The Multiverses of Janet Alcoriza

Janet Riesenfeld, Raquel Rojas, Raquel Alcoriza, and Janet Alcoriza are the names used throughout her personal and artistic life by a woman who was a flamenco dancer, a chronicler of the Spanish Civil War, a successful actress, and a prolific screenwriter in Mexican cinema.

Born in New York on January 4, 1914, she was the daughter of American soprano Mabel Dunning and Austrian conductor Hugo Riesenfeld, who provided musical accompaniment for silent films at New York’s Rialto and Rivoli theaters before becoming a composer for Hollywood sound films.

From an early age, the young Janet devoted her talents to flamenco dancing. At the age of twenty-two, while performing in Mexico City under the stage name Raquel Rojas, she was reunited with Jaime Castanys, a Catalan whom she had met several years earlier in Los Angeles.

After a passionate romance, Castanys returned to Spain. The bailaora followed him once her engagements in Mexico had ended, crossing the French-Spanish border on July 18, 1936, just as the Spanish Civil War was beginning. The couple soon discovered their political differences.

She supported the Republican side, while he backed the military rebels. Tragically, Janet had to identify Jaime’s body at the morgue before returning to the United States, where she signed a contract to publish a book about her experiences.

Dancer in Madrid, published under the name Janet Riesenfeld, reached bookstores in 1938, while its author was once again performing to great success in Mexico City.

Before the end of that year, Raquel made her film debut, dancing in a zarzuela sequence in Una luz en mi camino (José Bohr). Her first leading role came the following year in Café Concordia (Alberto Gout), in which she played a Viennese flamenco dancer.

It would take another three years, however, before, in 1942, against the backdrop of World War II, her appearance and distinctive accent helped her secure roles as international spies in Soy puro mexicano (Emilio Fernández) and Espionaje en el golfo (Rolando Aguilar).

She also portrayed Hollywood stars arriving in Mexico in Los tres mosqueteros (Miguel M. Delgado) and Cuando viajan las estrellas (Alberto Gout).

In 1943, she once again played a young Austrian woman in Tormenta en la cumbre (Julián Soler), as well as an American woman in Tribunal de justicia (Alejandro Galindo).

Her brief career as an actress came to an end in 1944 with El niño de las monjas (Julio Villarreal). Aware that her opportunities in front of the camera would be limited, Raquel Rojas sought a place for herself among screenwriters.

“I have now mastered the Spanish language grammatically—though not as far as the pronunciation of words is concerned—and I believe I will be able to make my way,” she declared.

In May of that same year, director Norman Foster began filming La hora de la verdad, a bullfighting screenplay written by Raquel Rojas a year earlier.

Janet Riesenfeld married the little-known Madrid-born actor Luis Alcoriza in 1945. The event was reported in Novelas de la pantalla under the headline “Raquel Rojas Got Married.”

Months later, the same magazine announced that a new story of hers was being filmed under the headline “The Return of Raquel Rojas,” adding that this time she was working “in partnership with her not at all bad-looking husband.”

With El ahijado de la muerte (1946), Raquel and Luis Alcoriza began one of the most celebrated writing partnerships in Mexican cinema. Their witty comedies and moving melodramas provided memorable vehicles for stars such as Cantinflas, Tin Tan, Jorge Negrete, and Pedro Infante.

By the late 1950s, the couple had begun working separately. The names Raquel Alcoriza and Janet Alcoriza, by then used interchangeably, gradually faded from a commercial film industry in crisis, while Luis Alcoriza’s name became increasingly associated with auteur cinema.

Janet Alcoriza’s life still holds many mysteries. From her earliest interviews onward, she gave different accounts of the place, day, month, and year of her birth, as well as of other episodes in her life.

She died at the age of 84, leaving behind a dozen screen appearances and fifty-seven filmed stories, making her the most prolific female screenwriter in Mexican cinema.