Ana Ofelia Murguía, Mexican Actress and Voice in ‘Coco,’ Dies at 90

Ana Ofelia Murguía, one in every of Mexico’s most acclaimed actresses, whose voice performing as Mama Coco within the animated film “Coco” introduced her worldwide recognition, died on Sunday. She was 90.

Her demise was confirmed by Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts and its National Theater Company, which didn’t say the place she died.

The National Theater Company described Ms. Murguía on social media as “one of Mexico’s greatest actresses.” In a press release, Lucina Jiménez López, the director of the National Institute of Fine Arts, described her profession as one which “marked an entire era.”

In the 2017 movie “Coco,” made by Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios, Ms. Murguía performs the important thing position of Mama Coco, the great-grandmother of a boy, the protagonist Miguel, who finds himself within the land of the lifeless on a journey to uncover his household’s historical past. At the emotional climax of the movie, Miguel and Mama Coco sing the track “Remember Me” collectively.

The film, which is constructed across the Mexican vacation of the Day of the Dead, was celebrated for its portrayal of Mexican tradition and its dealing with of weighty topics like demise in a youngsters’s film. It received greatest animated characteristic and greatest authentic track, for “Remember Me,” on the 2018 Oscars.

“Coco” launched Ms. Murguía to a worldwide viewers, however she was well-known in Mexico lengthy earlier than.

She was born on Dec. 8, 1933, in Mexico City. She studied performing at Mexico’s National School of Theater Arts and made her debut in 1954 within the play “Trial By Fire.” Her first display screen position was within the 1964 movie “Transit.”

She would go on to seem in additional than 70 performs and 90 movies, working with a few of Mexico’s greatest filmmakers. Hailed for her versatility, she typically performed the position of the villain or antagonist.

Information on her survivors was not instantly out there.

At Mexico’s prestigious Ariel awards, Ms. Murguía received greatest supporting actress for her performances in “Cadena Perpetua,” in 1979; “Los Motivos de Luz,” in 1986; and “La Reina de la Noche” (The Queen of the Night), in 1996. She was nominated for greatest actress 5 instances however by no means received. In 2011, she was acknowledged with a Golden Ariel particular lifetime achievement award.

In April 2023, she was awarded the Ingmar Bergman Medal from the National Autonomous University of Mexico for leaving an “indelible mark” on Mexican movie and theater.