Fanny Elisa Mikey Orlanszky (c. 1930 – 16 August 2008) was an Argentine-born Colombian actress, theatre producer and entrepreneur. She lived and worked in Colombia from 1959 until her death and was the creator and organizer of the Bogotá Iberoamerican Theatre Festival, known as the biggest theatre festival in the world. In 1976, she moved to Bogotá, when she created the Fundación Teatro Nacional (National Theatre Foundation), an organization to promote the arts in Colombia and that featured adaptations of famous plays (Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, The Vagina Monologues, and Closer) among others. Personal life Born to a Lithuanian Jewish family who emigrated to Argentina following czarist anti-Semitism sentiment in the Russian Empire, Fanny Elisa was the eldest of six children of José Mikeaj (or Mikey, as the immigration officials changed it to upon arrival to Argentina) and Celia Orlanszky. She married at a young age to Gastón Dijan, a young man with a Sephardic Jewish background, but the fruitless relation soon ended because of their cultural differences, and her husband's inability to accept her acting career. In 1958, she left Argentina to follow the man she loved, Pedro I. Martínez, arriving in Buenaventura by ferry and settling in Santiago de Cali; but once again this relation did not work out given religious differences. In 1976, Mikey and her then love partner Enrique Álvarez adopted a newborn whom they would call Daniel. Death At the age of 78, Fanny Mikey died due to complications of renal failure on Saturday 16 August 2008 in Cali, Colombia, where she had travelled to earlier that month to present her latest play, Perfume de arrabal y tango. Her body was transported to Bogotá that same day and taken to the National Theatre, where she lay in repose to a gathering of family, friends, and colleagues. The next morning, her casket was transported in a motorcade to the National Capitol and draped with the flag of Colombia; it was then placed in the Elliptical Chamber of the Capitol where she lay in state for a public viewing. Outside the Capitol, on Bolívar Square, the Bogotá Philharmonic performed Astor Piazzolla's Tangazo and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 as she had requested, followed by a cappella performances by her friends the bass Valeriano Lanchas, and singers César Mora, Yuri Buenaventura, and Lety Santamaría. Thousands of people went in droves to say their final goodbyes;