Doris Gibson

 

Doris Gibson

 

 

From Wikipedia, the free enciclopedia

Life and work

Doris Gibson was born in Lima but spent her early years in Arequipa. Her father was the Peruvian poet of Scottish/German ancestry Percy Gibson Moller. She married an Argentine diplomat, Manlio Zileri. They had one child, Enrique Zileri, who also became an editor of Caretas.

She had a relationship with the artist, Sérvulo Gutiérrez, for whom she was a muse as well as a lover.^[2] After Gibson and Gutiérrez had a heated argument, he rid himself of a full-size nude painting that he had executed of Gibson. He sold it to a well-off businessman. When she learned of the transaction, Gibson traveled to the businessman's house with a photographer and, on the pretext of needing daylight for a photograph, took the painting outside and promptly drove away with it. When the man later asked for its return, she responded, "I don't want to be nude in your house."^[2]

Caretas

Acomplish submission

Gibson started the weekly news magazine Caretas in 1950, using 10,000 soles which her uncle had lent her, along with a room and a typewriter. The first issue appeared in October 1950, but before the end of the year her operation was shut down by then-dictator Manuel A. Odría (1948–1956). This pattern became familiar: the operation was closed five times by the government of Juan Velasco Alvarado (1975–1980) (in October 1969 Velasco ordered the arrest and deportation [to Spain] of then-editor Enrique Zileri Gibson). The operation was closed again under the regime of Francisco Morales Bermúdez (1975–1980).^[3]

The government of Fernando Belaúnde Terry (1980–1985) awarded the magazine the Orden del Sol del Perú, in recognition of its services. The government of Alejandro Toledo (2001–2006) also awarded the magazine the Grand Cross of the Orden al Mérito por Servicios Distinguidos [es].^[3]

Her grandson Marco Zilero Dougall was editor of the magazine when Doris Gibson Parra died in Lima 

Doris and the volcano

 

Article published in CARETAS on August 15, 1996)

 When Doris Gibson was once asked if she considered herself from Lima or Arequipa, she replied: “It is more provocative to say that I am from Arequipa.” And in truth, despite having been born in Lima, Doris has many of the unmistakable traits of the inhabitants of the White City by lineage and temperament. Also, the matter of her birth was pure chance. Everything was planned for the event to take place in Arequipa. Even her parents, the poet Percy Gibson and Mercedes Parra del Riego, were already comfortably installed on the German ship that would transport them from Callao to Moliendo. But she, Doris, decided to express her first rebelliousness and opened her eyes in the very Lima street of Orejuelas. “Then they would baptize me in the church of San Sebastián,” she says. Only then was the family able to continue with her plans and travel to Arequipa. Memories of her childhood in the land of her ancestors, the Gibsons, are fleeting and pleasant. “We lived in a big house that belonged to the Mollers and that was just past the Bolognesi Bridge. We also spent time in the Quinta Romagna”. In those years the farms were around every corner. An ideal pretext for Doris and her brothers (eight of them were born there) to sneak into the cornfields, elude the watchful eye of “Cojo Banda” and return home laden with tender corn that they later ate with delight. Sundays were the days dedicated to grandparents Enrique W. Gibson and Doris Moller. "My grandfather did the Boulevard Parra" and there was never a lack of "hilarious" recitals organized by his father. “Our house was always full of poets and artists. Belisario Calle, Morales de Rivera, Atahualpa Rodríguez, José Medina and the composer Dunker Lavalle visited us very often”, says Doris, adding: “We were definitely a different family”. And so this "different" family chooses to return to Lima. Shortly before Doris turns 14. However, her attachment to Arequipa has made her come back. And again. In 1952, when CARETAS was just two years old, Ella Doris made a characata decision: to make the first special report on the anniversary parties of the White City. "I went with a lot of enthusiasm and affection and we got something very nice," she says. “I remember that Benigno Ballón Farfán played the piano in some ceremonies and that Mariana Chavaneix appeared on the cover of that edition, who would later marry Bobby Ramírez del Villar”. The Selva Alegre Tourist Hotel was always her center of operations. “The staff knew me by heart and they always gave me the same room in a little interior garden. It was precious. I saw, in 1946, Teodoro Nuñez Ureta paint the murals that are in the halls”. 1952 was just the beginning of countless notes and supplements that CARETAS has dedicated to Arequipa. First under the baton of its founder, who personally came to cover the festivities: "Unforgettable parades and great parties at Club Arequipa," Doris recalls. And then she took the post Enrique Zileri Gibson, then director of the magazine. And it was precisely him who, on behalf of Doris Gibson, received today, Thursday the 15th, the Diamond Cross Medal that the current municipality of Arequipa has awarded him. Years before, in 1973 when then-mayor José Velarde Soto gave Doris the Gold Medal for Tourism, she said: “I come back again and as always I feel an open heart and a lump in my throat. I cannot forget the cornfields and wheat fields that surrounded the city”. Today, Arequipa remembers her with reciprocal emotion. (Teresina Muñoz-Nájar).

Doris Gibson was a woman who was ahead of her time

 

Doris Gibson was an "extraordinary journalist" and a woman "who was ahead of her time," President Alan García Pérez said tonight, after attending the wake for the founder of Caretas magazine, who died today at the age of 98. . "I pay tribute to Doris Gibson, an extraordinary journalist and woman who was ahead of her time, and who showed what a woman can do, both in the public eye, in journalism and in business," he noted. García Pérez, who attended the wake with his wife Pilar Nores, highlighted the intellectual impetus given by Gibson to Peruvian society since the 1950s, when he founded the magazine Caretas, together with Francisco Igartua, and stood up to authoritarian governments. . "She confronted the Odría dictatorship and founded and created a dynasty of journalists whose first motto is the defense of democracy and freedom," said the head of state, expressing his sorrow at the death of such a remarkable woman. In addition to President García, other personalities attended, such as the former president of Congress, Luis Gonzales Posada; the former foreign minister of the past government, Diego García Sayán, among others, as well as friends, relatives and workers of Caretas. Gonzales Posada, upon entering the wake, said that Gibson was a milestone in the history of national journalism and had a prominent role as a woman in Peruvian society. The funeral of the founder of Caretas, who was the daughter of the poet Percy Gibson and Mercedes Parra del Riego, will be officiated tomorrow, Sunday 24 at 4:00 p.m., in the Parque del Recuerdo cemetery in Pachacamac. Gibson Parra was a pioneer of national journalism and a swashbuckling defender of press freedom, as she tenaciously and undauntedly resisted the pressure and closures ordered by various authoritarian governments. She had, in addition to her passion for journalism, a close relationship with culture, and a notorious romance with the master painter Sérvulo Gutiérrez, who portrayed her on several occasions. Gibson is expected to receive a posthumous tribute tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. in the editorial office of the magazine located at Portal de Botoneros 122, Plaza Mayor in downtown Lima.

 

Later life and death

Gibson Parra entered a Peruvian clinic in August 2008 for treatment of pneumonia. She died there on 23 August 2008. She was predeceased by former husband Manlio Zileri. Peruvian President Alan García and several of his ministers attended her wake.^[3]

 

 

With affection,

Ruben