Abraham Quintanilla, father and supervisor of the late Tejano pop icon Selena Quintanilla, has died. He was 86.
“It’s with a heavy coronary heart to allow you to guys know that my Dad handed away at this time,” Quintanilla’s son, A.B. Quintanilla III, wrote on his Instagram account on Saturday. The reason for dying has not been disclosed to the general public.
As patriarch of the well-known Mexican American music household, Quintanilla performed a essential position within the growth of his daughter Selena’s profession. After her tragic dying in 1995, he devoted his life to safeguarding her legacy and overseeing major management over her property. This included managing the rights to her picture, title and likeness — at instances, to controversial ends.
Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1939, Quintanilla started his music profession as a member of the singing group the Dinos in 1956, a Chicano rock group that was met with racial discrimination. In a single occasion, a membership proprietor paid the group not to carry out after realizing they had been Mexican American youth; however the group was additionally sidelined by its Mexican counterparts for not making Spanish-language music.
Quintanilla’s exasperation knowledgeable an actual quote that was later made well-known by actor Edward James Olmos, who performed Quintanilla within the 1997 “Selena” biopic: “Now we have to be extra Mexican than the Mexicans and extra American than the Individuals, each on the similar time. It’s exhausting!”
Quintanilla would ultimately step away from the group within the Nineteen Sixties to start out a household with Marcella Samora, whom he met in Tacoma, Wash., whereas serving within the U.S. Air Power. The household rapidly grew following the births of A.B., Suzette and Selena. In them, he noticed the potential to satisfy his personal goals of musical stardom.
With A.B. on bass, Suzette on drums and Selena because the tender vocalist, the trio would typically carry out on the household restaurant, PapaGayo’s, which later closed following the 1981 recession. The household was compelled to promote their residence in Lake Jackson, Texas, and transfer to Corpus Christi. To be able to make ends meet, Selena y Los Dinos would carry out on avenue corners, household events and different social capabilities. Underneath the steerage of their father, who assumed the place of band supervisor, Los Dinos ultimately signed with Freddie Information in 1984.
Selena was met with a lot skepticism from an early age as a younger lady in a male-dominated style, together with by their first label head, Freddie Martinez. Nonetheless, Los Dinos persevered within the Tejano music scene, hopping from label to label earlier than the group lastly launched eight albums underneath Manny Guerra’s unbiased labels, GP Productions and Document Producer Productions. With a number of albums underneath her belt, Selena was then in a position to dominate the Tejano Music Awards; she gained the title of Feminine Vocalist of the 12 months in 1987.
Selena ultimately caught the eye of Jose Behar, the previous head of Sony Music Latin, who noticed her crossover enchantment — regardless of Selena’s major language being English — and signed her to EMI Latin (Capitol Information) in 1989. This led to the discharge of her most career-defining hits throughout 5 albums, equivalent to “Como la Flor,” “Amor Prohibido,” “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” and the posthumously launched ballad, “Dreaming of You.”
Following Selena’s homicide in 1995 — by Yolanda Saldivar, the previous president of her fan membership — Quintanilla grew to become a fierce protector of her picture, which was typically sensationalized by the general public.
Due to the grisly and extremely publicized nature of Selena’s dying, Quintanilla felt that the movie wanted to be made earlier than later, with the intention to do justice to his daughter’s legacy, mentioned “Selena” director Gregory Nava in a 2025 interview with De Los.
“For me, as a filmmaker, I wished to actually inform a real story,” mentioned Nava. “I had battle, not likely with the household, however with Abraham. Her father was very protecting of her.”
Tensions flared most when Nava started to form the story of the singer’s elopement with guitarist Chris Perez, whom she married in 1992.
“You possibly can’t placed on the display that it’s proper for a younger lady to disobey her father,” Nava recalled Quintanilla saying.
“Isn’t it a extra essential level to make that she is doing what she is aware of is true? And [that] she’s doing the correct factor as a result of she is aware of she loves Chris and Chris loves her?” Nava responded.
Finally, Quintanilla relented. “I assume if I’ve to look unhealthy to make Selena look good, I’ll do it,” Nava recalled him saying. “He has a smooth coronary heart. He lastly noticed that was the correct factor to do, nevertheless it took hours of heated dialogue.”
Though Suzette has mentioned that the 1997 biopic got here too quickly in her eyes — and prompted criticism of her father, who some considered as money-hungry and opportunistic — she in the end stood by his resolution, stating that there was a strain throughout the household to manage the narrative on the time.
Nava agreed.
“Abraham was very clever in pushing it by rapidly,” he mentioned. “Selena introduced us all collectively, and it cemented her legacy in a optimistic approach. All of the negativity was dispelled by that film. You see that within the movie and you’re feeling it.”
