on tour in Sweden, Serrano was accused by Germany of being a spy—she had donated a benefit performance to Jewish refugees. Rather than returning to Germany to be arrested, she traveled to Chile. Her songs were subsequently banned in Nazi Germany. Serrano attempted a tour in the United States, but her German repertoire was not popular. She appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1950, but little came of the publicity. In 1951, she went to West Germany to take part in the film Schwarze Augen (Dark Eyes), in which she played a Cuban singer, and the next year she sang in the film Saison in Salzburg. Beyond these appearances, she saw little success in Germany, her comeback attempt ending with a poorly received tour with Kurt Hohenberger in 1957. In her native Chile, where she spent the last years of her life, the public never forgave her for performing in Nazi Germany. She died in poverty in Santiago on 6 April 1997. Legacy Serrano's performance of La Paloma was used in the 1981 film Das Boot by Wolfgang Petersen, and in the 1993 production of the film The House of the Spirits, after the novel by Chilean author Isabel Allende. Selected filmography Dark Eyes (1951) References Biography (German) BIOGRAFÍA DE ROSITA SERRANO (Spanish) Biography and audio samples of her songs (Spanish) External links Photographs at Virtual History 1912 births 1997 deaths Flamenco singers German-language singers Chilean operatic sopranos People from Viña del Mar Traditional pop music singers Whistlers 20th-century women opera singers Musicians from Viña del Mar