Samtlige artikler er hentet fra New York Times. Oppdatert 23.7.03

"Ai, no hay que llorar, que la vida es un carnaval!" they screamed. "Oh, no need to cry, life is a carnival."

16.7.03
Celia Cruz, the 'Queen of Salsa,' Dies at 77

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS,

Celia Cruz, the Cuban-born singer who went from singing in Havana nightclubs to become the "Queen of Salsa," died Wednesday, her publicist said.

Cruz, who was 77, died of a brain tumor. She had surgery for the ailment in December but her health faltered. She died at her home in Fort Lee, N.J., according to her publicist, Blanca Lasalle.

In the 1950s, Cruz became famous with the legendary Afro-Cuban group La Sonora Matancera. She left Cuba for the United States in 1960, and was credited with bringing salsa music to a broad audience.

Cruz, who recorded more than 70 albums and had more than a dozen Grammy nominations, won best salsa album for "La Negra Tiene Tumbao" at the last year's Latin Grammy Awrds. Among her other best-known recordings are "Yerberito Moreno" and "Que le Den Candela."

Called the "Queen of Salsa" and the "diva of Latin song," Cruz remained energetic late into her career. At last year's Latin Grammys, she showed up wearing a frothy blue-and-white headpiece and a tight red dress and gave a hip-shaking performance.

Cruz's alliance with fellow salsa star Tito Puente garnered her some of the biggest success in her career. In 1987, she was honored with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and several years later, the city of Miami gave Calle Ocho, the main street of its Cuban community, the honorary name of Celia Cruz Way.

Cruz also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian Institution and in 1994, President Clinton honored her with an award from the National Endowment of the Arts.

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17.7.03
Celia Cruz, Petite Powerhouse of Latin Music, Dies at 77

By JON PARELES,

Celia Cruz, the Cuban singer who became the queen of Latin music, died yesterday at her home in Fort Lee, N.J. She was 77.

The cause was complications after surgery for a brain tumor, said a spokeswoman, Blanca Lasalle.

Onstage, Ms. Cruz was a petite woman who wore tight, glittering dresses and towering wigs, dancing in high heels and belting songs that she punctuated with shouts of "Azucar!" ("Sugar!"). She was a vocal powerhouse, with a tough, raspy voice that could ride the percussive attack of a rumba or bring hard-won emotion to a lovelorn Cuban son.

"When people hear me sing," she said in an interview with The New York Times, "I want them to be happy, happy, happy. I don't want them thinking about when there's not any money, or when there's fighting at home. My message is always felicidad — happiness."

In a career that began in the 1940's, Ms. Cruz sang with every major Latin bandleader and recorded more than 70 albums. She sang a full spectrum of Afro-Cuban music, from the religious chants of santería to mambos and cha-chas to modern salsa. Yet unlike many of the Latin musicians in her wake, she didn't court a crossover audience. She recorded in Spanish, modestly saying that her English was not good enough.

Ms. Cruz was born in Havana to a poor family, and she regularly sang her brothers and sisters to sleep. She won a radio talent contest after a cousin took her to the radio station García Serra; first prize was a cake. She went on to study at the Havana Conservatory and to sing on radio programs. In 1950, she joined La Sonora Matancera, Cuba's most popular band. "I wanted to be a mother, a teacher and a housewife," she told The New York Times. "But when I began to sing with La Sonora Matancera, I thought, `This is my chance, and I'm going to do it.' "

She toured with the group constantly, sometimes singing five sets a day; they were also headliners at Havana's most celebrated nightclub, the Tropicana, and performed on radio and television. But in 1960, a year after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, she was touring Mexico with La Sonora Matancera and decided not to return to Cuba. Years later, Cuba refused permission for her to attend her father's funeral.

Ms. Cruz moved to New York in 1961, and later to Fort Lee. In 1962, she married Pedro Knight, a trumpeter from La Sonora Matancera who became her musical director and manager. He survives her, along with two sisters, Gladys Becquer and Dolores Cruz.

In New York, she held on to her Cuban roots while adding some of the city's Puerto Rican and later Dominican elements to her music. She sang with Tito Puente's orchestra in the 1960's, a collaboration she periodically renewed through the next decades, and in the 1970's she also sang with bandleaders like Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colón and Ray Barretto. She performed with the Fania All-Stars at Yankee Stadium in 1975.

