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Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar was born in Banes, in the province of Oriente, Cuba, January 16, 1901, to Belisario Batista and Carmela Zaldívar, sugar plantation laborers. Of very humble origins, Batista worked from an early age. An avid reader, he attended public school and Colegio Los Amigos, an American Quaker school, but was primarily a self-educated man. He held a few jobs and in 1921 he joined the Cuban Army. By 1932, he was a military court stenographer with the rank of sergeant major.

The effects of the Great Depression, combined with discontent with President Machado's government, led to violent riots which caused Machado to leave the country in 1933. On September 4 of that year Batista led the so called “sergeant’s revolt”, taking control of the Army under a series of short lived governments. As "Jefe del Estado Mayor del Ejército" (Army Chief of Staff) for the next seven years, Batista increased the size and consolidated the power of the army and suppressed a number of uprisings.

In October of 1940, in the first elections after the inception of a new constitution, Batista was elected president. Succeeded by Ramón Grau San Martín, who won the 1944 elections, Batista left the country. In the 1948 elections in which Carlos Prío Socarrás was elected president Batista, still living in the United States, was elected senator for the province of Las Villas.

On March 10, 1952 Batista staged a military coup overthrowing the Prío presidency. His past democratic and pro-labor tendencies won him support from the financial sector and labor leaders. Among the opponents was Fidel Castro, who led an attack against the Moncada army installation in Santiago de Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow Batista’s government on July 26, 1953. Castro was captured, brought to trial and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

A year later Batista was again elected president. During the following years, post War economic prosperity grew to unprecedented levels. But growing opposition escalated to social unrest and violence. Castro, who was in exile after being freed in the 1955 amnesty, returned to Cuba and after another failed attack retreated to the mountains to wage a guerrilla war. By 1958 the general situation of the country had become difficult, opposition forces had grown in size and won a number of victories, and some of Batista’s officials had deserted. On January 1, 1959, Batista resigned and flew to the Dominican Republic.

In August of the same year, Batista moved to Portugal where he resided until his death in Marbella, Spain, on August 6, 1973. During those years he wrote extensively and corresponded with prominent literary and political figures including both former allies and adversaries.

Laura Zarrabeitia is a Cuban actress (b. 1937) who formed part of Cuba's Teatro Estudio from 1960 to 1970, with which she acted in over 50 plays. Zarrabeitia became a part of Teatro Estudio when it was still an academy just at the beginning of the Revolution, when the people were still enthusiastic about it, although she admits she was hesitant about the future of the dramatic arts in Cuba. Before beginning her acting career, she worked as a secretary for a radio station, and spent a lot of time listening to dialogues and was exposed to acting in that capacity. Her supervisor left the country through Brazil, and Zarrabeitia was left without a job and so she entered Teatro Estudio Academia, directed by Vicente Revuelta and his sister Raquel, which within months became the still famous company Teatro Estudio. In that era, she performed in all of the works put on by the company. She stayed in Cuba for only 11 years after the Revolution of 1959. Her decision to leave was impacted by a change implemented by the Castro government around 1961 where all of the theater companies were dissolved and directors would choose which actors to contract on an individual basis instead of directing groups with a fixed cast of actors that worked together on all their productions. Eventually, she resigned from the theater and worked 23 months of voluntary labor in order to be able to leave Cuba. She left for Spain in 1972 and stayed there for only 1 year. She left mostly because of the cold climate, but during her time there she worked on zarzuelas, and acted in a film. She left on a ship for Venezuela with a zarzuela company and found the climate there much more agreeable. She was in Venezuela for 36 years, a longer period of time than she had lived in Cuba.

In Venezuela, she began to work with a small zarzuela company, then an operetta company with Maria Francisca Caballer, a soprano. While working on the operettas, she met a Cuban gentleman who knew of her from her acting in Cuba and he published an announcement about her. Televisión Canal 8 del Estado hired her to work on improvised programs such as “Sea Usted El Juez.” She became one of the regulars in the cast. She also did a lot of voice-overs. She acted in 10 episode continuous contracts for supporting roles in telenovelas on Radio Caracas Television for 12 years and then after that at Venevisión. She recalls having to memorize as well as improvise a great deal on television. Since she was trained as an actor with the Teatro Estudio, she would take the lines given to her and interpret them, but many of those who she had to work with simply parroted back the lines and this was a downside of the work. This was remedied, however, by also acting onstage with the company El Nuevo Grupo of the famous playwrights Isaac Chocrón and José Ignacio Cabrujas, which she said was like a Venezuelan Teatro Estudio because they would stage their own works. Then the Venezuelan government began to implement similar principles as Cuba had with Consejo Nacional de Cultura de Venezuela. Feeling her freedom restricted, she distanced herself from that.

Around 1987 during the government of Rafael Caldera things began to go downhill. The Radio Vision 11 and Venevision was purchased by a Mexican conglomerate and her contracts ended because she preferred short-term contracts. She began to lose work and left television. She joined another group to do “teatro leido” to make a salary, they would do the readings for free in the libraries. It occurred to her to do sessions of Cuban theater as a theme. Her group read works by playwrights like Virgilio Piñera, Montejo Idobro, Julio Matas, Antón Arrufat, and Ida Granco. These sessions garnered the most audience. Then, Zarrabeitia decided to do her own production of Santa Cecilia de La Habana Vieja by Emilio Estevez and invested all of her money into it, including in renting out a small theater. However, the location of the theater discouraged attendees and the press did not cover the premier. She then did La Soga de Panico about two Cubans who wished to leave the country, but the scenery was stolen. After these distressing experiences, Zarrabeitia left Venezuela in 1998 and joined her brother and many friends in Miami, Florida. At this point she retired from acting due to health issues. She notes that for her, there is nothing more delicious in life than passing a few hours at the theater. She also recalls that the first play she saw was William Inge’s Picnic with actress Antonia Rey, an incredible experience that she would never forget.

Elena Zayas was an educator from Cuba who lived and worked in New York City. She and her husband, Mario Zayas, were active in Club de Leones Cubanos and other Cuban exile organizations in New York and New Jersey.