Fourteen years ago, when Angie Torres was 55 years old, she lost her husband of 36 years to a stroke, suddenly and unexpectedly. Until that time she had never made a decision on her own. After two months of mourning, a friend stepped in and forced Torres to make her first decision, one that completely changed her life. In a visit with writer Norma Libman, Torres, a resident of Albuquerque, N.M., explained how she found the courage to take the first step toward an acting career that has included a performance in Joseph Papp`s International Festival in New York in 1984 and a featured role in the 1988 movie for television based on Harriet Doerr`s best-seller, ”Stones for Ibarra.”
DATELINE: ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. My parents were from Spain and my father considered women to be less than minor citizens.
We were not considered people, except for the functions we could serve, as women. So I was not raised in a very loving home. My father had no use for me or my sisters, because he didn`t need us. He had 5 sons.
My father died when I was 13. We had moved to Albuquerque from Pueblo, Colo., when I was 12 because my father was a miner and the mines closed down in Pueblo. Then my mother, who was work-worn and very tired, died when I was 14.
When my father died, my mother said I had to stay home and take care of the farm work because she couldn`t manage it herself. So I stayed out of school that year.
Then my mother died and my oldest brother said I had to stay out of school another year and take care of the cooking and cleaning and washing for the family. So I continued to stay home until my brother got married and then he said I could go back and finish high school, which I did. I never questioned any of this. Whatever the male said was law.
When I was 19 I married a man who was 11 years older than I was, whose parents also came from Spain. He was well-established in the same pattern. The man loved me, I guess, as much as anybody could ever love anybody else. He would have torn out his heart and given it to me had I needed it.
But he had been brought up in the old school that the woman didn`t go out of the home. Her job was to stay home and raise her family and take care of the needs that were there. And you didn`t question that, either.
We had a good life for 36 years. We had seven children. But I didn`t do any developing in those 36 years, strictly because I didn`t know that a person could do that. It`s not something that I expected to do. I just did my duties: mother, wife, housewife, cook, the whole thing. And I stayed home.
Then, after 36 years of marriage, my husband had a massive stroke on Christmas Eve and in 10 hours he was gone. And I thought my life had ended, right there, because I knew that there was no way I could function without having him to support me and tell me what to do next. If the refrigerator broke down, I didn`t know what to do until he told me. I couldn`t make decisions without having somebody to go to.
Two months later a friend of mine, really she was just an acquaintance at the time, came over to visit me. She said, ”What are you going to do with the rest of your life, Angie?” And I said, ”Betty, I don`t know. I`m 55 years old and I can`t do anything.”
She said she was going to stay with me until I decided what to do. She told me she was not going to let me sit in my house and rot. This was the first time in my life anybody had handed me the reins and told me to go for it.
She asked me to think of something I had done for myself at some time in my life that had made me happy. Well, I couldn`t think of a thing. Now that`s a real sad statement, but it`s a true statement.
Betty said, ”I don`t care how far back in your life you have to go, but think of something that made you happy.” And I don`t know where it came from, but I remembered that I did two little one-act plays in high school and I loved every minute of it. So she called the Albuquerque Little Theater and asked if they were auditioning and they were and they even had a role for an older woman.
The most difficult decision I made in my whole life was to go to that audition. Up until that point all my decisions had been made for me. It took a lot of courage to step out the door, get into my car, go into that strange theater and see a bunch of strange faces, open up the book and start reading. It took a lot of guts to go out there and do that. And yet I found myself perfectly at home on that stage.
When I was up on that stage I thought that if the heavens could open up and lightning could strike, my husband would strike me dead because he believed that you don`t put yourself on exhibition. But I didn`t let that bother me because I enjoyed it so much. I thought, he`s not here now and this is fun, so why not? So I went and read two more times and I got cast in a play called ”Gazebo.”
The guest artist in this first play was Carl Betz. He was such a fine gentleman and so helpful to me. He took time and trouble to tell me what to do because I didn`t know anything. I was a real dummy. I still am, to some extent, because I don`t have any training except what I`ve learned on the job. I didn`t know ”up stage” or ”down stage” or ”stage right” or ”stage left.” I had no idea what they were talking about.
So he`d take me aside and give me some pointers. I thanked him one day for being so patient and he said, ”Angie, the theater is how I make my living. The better I make you look, the better I look. And I`m not about to look bad if I can help it.” So I was very, very fortunate.
Once when I was understudy for Maureen O`Sullivan, she told me that I would have to do her role because she had a sore throat. I said, ”Oh, no, Maureen, call your doctor.” You see, I was so new in theater I didn`t know that the understudy waits for this chance. I knew the lines. I could say them backwards and forward. I could say them with my eyes closed.
But I hadn`t marked the blocking-where I was supposed to go, and stand, at a certain time. And I was terrified. I didn`t know where to move and moving, at that time, was a very difficult thing for me. I felt like my feet were encased in concrete and my hands had concrete buckets holding them down. They were just in the way all the time.
So Maureen got some medicine, and she was so sweet. She said, ”Angie, you know why I went on? I knew you`d be so much better than I was.” That`s a nice lady. And that`s the kind of luck I`ve had.
I still have stage fright. I take deep breaths, I do a lot of yoga breathing, I pray. But the butterflies are there and sometimes I wonder if my legs are going to carry me out on the stage. For some reason, once I get out on the stage I`m all right. But once I get off the stage, someone`s got to be there to almost catch me.
One of the most exciting things that has happened to me in this new career was being cast in the television movie, ”Stones for Ibarra.” They sent me my round-trip ticket to Hollywood for the audition. I flew out on a Monday at noon, took a cab to the studio, read at 3 o`clock and was back home by 7 o`clock. Four days later I learned I was accepted for the role of Mother Superior. Then I began to chicken out. I thought, what am I doing? I don`t know anything about movie-making. The whole world`s going to be watching me and I`m going to come up with egg on my face. But I was committed, so I had to go.
So the very first day that I was there at the hotel I asked them if I could go out on the set so I could kind of get an idea of what I was going to get into. I saw three men who had been in the business all their lives doing a little tiny segment and they had to do it 15 times before they got it right. That was a big load off my mind. And the director said, ”Don`t worry, Angie. We won`t let you look bad if we have to stay here all month.” This is very different from a play, where you have to get it right the first time or cover up your mistake some way.
I thank God that for the last 14 years I did have a life change. I found something that I could keep busy at, that I enjoy doing. And people enjoy watching me. I don`t know why. Maybe because I`m old and because they see themselves up there, if they could gather up the courage. And it does take courage.
I would tell anybody who had a secret ambition like that to give it a try. I didn`t even have the ambition. Even in my wildest fantasies I never once was in a movie or on the stage. That first step, I think, is the hardest one.
I`m just thankful that Betty gave me that push. My brothers and all the men I grew up with would have never known I needed this kind of help. But my children-I have six living children, three boys and three girls-have been so supportive. They say, ”Go for it, Mama. There`s a great big world out there. Go find it.”
And I did, and I love it.