"Women are afraid to sing salsa," she once said. "I don't know why. Maybe they think it's for men." She added, "But I think everybody can sing everything."

She continued to modernize her music, working with Miami-based producers like Willy Chirino and Emilio Estefan and with Sergio George in New York, who produced her most recent albums. She also collaborated with many of the musicians who admired her, among them Luciano Pavarotti, Gloria Estefan, David Byrne of Talking Heads and the Brazilian songwriter Caetano Veloso.

In 1989, Ms. Cruz won a Grammy award for best tropical Latin performance for an album in collaboration with Mr. Barretto, "Ritmo en el Corazón." In 1989, Yale University awarded Ms. Cruz an honorary doctorate (alongside Stephen Hawking), and in 1990 the main street of Little Havana in Miami, Calle Ocho, added the name Celia Cruz Way. In 1994, President Clinton gave her the National Medal of Arts. She won the first Latin Grammy Award for best tropical album in 2000. Until last year, Ms. Cruz continued to perform and record constantly on an international circuit that included jazz festivals and arena concerts along with Latin clubs.

She had surgery for a brain tumor in December 2002, but in February she returned to the studio to record an album, "Regalo de Alma," that is due for release Aug. 5 on Sony Discos. That same month, her 2002 album, "La Negra Tiene Tumbao," won the Grammy Award for best salsa album. In March, the Telemundo network broadcast a live concert tribute to Ms. Cruz, in which she performed alongside other Latin stars, including Marc Anthony, to raise money for the Celia Cruz Foundation for Hispanic students to study music. It will give its first five grants on her birthday this year, Oct. 21.

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18.7.03
From Cuba, Music Sweeter Than Azúcar

By CAROLYN CURIEL,

Celia Cruz and Compay Segundo, who died this week at the ages of 77 and 95, respectively, each transformed a love of their native Cuba and its traditional music into forces that helped to shape Latin salsa.

Ms. Cruz rose from poverty to become a national treasure in Cuba, until she decided to defect after Fidel Castro took power. While the move hurt her career initially, she was not allowed to look back; she was banned forever from returning to her homeland. So she came to embody the Cuba she missed. She packed energy into her performances just as she poured her full figure into sparkling dresses — to the point of bursting. She announced her presence onstage with a shout of "azúcar!" — Spanish for sugar. Audiences shouted back, but in the long run they could never keep up with her.

Outrageous high heels, big, false nails and bigger, falser hair could not detract from a pure, pitch-perfect voice. Ms. Cruz considered herself a simple singer, a guarachera, in the way that Frank Sinatra called himself a saloon singer. But mastering the guaracha is far from simple. It's an art that requires improvised lyrics, and she was an impeccable practitioner in a field dominated by men.

She was tireless and generous. An Ecuadorean-American who sent her an unsolicited song he had written was shocked that she called him immediately to offer encouragement.

In her 70's, she delved into reggaetón, a melodic stew of calypso and hip-hop that is rapped over in Spanish, for an album that won a Latin Grammy last year, "La Negra Tiene Tumbao," or "The Black Woman Has Swing."

Mr. Segundo, whose real name was Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz, had a limited audience for most of his life in Cuba. But he became an international phenomenon with the release of the recording of "Buena Vista Social Club" in 1997, a celebration of Havana musicians of the pre-Castro era by an American guitarist, Ry Cooder. With his sudden celebrity from the recording, and the later film of the same name, came permission to tour the world. He played the capitals of Europe and all over the United States, deflecting any talk of politics. When bomb threats by suspected anti-Castro forces interrupted his appearance in Miami several years ago, he responded with soft humor and strong rhythms. He introduced audiences to the old-style Cuban son, which melds African and Latin strains into everything from ballads to dance music. To achieve the sound he wanted from a guitar, he created his own, adding extra strings to the traditional instrument. From it, he coaxed sounds that could be playful, haunting and thrilling, as in his signature tune, "Chan Chan."

The body of Ms. Cruz will lie in state in Miami tomorrow before being sent to New York City for burial, making her a symbol for others who shared her status as an exile. Mr. Segundo, who lived all of his 95 years in Cuba, was officially mourned on the island. But in their final days they were both where they wanted to be, in the studio and on stage — each far away from politics and making the music they would want to live on.

