typing. At age 14, she started working at Kodak as a secretary. Pinal wanted to study opera. She began to prepare, taking classes with a private teacher and then with Professor Reyes Retana. Her first step towards fame occurred when she was invited to participate in a beauty pageant. In this contest, Pinal obtained the title of Student Princess of Mexico. At her coronation, she met the actors Rubén Rojo and Manolo Fábregas, with whom she became close friends. While studying bel canto, Pinal went to work as a secretary in the pharmaceutical laboratories of Carlos Stein. At the music academy, Pinal auditioned for a role in the opera La Traviata. However, this hearing was a failure. Then her teacher encouraged her to take acting courses at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. In that academy, she was a classmate of figures such as Carlos Pellicer, Salvador Novo and Xavier Villaurrutia. She debuted as an extra in a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. Career Beginning Pinal continued working in the pharmaceutical products firm in her advertising department. Knowing that she was studying acting, her boss allowed her to participate in recording some radio comedies in the XEQ. She debuted in the comedy Dos pesos la dejada. At the radio station, she met some publicists who invited her to be part of an experimental company. She made her debut in that company with a role in the play Los Caprichos de Goya. The director of this work was the Mexican actor and director of Cuban origin Rafael Banquells, with whom Pinal began an employment relationship and a close friendship that led to romance. Rafael Banquells got the master Carlos Laverne to allow them to use the Ideal Theater of Mexico City for their productions. Laverne chose Pinal to participate in a montage with the company of the Ideal Theater, directed by the Spanish actress Isabelita Blanch. The work was called Nuestra Natacha. Pinal acted in numerous works for this company. Her first star work was Un sueño de cristal. Film Just fifteen days after she debuted in the theater, Pinal made her debut in the cinema with a brief role in Bamba (1949), starring Carmen Montejo and directed by Miguel Contreras Torres. Contreras Torres had seen her work at the Ideal Theatre and invited her to participate in the project. Contreras Torres was a tough and strict