Born somewhere in La Mancha, the name she always wished to remember remained elusive. Maria Antonia Abad Fernandez, better known by the stage name Sara Montiel, arrived in March 1928. Daughter of a farmer and a home hairdresser, she tasted poverty from infancy. She and her sister sometimes had to eat plant roots to quell their hunger. Sara seemed destined to be a compliant and devoted housewife, but everything shifted the day a magazine editor noticed her. Victory, Angel Ezcurra, heard her sing saeta during Holy Week in Orihuela and urged Sara’s parents to let her enter a young talent contest organized by the film studio Cifesa at the Retiro park in Madrid. There, she represented Valencia with a song she cherished, a moment that would change her life forever. Although she faced a minor setback on stage, she outshone thirty contestants and earned a scholarship of five hundred pesetas per month for a year. That stipend enabled her to move into a Madrid boarding house with a caregiver arranged by Ezcurra. She studied rhetoric at the conservatory and began stepping toward the world of cinema.