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20.3.03
Thousands Mourn Salsa Legend Celia Cruz

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS,

MIAMI (AP) -- Tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets to pay their respects to salsa legend and Cuban exile Celia Cruz, weeping at her casket but also celebrating her music and shouting her trademark phrase, ``Azucar!''

``This is Celia's day. She is the personification of Cuba, the free Cuba and the future Cuba,'' said Roly More, grandson of singer Benny More.

The number of people paying their respects Saturday was estimated at more than 75,000. The line stretched for 15 blocks at one point for the viewing at the Freedom Tower -- the Ellis Island of the Cuban community, where immigration officials processed more than 500,000 Cubans who fled Fidel Castro's government in the 1960s.

Later, at Cruz's funeral Mass, family members, friends and fans remembered her engaging personality and energetic performing style. Singer Gloria Estefan, one of several featured speakers at the two-hour service, promised that ``Celia will always live on.''

Cruz, 78, who recorded more than 70 albums, died Wednesday of a brain tumor at her home in Fort Lee, N.J.

She won best salsa album for ``La Negra Tiene Tumbao'' at last year's Latin Grammy Awards, and won the same award at this year's Grammys. Her other best-known recordings include ``Yerberito Moderno'' and ``Que le Den Candela.''

Many mourners held roses, some waved Cuban flags and most tried to shield themselves from the sun with umbrellas or floppy hats in the Cuban national colors of red, white and blue. Many yelled Cruz's catch phrase ``Azucar!'' or sugar.

Among those in line was Nila Alvarez, 68, who said she first met Cruz in Havana, where the singer thrilled nightclub crowds in the 1950s.

``She was always an idol, as a person and as an artist,'' Alvarez said.

While there was much weeping at Cruz's open casket, whenever the mood became too somber inside the tower people erupted in cheers, chanting ``Celia, Celia.'' They clapped their hands to her music, blaring through speakers.

The casket was surrounded by white and purple flowers, as well as American and Cuban flags. On one side, Cruz's husband, trumpeter Pedro Knight, stood dressed in black with other family and friends.

Even after nine hours of public viewing, several thousand people were left unable to view the body when the doors to the Freedom Tower were closed to prepare for the procession to Gesu Catholic Church, where a memorial Mass was celebrated Saturday night.

Cruz's casket, wrapped in a Cuban flag, was loaded onto a limousine led by men in white shirts carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary. Onlookers tossed roses at the slow-moving procession as Cruz's family and friends walked behind the limousine.

Mourners included Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Latin music star Carlos Vives and Latin TV talk show host Cristina Saralegui

Across the street at the Estefans' Bongo's restaurant, celebrities and political and business leaders waiting for the procession ate sandwiches and croquettes as they remembered Cruz's influential 50-year career.

``She's inspired everyone in this room,'' said Jorge Moreno, a Miami-based Latin pop singer who performed with Cruz. ``I always looked at her like a grandmother.''

Cruz came to the United States in 1960, a year after the Cuban revolution. She became so popular in Miami that Calle Ocho, the main street running through the city's Cuban community, has the honorary name of Celia Cruz Way. Cruz's body was to be returned to New York on Sunday. On Tuesday, a funeral Mass was set for St. Patrick's Cathedral.

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20.7.03
Thousands of Mourners Attend Tribute to the Queen of Salsa

By MIRTA OJITO,

MIAMI, July 19 — Thousands of people stood in the sun today for more than five hours outside the oak doors of a downtown building known as the Freedom Tower to pay their last respects to Celia Cruz, the queen of salsa, whose dying wish was to have her body flown to this city, the heart of the Cuban-exile community, to be among her people and closer to her beloved but out-of-reach Cuba.

"She would always tell me, `If I can't return to Cuba, then I want to go to Miami,' " Omer Pardillo, her manager and a close friend, said on Friday on his way here. Ms. Cruz died on Wednesday at 77 at her home in Fort Lee, N.J.

"Toward the end she was at peace with the knowledge that she would die in the United States," Mr. Pardillo said. " `If it can't be in Cuba,' she told me, `why not die in this country that has given me so much.' But I know that today, her spirit is hovering over Cuba."

It was impossible to escape the symbolism of the day: many of the thousands of people walking before Ms. Cruz's coffin were here once before, when the federal government used this 1925 Mediterranean-style building to process more than half a million Cubans who arrived in the 1960's and early 1970's. Many of them long to return to Cuba, as Ms. Cruz did, if only to be buried there. Her death, they say, compels them to confront their own mortality and the likelihood that they may die in a foreign land.

