Biography
The lyricist Alfredo LePera maintained a close professional partnership with legendary tango vocalist Carlos Gardel and lost his life alongside the singer in the same unexpected plane crash at the peak of Gardel’s worldwide fame. Born June 7, 1900, in São Paulo, Brazil, to Italian immigrant parents, LePera saw his family relocate to Buenos Aires in 1902. He first earned his living as a journalist and theater critic, then entered the film industry in 1928 after journeys through the United States and Europe. Living in Paris, he spent several years on the Paramount payroll until the studio assigned him in 1932 to help Argentinian tango star Carlos Gardel reach a broader international audience. LePera supplied screenplays for a series of Gardel films while also writing the lyrics for the tango songs that Gardel composed and performed in those pictures—these numbers formed the great majority of his recorded output during the 1930s. Their collaborations yielded one classic after another, greatly expanding Gardel’s popularity across the Spanish-speaking world because LePera’s words combined intelligence with simplicity and employed universal references and metaphors intelligible in any regional Spanish dialect. That same international success proved fatal when Gardel and LePera, finishing a promotional tour for the film El Dia Que Me Quieras, boarded a plane in Medellín, Colombia, on June 24, 1935. A mishap during takeoff caused the aircraft to collide with another on the runway, killing nearly everyone aboard and depriving Argentina of its finest songwriting team.
Albums