Abraham Quintanilla, father and manager of the late Tejano pop icon Selena Quintanilla, has died. He was 86.
“It’s with a heavy heart to let you guys know that my Dad passed away today,” Quintanilla’s son, A.B. Quintanilla III, wrote from his Instagram account on Dec. 13. The cause of death has not been disclosed to the public.
As patriarch of the famous Mexican American music family, Quintanilla played a critical role in the development of his daughter Selena’s career. After her tragic death in 1995, he dedicated his life to safeguarding her legacy and overseeing primary control over her estate. This included managing the rights to her image, name and likeness — at times, to controversial ends.
Born in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1939, Quintanilla began his music career as a member of the singing group the Dinos in 1956, a Chicano rock group that was met with racial discrimination. In one instance, a club owner paid the group not to perform after realizing they were Mexican American youth; but the group was also sidelined by its Mexican counterparts for not making Spanish-language music.
Quintanilla’s exasperation informed a real life quote that was later made famous by actor Edward James Olmos, who played Quintanilla in the 1997 “Selena” biopic: “We have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans, both at the same time. It’s exhausting!”
Quintanilla would eventually step away from the group in the 1960s to start a family with Marcella Samora, whom he met in Tacoma, Washington while serving in the U.S. Air Force. The family quickly grew following the births of A.B., Suzette, and Selena. In them, he saw the potential to fulfill his own dreams of musical stardom.
With A.B. on bass, Suzette on drums and Selena as the tender vocalist, the trio would often perform at the family restaurant, PapaGayo’s, which later closed following the 1981 recession. The family was forced to sell their home in Lake Jackson, Texas and move to Corpus Christi. In order to make ends meet, Selena y Los Dinos would perform on street corners, family parties and other social functions. Under the guidance of their father, who assumed the position of band manager, Los Dinos eventually signed with Freddie Records in 1984.
Selena was met with much skepticism from an early age as a young girl in a male-dominated genre, including by their first label head, Freddie Martinez. Still, Los Dinos persevered in the Tejano music scene, hopping from label to label before they finally released eight albums under Manny Guerra’s independent labels, GP Productions and Record Producer Productions. With multiple albums under her belt, Selena was then able to dominate the Tejano Music Awards; she won the title of Female Vocalist of the Year in 1987.
Selena eventually caught the attention of Jose Behar, the former head of Sony Music Latin, who saw her crossover appeal — despite Selena’s primary language being English — and signed her to EMI Latin (Capitol Records) in 1989. This led to the release of her most career-defining hits across five albums, such as “Como la Flor,” “Amor Prohibido,” “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” and the posthumously released ballad, “Dreaming of You.”
Following Selena’s murder in 1995 — by Yolanda Saldivar, the former president of her fan club — Quintanilla became a fierce protector of her image, which was often sensationalized by the public.
Due to the grisly and highly publicized nature of the death, Quintanilla felt that the film needed to be made sooner than later, in order to do justice to his daughter’s legacy, said “Selena” director Gregory Nava in a 2025 interview with De Los.
“For me, as a filmmaker, I wanted to really tell a true story,” said Nava. “I had conflict, not really with the family, but with Abraham. Her father was very protective of her.”
Tensions flared most when Nava began to shape the story of the singer’s elopement with guitarist Chris Perez, who she married in 1992.
“You can’t put on the screen that it’s right for a young girl to disobey her father,” Nava recalled Quintanilla saying.
“Isn’t it a more important point to make that she is doing what she knows is right? And [that] she’s doing the right thing because she knows she loves Chris and Chris loves her?” Nava responded.
Eventually, Quintanilla relented. “I guess if I have to look bad to make Selena look good, I’ll do it,” Nava recalled him saying. “He has a soft heart. He finally saw that was the right thing to do, but it took hours of heated discussion.”
Although Suzette has said that the 1997 biopic came too soon in her eyes — and prompted criticism of her father, who some viewed as money-hungry and opportunistic — she ultimately stood by his decision, stating that there was a pressure within the family to control the narrative at the time.
Nava agreed.
“Abraham was very wise in pushing it through quickly,” he said. “Selena brought us all together, and it cemented her legacy in a positive way. All the negativity was dispelled by that movie. You see that in the film and you feel it.”
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