"Every time there is a rumor that Fidel Castro is dead Cubans rejoice, in part because we think, `Good, now we can go back, and we don't have to die here,' " said Francisco "Pepe" Hernández, 66, the president of the Cuban American National Foundation, an anti-Castro group. In this building 40 years ago, Mr. Hernández received his immigration papers.

"When something like this happens," he said of Ms. Cruz's death, "it forces us to face truths that are uncomfortable, stuff we don't want to think about."The sense of loss goes beyond the older generation. For younger people, who left Cuba as children or were born in the United States, Ms. Cruz embodied the Cuba of the 1950's, an era that, through the prism of exile and the passing of decades, has become mythic for them.

To lose her, said María Vázquez, 53, a businesswoman who left Cuba when she was 8, is to finally recognize that an era has passed. "I call her and people like her, the last of the true Cubans," Ms. Vázquez said. "She was part of the Cuba of our parents, a Cuba we didn't really know and that doesn't exist anymore. It's the Cuba of our imagination, a virtual Cuba, if you will."

William Argüello, 26, who held a red rose to place near the coffin, said Ms. Cruz was the one artist who made him feel closer to his roots and connected to his family."My grandmother, my parents, my aunt, they have all danced to her," Mr. Argüello said. "And I do, too."

Ms. Cruz, who won two Grammy awards, sang in Spanish and became cross-over star without even trying. She was a celebrity who remained married to the same man, Pedro Knight, a trumpet player, for 41 years, and who became an international star without shedding her Cuban roots. Long before anybody had heard of the Buena Vista Social Club, Latin music fans all over the world knew her name, and her name was a synonym for Cuba."Celia was the star on our Cuban flag," said José Horta, 52, a businessman who left Cuba in 1994. Mr. Horta played many of Ms. Cruz's earlier music videos in his nightclub, Café Nostalgia, now closed, which cultivated the exile's nostalgia for a lost epoch. He said Ms. Cruz was "simply magical" because her music bridged generations and nationalities but never forgot where she came from."She always lived with nostalgia," he said, "longing to return."

That was the one dream Ms. Cruz could not achieve. She died after a seven-month battle with brain cancer. In her will and in talks with her closest friends, Ms. Cruz asked for a public viewing in Miami, Mr. Pardillo said. Another viewing is scheduled for Monday at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home at Madison Avenue and 81st Street in New York. And on Tuesday, her coffin is to be taken to St. Patrick's Cathedral for a funeral Mass. Though pained by having to live far from her country, Ms. Cruz accepted her exile with grace. She sang about swaying palm trees and undulating Cuban flags, but she never mentioned Fidel Castro, nor did she speak ill of him. In interviews, Ms. Cruz would respond to all questions except on two subjects: her age and her opinion of Mr. Castro, whom she called "ese señor," a neutral term.

"She had Cuba in all her songs and yet she never sang about politics," said Manolín González, 37, a singer who left Cuba two years ago. "She was the biggest gift Cuba has given the world." Yet, the government-controlled Cuban press noted her death in two paragraphs and described her as an icon of the anti-Castro enclave in South Florida. Indeed, for the almost two million Cubans who live outside the island, Ms. Cruz was an icon but not a political one. She embodied what Cubans view as some of their best qualities, strong family ties, an impeccable work ethic and a joy in living, even in the face of calamity.
"She triumphed despite having faced many barriers in her time: she was poor, black, a woman and an exile," said Uva de Aragón, 59, a writer who left Cuba in 1959. "She overcame it all."

Ms. Cruz grew up poor in Santos Suarez, a leafy Havana neighborhood of wide avenues and graceful homes. Her father was a railroad stoker and her mother a homemaker, but her rich and powerful voice helped her family out of poverty. By 1950, she was singing with Cuba's most popular orchestra, La Sonora Matancera. In 1960, a year after Fidel Castro seized power, Ms. Cruz left to fulfill a contract in Mexico and never returned, eventually settling in New York's Upper West Side.

Puerto Ricans in New York immediately embraced her, and she became "the queen of salsa." She took salsa, a modern version of traditional Cuban rhythms, all over the world — everywhere except the one place where she wanted to sing most: Cuba. The Cuban government did not allow her to return in 1962 for the burial of her mother. She never again tried to go back. In a visit to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in 1990, she kissed the ground when she descended and later grabbed a handful of Cuban soil to take with her.

