beautiful and good interpreter with a different voice that possesses a pleasant color, she was born in the neighborhood of Flores and she started her career in the sixties with the arrival of new rhythms which the recording companies were interested in imposing on our youth. Then the so-called nueva ola musical (New Music Wave) appeared in the scene, a poor quality phenomemon that scarcely represented our cultural heritage.

Paula is the sister of the couturier and producer Juanito Belmonte. She made her debut by singing tangos at the television program on Channel 13, El Show de Antonio Prieto, in which also appeared Néstor Fabián, Nelly Prince and the actor Juan José Camero. In 1964 she appeared alongside Julio Sosa at the TV show Copetín de Tango.

The following year was her debut at the movies. She appeared in the film Los Ratones, with a cast that included Alberto Argibay and the vedette Zulma Fayad. Later she was included in Los Hipócritas, with Tita Merello, Guillermo Bataglia, Jorge Salcedo and Sergio Renán. As well she was starred in a musical comedy La morocha de mi barrio, which was performed weekly in a different neighborhood and with casts that were shifting. A curious anecdote: on that occasion the famous hairstylist Miguel Romano designed for her a black sraight hair wig which contrasted with her customary blond hair.

In 1966, Channel 9 aired a tango program named La Cabalgata de los Grandes del Tango, emceed by Hugo del Carril. In that TV show she appeared sharing the bill with Horacio Deval and Ruth Durante. That year she was summoned by the Fermata label to be part of the top work of its owner, Ben Molar, the long-playing record Catorce Para el Tango, arranged and conducted by Alberto Di Paulo. For that record Paula cut a number by Enrique Delfino and the writer César Tiempo, “Nadie puede”, which was recorded on November 17.

In 1966, she was one of the pleiad of artists that were starred in the motion picture Escala Musical directed by Leo Fleider. She also appeared in Las Locas del Conventillo (María y la Otra), directed by Fernando Ayala and which starred Analía Gadé, Alberto Mendoza, Olinda Bozán and Jorge Sobral.

Her career continued on Channel 7 in the program emceeed by Antonio Carrizo Bienvenidos Sábados. It featured Palito Ortega, Violeta Rivas and Horacio Guarany. Furthermore she came back to the film studios with the movie La secretaria está loca loca loca (1967), which also included Violeta Rivas, Chabuca Granda and Chico Novarro as musical director.

It turns out evident that television was what made her popular. She appeared in a series of famous TV programs like Sábados Circulares, conducted by Nicolás Mancera; Casino Philips and Todo Nuestro, alongside Atahualpa Yupanqui, Eduardo Falú and Mercedes Sosa.

On Radio Belgrano she sang with the accompaniment of the staff orchestra of the radio station led by Domingo Marafiotti and Leopoldo Federico. As from 1970, she made several important tours but the tour of Europe stands out, especially, for her appearances in Spain and Italy where she received a great acclaim at the Teatro Regio of Turin.

She also apperared for a season at the Teatro Astral on Corrientes Avenue with the theater company led by Rodolfo Bebánin a Neil Simon’s play, La Última Pareja. Furthermore, she sang at several venues in Buenos Aires downtown; at the boite King on Córdoba Avenue where Roberto Goyeneche regularly appeared; at the tearoom Relieve along with Aníbal Troilo and Hugo Del Carril in the show Tango en la Diagonal and at the mythical stage of El Viejo Almacén, a tango venue owned by Edmundo Rivero.

In 1987, she married to an Italian impresario and settled in Italy. On her comeback —fourteen years later— she resumed her show business activity but with a much less busy schedule.

In this homage to Paula also goes my sincere recognition to all those women that —in spite of all the difficulties of that hostile period for tango—, knew how to achieve an outstanding space in the hall of the great female singers of the genre. Many of them we have already rescued from oblivion in Todo Tango.