Francisca Romana Marqués López (9 March 1888 – 26 July 1962), better known as Raquel Meller, was a Spanish diseuse, cuplé, and tonadilla singer and actress. She was an international star in the 1920s and 1930s, appearing in several films and touring Europe and the Americas. A vaudeville performer, she sang the original versions of well known songs such as "La Violetera" and "El relicario", both written by José Padilla Sánchez. Early life and career Meller was born in Tarazona (Zaragoza), Aragón in the neighborhood of Cinto. Her father, Telesforo Marqués Ibañez, worked as a blacksmith and her mother, Isabel López Sainz, ran a grocery store. Her family was one of the oldest in Aragón and were quite wealthy before becoming impoverished during the Carlist Wars. At the age of four, her family moved to Barcelona. Her father died when she was not yet 10 years old and she was placed under the care of her aunt, Sister María del Carmen, an abbess in the convent at Figueras. When her aunt asked her to become a nun, she escaped from the convent with the help of a gardener's ladder. She moved back to Barcelona, where she worked as a seamstress, embroidering the robes of priests and bishops. She sang as she worked, eventually drawing crowds who would stand on the street outside of the dressmaker's shop. Aged 13, she sang at a small cabaret in Valencia. She later appeared in Madrid where she attracted the attention of the King and Queen of Spain. Around that time she met a famous singer, Marta Oliver, a regular at the clothes shop. Under the tutelage of Oliver, the young chanteuse made her debut in the lounge La Gran Peña in February 1908 under the name La Bella Rachel. Subsequently, she changed her name to Raquel Meller. On 16 September 1911 she made her grand debut at the Teatro Arnau in Barcelona. In 1917, she met the Guatemalan journalist and diplomat Enrique Gómez Carrillo, whom she married in 1919. As Meller was unable to bear children, the couple adopted. The same year, Meller held her first concerts in Paris (Olympia), Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. Meller secured a divorce from Carrillo in 1922. In 1919, Meller appeared in her first film, Los arlequines de seda y oro. In the next few years, she would star in her most successful and silent films Violettes impériales (1924)