Years before she was sick, when the death seemed distant, Mr. Pardillo said, Ms. Cruz told him she wanted lots of people at her wake. Her wish was fulfilled today, and not just by Cubans. Many of her fans in a line that stretched for more than 10 blocks waved flags from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama and Nicaragua.

Leticia Rodríguez, 26, a Puerto Rican; her husband, Edwin Figueroa, 29; and their children, 4 and 6, drove more than three hours from Orlando to view Ms. Cruz's body. They arrived last night and claimed one of the first places in line at 10 p.m. They slept on the sidewalk."She touched our souls," Mr. Figueroa, a carpenter, said. "Few people do that, and now she's gone." But Ms. Cruz is not really gone, Ms. de Aragón said. "Twenty years from now a young couple will be dancing to a Celia Cruz tune in Havana," she said, "and they are not going to know or even care where she is buried. They might not even know that she died in exile, but they'll be dancing with her, and that will keep her alive."

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21.7.03
Salsa Fans Ache to Say Farewell to Their Queen, Celia Cruz

By ANDREA ELLIOTT,

Her loyalists up North waited jealously yesterday for Celia Cruz to come back. The queen of salsa had taken one last tour, in a coffin, to bid goodbye to thousands of fans in Miami on Saturday. It was her dying wish — the closest she could get to her homeland, Cuba. But in the end, she chose Manhattan as the setting for her final wake and her funeral, and with good reason, say her fans in the New York area, who are expected to flock today to the public viewing at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home on Madison Avenue and 81st Street.

"She could have lived in Miami, but she chose this place," said Jose Salamanca, 69, as he sat in La Churreria, a restaurant on Bergenline Avenue in Union City, N.J., a community where Ms. Cruz was a familiar face.Like many other Cubans of his generation, Mr. Salamanca speaks of Ms. Cruz's life in exile as a public extension of his own. Likewise, her death has taken on a twofold meaning."She and I shared the same idea, to return and die there. And we couldn't do it."

Ms. Cruz, whose bewigged, raspy-voiced persona and formidable musical talent transcended her storied national identity to win her worldwide fame, died on July 16 in Fort Lee, N.J.; the cause was complications from brain cancer. She was 77.

Yesterday, her New York fans waited feverishly for her return. Masses were offered in her honor. A muralist spray-painted her smile across a white wall at Houston Street and Avenue B on the Lower East Side. A crowd of 20 staked out the funeral home, waiting for a glimpse of the coffin.

Stories about her filtered from the shops and cafes along Bergenline Avenue, where Ms. Cruz stopped traffic when she dropped by for a meal.

Her wigs inspired 22 years of dye jobs by Rosmery Flores, a colorist and co-owner of Hair and Nails Express. "They wanted to feel like Celia Cruz," said Mrs. Flores, 50, a Salvadoran immigrant. "People would say: `Rosmery, have you seen the latest wig Celia's wearing? Can you do it?' "

When a Celia Cruz look-alike contest was held a few years ago, Mrs. Flores had to rotate women in and out of the salon's swivel chairs.

"I was born listening to her music," said Mrs. Flores, who, like many other fans, fought back tears yesterday. "My parents would put her Christmas music on every year, like I did with my kids."

Ms. Cruz's voice also filled Maira Valdes's Havana home in her youth, but in secret. It was officially banned in Cuba after Ms. Cruz defected in 1960 while on tour in Mexico.

"She was the queen here," said Ms. Valdes, 50, of Union City. "She was an ambassador for Cuba in the world."

The Celia Cruz shelf in Alberto Jara's music store on Bergenline Avenue emptied within hours of her death. "Everyone keeps asking and asking, but it's sold out," said Mr. Jara, 54, a native of Costa Rica.

By midafternoon yesterday, several television trucks were parked near the small crowd outside Frank E. Campbell's. "It's going to be something tomorrow," said a gardener for the funeral home as he hosed a patch of earth near the side entrance. Rumor was that Ms. Cruz would arrive before sundown last night.

Shortly after 3 p.m., a van pulled up. The fans craned their necks. The doors opened to reveal only flowers. A man in a tightly buttoned navy suit stood guard at the door as the delivery people marched in and out, balancing voluminous vases of lilies. Stacks of metal rails stood nearby, ready for the long lines of fans who are expected to filter through the viewing room today from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m.

