Celebrated Colombian TV star Teresa Gutierrez died Tuesday afternoon in her home in Bogota aged 81.
Gutierrez appeared in approximately 36 soap operas during her long career. After a successful career in radio broadcasting, her screen debut came on the day that television was first broadcast in Colombia in 1954.
In her latest TV role in the hit Telemundo soap “The Victorinos,” Gutierrez played the grandmother of an upper-class mobster doomed to die by a fortune-teller’s prophecy.
She was also known for her role as a in Telemundo’s most successful production, “Zorro: The Sword and The Rose,” a melodramatic update of the 1950s Disney show.
She was nicknamed “Grandmother” by the Colombian media, due to her recurring roles as a family matriarch in dramatic soaps such as “The Grandmother,” or comedies like “Doña Rita’s School” and “The Gutierrez Ladies.”
Family members told Colombian media that she would be remembered for her uproarious laugh, as well as her habit of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Her funeral will be held in Bogota.