Pictures

Biography

As with her music, Villa specialized in rural and ranchera pictures, a genre especially connected to American audiences familiar with Westerns. During the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, she recorded dozens of albums and appeared in dozens of pictures, including the 1973 screwball comedy Mecánica Nacional, which won the Ariel award (Mexico's version of the Oscar). She also recorded songbook tributes to Jiménez and Juan Gabriel, and was saluted herself by Gabriel for his 1996 Las Tres Señoras (with Lola Beltran and Amalia Mendoza). Villa continued performing even after suffering a heart attack during surgery in 1997.
-- John Bush, All Music Guide