Aida Mendez, 32, approached the man."If it's too crowded, you guys might want to open the doors earlier," offered Ms. Mendez, who said she had a candle shrine to Ms. Cruz at her Roosevelt Island home involving "a secret between me and her and God." "We can only do what the family asks us to do," responded the man, who would not give his name.

"How much of a distance are we going to be from her?" insisted Ms. Mendez.

"We don't know yet."

"Are the lines going this way?" continued Ms. Mendez, pointing east.

"We don't know yet."

On the other side of 81st Street, Angela Lebron hawkishly watched the cars pass. Originally from Puerto Rico, Ms. Lebron, a letter carrier, traveled to the Upper East Side from her home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, four hours earlier with a bouquet of white roses and sunflowers."We want to see the casket," she said, promising to be back this morning for the wake and to attend the funeral, at 2 p.m. on Tuesday at St. Patrick's Cathedral. "We're going to be there until the last minute because that's going to be it for us," Ms. Lebron said. "That's the last goodbye."

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21.7.03
With Flags and White Roses, a Goodbye to Celia Cruz
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
They crammed the quiet block along East 81st Street in Manhattan with the fervor of a pilgrimage, waving flags and white roses - her favorite - and chanting the verses of her songs like a pan-American national anthem.

Alternately dancing and bickering about who was first - in a line that formed at 10 p.m. the night before - Ecuadorians, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, Jamaicans and Cubans each claimed Celia Cruz as their own, and swarmed by the thousands today at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home to bid her goodbye, in the flesh.

But when they passed through the doors to her open casket, a hush fell. The Cuban queen of salsa lay in a swirl of velvet, her head crowned by a golden wig. Her eyes were shut and shimmered with silver shadow. Her hot-pink lips were tweaked to a faint smile.

"I love you, my love," said one young man before dramatically biting the white petals from his roses and blowing them over the black rope toward her casket. The security guards stiffened and pushed him along.

"She looks like a sleeping doll," said a woman not far behind, her eyes streaming.
It was Ms. Cruz's final farewell in a surreal post-mortem tour that took her body first to Miami over the weekend for a wake that drew over 100,000 people, and then back to New York, where she will be buried on Wednesday.

Ms. Cruz, whose raspy-voiced persona and formidable musical talent transcended her national identity to win her worldwide fame, died on July 16 in Fort Lee, N.J.; the cause was complications from brain cancer. She was 77.

Today, around the corner from the huge crowds, family members, friends and Latin musical stars of all ages trickled in throughout the day. They made their way into the funeral home past the international and local news media, from CNN to Walter Caraballo, host of a Spanish-language New York cable show called "The Community and Its Culture." Celebrities ranged from old-timers like Johnny Pacheco to current crossover superstars like Marc Anthony to Celia Cruz's niece to her hair stylist.

The V.I.P.'s who spoke to reporters sounded a similar theme: Celia was Celia, on stage and off - and there would likely never be anyone else like her.

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22.7.03
Emotions Rise as Fans Pay Tribute to Queen of Salsa
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
They crammed the quiet block along East 81st Street with the fervor of a pilgrimage thousands strong, waving flags and white roses - her favorite - and chanting the verses of her songs like a Pan-American anthem.

Alternately dancing, weeping and bickering about who was first in a line that began forming at 10 the night before, Ecuadoreans, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, Jamaicans, Cubans and others claimed Celia Cruz as their own. They swarmed yesterday at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home to bid her goodbye. But as they passed through the doors to her open coffin, a hush fell. The Cuban queen of salsa lay in a swirl of cream velvet, her head crowned by a golden-blond wig. Her eyelids shimmered with silver shadow, her hot-pink lips were tweaked in a faint smile.

"I love you, my love," said one young man before dramatically biting the white petals from his roses and blowing them over the black rope that separated the crowds from her coffin. The security guards stiffened, and pushed him along.

"She looks like a sleeping doll," said one mourner, tears streaming from her eyes.
It was the final farewell for Ms. Cruz, who died at 77 last Wednesday, at her home in Fort Lee, N.J. In a postmortem tour, her body was flown first to Miami over the weekend for a wake that drew thousands of mourners, and then back to New York.

