fania Records to launch salsa, a music-marketing term that united various forms of Latin music: Dominican meringue, Colombian cumbia, Puerto-Rican bomba, and Cuban guaracha or guaguancó. On 29 March 1973, at Carnegie Hall, Cruz performed as Gracia Divina in the salsa opera Hommy (1973), based on the Who’s rock opera, Tommy (1969), further popularizing salsa music. Cruz soon became recognized as the Queen of Salsa and la Guarachera de Cuba. According to her autobiography, Cruz began using her catchphrase “ÙAzúcar!” in the early 1970s. The expression, meaning “sugar,” resulted from a funny story she would tell on stage about ordering coffee in a Cuban restaurant. In 1975, as a prelude to the famous fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, Cruz performed with Pacheco and the Fania All-Stars in Zaire (later the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in a series of concerts that also included Motown singers.

Cruz became an American citizen in 1977. She revealed that being a Cuban exile made her love Cuba even more but that being a U.S. citizen allowed her to travel the world without constraint. In the 1980s Cruz worked with various charitable causes, including the Liga Contra el Cáncer and a telethon for the survivors of the earthquake that struck Mexico City on 19 September 1985. She continued to tour the world. In 1987 in the Canary Islands, Cruz performed to an audience of approximately 240,000 persons, a number that made the Guinness Book of World Records. In the 1990s Cruz worked in film and television. She played a nightclub owner, a role created for her, in The Mambo Kings (1992), based on the novel by the Cuban-American author Oscar Hijuelos. In 1995 Cruz starred in another film, The Perez Family (1995), as a Santeria priestess. She also acted in two Mexican telenovelas, or soap operas.

Cruz won her first Grammy Award in 1989 for her album Ritmo en el Corazón (1988). Also that year she sang the Cuban national anthem at the White House, received an honorary doctorate from Yale University for her contributions to music, and reunited with La Sonora Matancera to perform in celebration of the group’s seventy-fifth anniversary. In 1994 Cruz received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton. In 2002 she continued to collaborate with various artists and incorporated rap music into her repertoire, particularly with the song “La Negra Tiene Tumbao” (2001) on the album of the same name, which won a Grammy and a Latin Grammy for Best Salsa Album. In February 2003 Cruz established the Celia Cruz Foundation devoted to the musical education of Hispanic youth. Also that year she recorded the vocals for her last album, Regalo del Alma (2003), for which she won Grammy and Billboard awards.

Cruz’s dedication to her music and her fans often hid the fact that she sometimes performed while injured, during times of tragedy, and during periods of illness. Cruz underwent surgery for breast cancer in August 2002 and for a brain tumor in December 2002. Rumors of her death prompted Cruz to have herself photographed with newspapers and magazines, to establish that she persevered. On 14 July 2003 Cruz and Knight celebrated their forty-first wedding anniversary. Two days later Cruz died of the brain tumor at her home in Fort Lee, New Jersey. More than fifteen hundred people viewed Cruz’s body at the Freedom Tower in Miami, Florida. After a funeral Mass on 22 July 2003 at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, Cruz was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York City. She was laid to rest with the first printing of her last album and with a bag of Cuban soil. In 1990, while singing for Cuban refugees at Guantánamo Bay, Cruz had put her hand through the fence to collect soil from the Cuban side.

Cruz shares exhibit space at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History with such music legends as Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. She was an international superstar in the male-dominated world of salsa music and had the respect of her peers. Ana Cristina Reymundo, the writer who collaborated with Cruz on her autobiography, described Cruz as flamboyant and colorful but avoiding vulgarity and crudeness. Cruz wore wigs, long nails, false eyelashes, large jewelry, and extravagant makeup as part of her signature entertainment style. Cruz also offered a realistic outlook on her successes in entertainment: “The secret doesn’t lie in being fashionable or in prancing around half-naked.... The most important thing entertainers have to do is show their fans affection and respect.” Cruz was passionate about Cuba as well as her music and used the world stage to express her desire to return to a Cuba free of Communism. This attitude earned her both praise and criticism from her fans and fellow entertainers.

For information about Cruz’s life and career and a list of her awards and honors, see her autobiography, written with Ana Cristina Reymundo, Celia: My Life (2004). Eduardo Marceles, ÙAzúcar! The Biography of Celia Cruz (2004) contains a glossary of Spanish musical terms, an extensive discography, and lists of books, magazines, and newspaper articles. For information about Cruz’s musical legacy, see Lydia Martin, “The Queen of Staying Power,” Hispanic (June 2002): 54–55; and Lydia Martin, “Forever Celia,” Hispanic (September 2003): 20–21. Obituaries are in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times (both 17 July 2003).

Lee McQueen