Francis Santini, born Francis Elisabeth Santini Vittini and known as «La Santini», is a Dominican vedette and singer from San Pedro de Macorís. Trained in classical ballet and theatre in the United States, she came to prominence in the late 1980s and the 1990s on Dominican television and in hotel and nightclub revues, and recorded merengues that became part of her stage act.

Childhood and training

By her own account she moved to Puerto Rico at the age of two and to the United States at five. There she began ballet with a student of a Cuban teacher, moved to a more demanding school to keep pace with her progress, and added drama and musical theatre. Dancing, singing and a taste for bringing jazz into classical technique led her toward vedettism.

«Fiesta» and «El Sabroshow»

Visiting the Dominican Republic on holiday, she auditioned at Teleantillas for the programme «Fiesta» with a dance on a chair, an audacious and sensual routine that was new for the time. In the mid-1980s the magazine «Galería» wrote a letter of recommendation for her to Milton Peláez, producer of «El Sabroshow» on Rahintel, and she performed there in 1986.

Recordings

Her first single was «Cariñito Azucarado», a song from the repertoire of the Puerto Rican vedette Iris Chacón, whom she admired; «Rayito de Luz» came from the same source. «La Castigadora» began as a flamenco rumba that she sang at a flamenco venue in New York and was reworked as a merengue, and the title became her nickname. «Tú Serás Mi Baby» and «Tembleque», also turned into merengues, followed.

Stage and television work

She performed in hotels and nightclubs across the country, including the Sheraton, and appeared on Teleantillas and Rahintel. After 1991 she worked with the comedian Roberto Salcedo, her first experience of comedy. Her final show, «La Santini Así Soy», gathered material from her whole career.

Later life

In the 1990s she turned to Christian faith, which she describes as the centre of her later life. In a 2019 interview she said that on Saturdays she taught ballet, flamenco, jazz, drama and etiquette to girls in a government programme, and that on weekdays she worked as a Zumba instructor.

Legacy

Retrospectives on Dominican vedettism, a stage tradition that ran from the 1950s to the 1990s and blended dance, song and comedy, consistently include Francis Santini among its most professional and best-remembered performers.