There is very little biographical information on Rosario Guerrero. Most of the information I have gleaned from various contemporaneous newspaper articles and interviews. By her own account, whether true or not, Guerrero was born in Seville . In a 1905 article Guerrero states, “When I was five years old, and that's just twenty years ago… I used to play on the banks of the Guadalquiver, the sweetest river in all Spain , and dance to the castanets of the shepherd-boys.” This would have made her twenty-five years old and being born in 1880. However, she later says in the same article, “…my life-history has been so short. At eighteen, when I had completed my education, I went on the stage as a dancer…” I have since found transatlantic ship records where her birth year is stated 1872 or 1873.
The earliest published photographs I have seen are from 1896 -- two or so were included in a book of Reutlinger photographs called Le Panorama: Paris la nuit in 1896. One of the photos is with her younger sister, Henriquita, with whom she performed as Les Soeurs Guerrero or Las Hermanas Guerrero, depending on where they were performing. Henriquita had a career of her own as Enriquita Guerrerito.
Guerrero made her London debut at the Alhambra Theatre in 1899 and returned there as a star in the very successful Carmen ballet.
As for her United States career, Florenz Zeigfeld brought her to New York in 1903 to co-star in “The Red Feather,” which opened on November 9, 1903 and which ran for about 90 performances. Whether or not she completed the run is unknown, but it is doubtful since she and Zeigfeld had a falling out soon after she arrived over her star billing, or lack thereof. She is not included in the cast list on various pieces of sheet music available for “The Red Feather.”
She danced throughout the United States in 1904 and was supposed to return in 1905 but cancelled her appearances. According to newspaper accounts, she spent part of 1906 in an asylum in Vienna and did not returne to the United States in 1909. Between the appearances in 1903 and her return in 1909, she married her dancing partner Luigi Paglieri, who later appeared with Mistinguet in the 1920s.
She seems to have been rather popular with royal figures such as King Leopold of Belgium , but whether she had royal lovers or just admirers is not known. She does not have a reputation as a grand horizontale like Caroline Otero and Cleo de Merode.
I cannot find any performance reviews of her after a 1912 appearance at the Marigny theater in Paris, though I have seen mentions of her performing in Brazil as late as 1918. She later returned to Spain and became the head of a beauty company in the 1930s.
As to her death, I haven't been able to find an obituary. I know she had a child in 1896 and that she went on to have three more children, none of whom I believe she raised herself.
