De Castro: An All-American story

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, July 4, 2001 | 1:20 a.m.

In a city such as Las Vegas, where dynamite makes entire buildings disappear in a matter of minutes and 8,000 new residents move in every month, memories can stretch thin.

But Cherie de Castro may well be the exception. She is one-third of the De Castro Sisters, an act that played Las Vegas with George Burns and Noel Coward in the 1950s and '60s; the sisters sold 5 million records in 1955 with the song, "Teach Me Tonight."

The 71-year-old singer says she still gets treated like a celebrity in her local supermarket and at church -- six decades after Ernest Hemingway visited her family's home in Havana and five decades after Perry Como first heard her rehearsing with her two sisters in New York.

In fact, de Castro continues to perform, and a revamped version of the De Castro Sisters trio -- now including a a third "sister" who is neither a member of the family nor Hispanic -- has offers to sing in New York's Regency Hotel in the fall.

But partly because of her active lifestyle, de Castro has rarely told her story.

It is a story that includes her father almost building a canal across Cuba with American business support -- before Fidel Castro came down from the Sierra Maestra mountains, effectively putting a stop to all projects involving foreign funding.

It is also a story that predates by decades the current boom in Hispanic performers such as Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, making her a figure who her manager, Hollywood-based Allan Eichler, says was ahead of her time.

No audience

"When the De Castro Sisters first came here in the mid-1940s, there was no audience for Latin acts," said Eichler in a phone interview from Hollywood.

Brazilian star Carmen Miranda had risen to fame during the same period, but she was mostly a film star. "I Love Lucy," which would bring Cuban actor Desi Arnaz to America's attention, didn't begin until 1951.

In those days, America was listening and dancing to groups such as the Andrews Sisters.

"We wanted to be like the Andrews Sisters," de Castro said during a recent interview at her home in the Huntridge area, near Charleston Boulevard and Maryland Parkway. She is surrounded by photos that depict her life, and the lives of her sisters, from the postwar years, a map of her homeland -- Cuba -- and a Life magazine White Owl cigar ad that featured her father, Juan Fernandez de Castro.

Cherie de Castro, her younger sister Babette -- named after her mother -- and her older sister, Peggy, sang in English. Her mother was American, a descendant of President James Buchanan and a former Ziegfeld Follies girl who raised the children to be bilingual.

This aspect of her background was also a first of sorts, as she predated the hyphenated, diverse cultural landscape of today's America.

Ironically, their start was at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, in front of wealthy Americans. The occasion was George Washington's birthday.

"They called us the Marvel Sisters, since a Cuban name would mean nothing to them. We were a big hit, maybe because we came out with the American flag and sang the national anthem," she said with a trace of irony.

They continued to sing around the island -- in English. "We told people we were Americans, though somebody in the audience always knew us and would tell others that we lived in Havana. Still, in remote places like Guajira, people loved us and would call what we sang 'musica misteriosa.' "

Mob-run clubs

Many of the clubs in which they sang in Havana were run by the American mob, including Sam Giancano, who would later help Cherie's mother escape from the island when Fidel Castro took power.

In 1954 the sisters were invited to the Latin Quarter, a club in New York City. Their parents accompanied them at first, leaving them alone when they saw they were on the road to making records and that they could take care of themselves. They were all in their 20s by then.

Meanwhile, Cherie's father developed his business interests, which included real estate ventures and Cuba's first radio station. He also began talking with American firms and Cuban President Fulgencio Batista about building a north-south canal for ships to get from one side of the island to the other without having to travel around it.

At this point in the conversation, de Castro produces a photocopy of an undated Miami Herald story from the time.

Half the story is missing, but it describes a 50-mile long canal that would be "larger in size and scope than the Panama project." Its total cost was estimated at a half-billion dollars.

A New York firm, Merritt-Chapman & Scott, controlled by a Miami financier named Louis E. Wolfson, had the inside track on a $156 million contract to begin work on the canal. The company is described as "one of the world's largest construction firms."

Canal Via Cuba Co., headed by Juan Fernandez de Castro, was to oversee the project.

Military reasons

The U.S. was interested in it for military reasons.

The story notes that "(President) Batista ... is determined to go ahead with the canal despite bitter attacks from his political opponents.

"Their cry has been that to put the canal through with American financial backing will put the country in the hands of the United States government. 'Imperialism' is what they have been calling it," wrote the story's author, David Kraslow.

The huge undertaking was not to be. In 1958 Juan Fernandez de Castro died of cancer, after several operations. He was 67. In January 1959 Castro took power in Cuba. Soon after he began nationalizing private companies, including the many that were U.S.-owned. Batista fled the country.

The De Castro Sisters six months before had performed at Capri, a Havana club. Actor George Raft was the host. "Fidel's men were already shooting in the streets, and you couldn't go out at night," she said.

After the show, Cherie returned to Miami, where she lived at the time. She would never go back to her homeland.

Mother escapes

Six months later Giancano and other members of the mob who knew de Castro's father helped her mother, Babette, escape the island. They got her mother safely on a plane minutes after she witnessed Castro's men shoot four former Batista aides. The only thing she took with her was a pocketbook with some jewelry her husband had given her.

By then, the De Castro Sisters had recorded "Teach Me Tonight." They had long since left behind the title, "Marvel Sisters," having been told in Miami that a Cuban name would make them sound more exotic in America.

They were on their way to a career that would include singing on the first television show west of the Mississippi -- on Los Angeles' KTLA, in 1947 -- with Bob Hope; performing with George Burns in his first solo appearance; gracing all of Las Vegas' stages over the years; and being profiled by CNN in 1998.

In a bizarre homage to their influence on postwar America, the sisters were mentioned by Livia Soprano on the hit television show "The Sopranos;" she said their records are the only thing that makes her happy.

From 1958 until last year, one of the De Castro Sisters was not a sister; Babette retired and a cousin, Olgita, joined the trio. Babette died in 1992 and Olgita died in Las Vegas in 2000.

Revived interest

Several years ago CNN profiled sister acts, including the de Castros. "This helped revive interest in them," said Eichler, who has been their manager for three years. Then Bear Records, a German label, reissued their greatest hits on a CD, "Teach Me Tonight."

"They're right in tune with the lounge, exotica, and Latin crazes of the moment," Eichler said.

Meanwhile, Cherie's moments are split between tending to her past and scheduling future performances. After speaking to a reporter, she headed downtown to hang some earrings and put final touches on the models of the de Castros at the Tropicana's wax museum.

She has also written a treatment for a film about her life and that of her parents and sisters. Her manager hopes to interest actor Andy Garcia or singer Gloria Estefan in making the film.

Two identities

Even though she's been in the United States most of her life -- in Las Vegas since 1967 -- she says she feels as if she has two identities.

"Sometimes I say, what am I? Am I American or Cuban? It depends on the day. Sometimes I listen to salsa, other times, American ballads. I'm both, really. It's a little confusing."

Reflecting on her life here of nearly six decades, the singer addressed the inevitable question: Would she return to Cuba?

She paused.

"The Cubans in Miami want nothing to do with Fidel," she said.

"But I'm not like that. I see things opening up, and many of my friends are going there. I'm not afraid of Fidel" -- this last part she said in her clipped Cuban Spanish -- "and I would like to meet him and look him straight in the eye. I should hate him, but I can't. Maybe it's the influence of the Catholic church," she said.

"Plus, I'd like to finally be able to reunite my mother with my father, since she was buried here in Las Vegas 16 years ago, and he's buried alone there in Cuba."

What would she say to Castro?

"I'd say that I'm the daughter of Juan Fernando de Castro, the man who was going to build a canal across Cuba," she said.