Today, after a final viewing at the funeral home, a funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Patrick's Cathedral, followed by burial at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

"We've already surpassed the amount of people who came to Judy Garland's wake," said Kevin Mack, the funeral home's general manager. He estimated, as did a police officer on duty, that as many as 20,000 people attended Ms. Cruz's wake yesterday. "It is incredible," he said, adding that not nearly as many people attended the public wakes of Ed Sullivan and Billy Martin.

Only the wake of Cardinal John J. O'Connor at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 2000 surpassed these crowds, Mr. Mack said. "But he had a three-day wake," he said.

Yesterday, when the doors to the funeral home chapel finally opened shortly after 11 a.m., the line of fans streamed slowly but steadily down the aisle and past Ms. Cruz, who lay in a solid bronze coffin with her hands crossed, holding a golden crucifix under a sweeping Cuban flag. Many people cried, some made the sign of the cross and a few danced.

Around the corner from the throng of fans, and past a mob of television crews, family members, friends and Latin musical stars of all ages trickled in.

Ms. Cruz's husband of 41 years, Pedro Knight, walked gingerly past the crowds, flanked by bodyguards, as fans screamed his name and Ms. Cruz's concert rallying cry, "Azúcar!" which means sugar.

Among the visiting celebrities were old-timers like Johnny Pacheco and newer crossover stars, like Marc Anthony.
They sounded a similar theme: Ms. Cruz was always herself, on stage and off, a class act never to be repeated.
"It's just amazing how many people loved her, and they didn't know her like we did," said Linda Becquer, 33, the daughter of Ms. Cruz's youngest sister. "It's not helping me realize she's gone. It's almost like another big show."

Mr. Pacheco, another legend of salsa who performed and recorded with Ms. Cruz and visited her on her deathbed, said he was deeply affected by the loss. "For the last two or three days I haven't been able to sleep, thinking about her," he said in Spanish. "In the world, there are two very famous names, and they both start with the same letters: Celia Cruz, and Coca-Cola."

The frenzy of fans left a few bystanders looking on with curiosity.
"Isn't it funny how they're carting her around?" said Joe Alberti, a bartender at the Stanhope Park Hyatt, as he peered out a shuttered window at the crowd on the street. Mr. Alberti, 35, of Long Island, said, "They flew her down to Miami. They flew her back. Let's bury her already."

Shortly before the doors opened, people began to complain. They wanted a Colombian man named Julio, known for dancing in subways with a foam doll to Ms. Cruz's music, to perform. Several men in suits finally agreed, and he blasted out a song that the crowd chanted in unison. "Ai, no hay que llorar, que la vida es un carnaval!" they screamed. "Oh, no need to cry, life is a carnival."

"Her music was medicine to my ears," said Edwin Rosa, 37, of Manhattan, who joined the line at 5:30 a.m. and carried a laminated letter Ms. Cruz had sent him.

Mr. Rosa said, "It eased me through the hard times in my life."
Ms. Cruz drew a crowd as varied and unpredictable as her music. The old and the young, the healthy and the frail. The sane and the eccentric.

Early in the morning, the police found a woman standing next to the funeral home's 81st Street entrance, dressed as a patron saint and holding a Cuban flag.

She refused to move. Six hours later, there she stood, still as a statue. "We're still trying to figure that out," said a New York police officer standing guard nearby. "She said God sent her. We're like, `O.K. She's not hurting anyone.' "

The night before, Ms. Cruz's hairdresser, Ruth Sanchez, had hand-stitched the glittering, beaded, eggshell-colored dress worn by Ms. Cruz. "I know she's very happy with the way she looks," she said.

Felicita Velasquez, 94, originally from Puerto Rico, was among the first to get a glimpse of the musical legend. Ms. Velasquez, who is now nearly deaf and confined to a wheelchair, had danced with Ms. Cruz nine times in her youth, said her nurse, Norma Cacho, 50, of the Bronx.

Jorge Plasencia, 29, a friend of Ms. Cruz's, watched silently as fans streamed down the aisle toward Ms. Cruz's coffin.

"We've got to move it quickly," he said. "They can't stop. Forty thousand people did not get to see her in Miami."
Minutes later, Omer Pardillo, Ms. Cruz's manager who has worked with her for 12 years, walked up and stood next to Mr. Plasencia. He, too, watched the fans as they walked trancelike past her body.

"She's seeing it from up there," said Mr. Pardillo, 29. "She's directing it all from up there."