Cris Urena | Thierry Le Goues | Marie Claire France March 2012
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Mako Yamazaki styles Cris Urena in ‘Mambo Show’, lensed by Thierry Le Goues for Marie Claire France. /Hair by Franco Argento; makeup by Regine Bedot
Mambo is a Latin dance that originated in 1930s Havana and sizzled all over Cuba during the 1950s before the Cuban Revolution. A military dictatorship in Cuba was very friendly with the American mob, making the island a safe haven for gambling and prostitution. Speaking of his book ‘Havana Nocturn’, TJ English talked to NPR.
In the 1950s, Havana teemed with American tourists, who stayed in swank mob-owned hotels, gambled at casinos, danced the mambo at nightclubs and indulged their fantasies at live sex shows and bordellos.
“What you saw were the wonderful hotels that had some really beautiful casinos, unlike anything that existed anywhere else in the world at that time,” says English.
English believes the hedonism and sense of American exploitation fueled Castro’s guerrilla movement, and eventually led to the downfall of the regime.
