CarMELita Posted February 13, 2007 Posted February 13, 2007 I know, I'm a bit nostalgic today, but I like Lupe a lot, she was so beautiful - and she was the first mexican actress in Hollywood so she should have her thread here as well Bio - taken from wikipedia.org Lupe Vélez (July 18, 1908 – December 13, 1944) was a Mexican actress. Vélez was born María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in the city of San Luis Potosí. Her father refused to let her use his last name in theater, so she used her mother's maiden name. Lupe was educated at a convent school in Texas before finding work as a sales assistant. She took dancing lessons and in 1924 made her performing debut at the Teatro Principal. She moved to California that year and was first cast in movies by Hal Roach. Film career Her first feature-length film was Douglas Fairbanks's The Gaucho (1927); the next year, she was one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. She made a further eighteen films before finding her niche in comedy with Hot Pepper (1933). She largely stuck to lighter roles from then, notably in the Mexican Spitfire series of seven films (1939-1943). Vélez was one of the few Hollywood actors to make the successful transition from silent film to 'talkies'. Decline and death Emotionally generous, passionate and high spirited, she had a number of highly publicized affairs before marrying Olympian Johnny Weissmuller (of 'Tarzan' fame) in 1933. The fraught marriage lasted five years; they repeatedly split and finally divorced in 1938. She went on to have another emotionally draining affair, this time with Gary Cooper. In 1943 she returned to Mexico and starred in an adaptation of Emile Zola's Nana (1944), which was well received. Subsequently she returned to Hollywood. Vélez committed suicide in 1944, at 36 years old, in Beverly Hills, California. Her decision to commit suicide came as the result of the end of her relationship with the married Harald Maresch, whose child she was carrying. Maresch would not leave his wife, and Lupe, following her Catholic upbringing, refused to have an abortion. Unable to face the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child, she decided to take her own life. She retired to bed after taking an overdose of secobarbital, but instead of sending her to sleep the drug upset her stomach and she was actually found dead in her bathroom. Her suicide note read, "To Harald, may God forgive you and forgive me too but I prefer to take my life away and our baby's before I bring him with shame or killing him, Lupe." A persistent legend is that she drowned in the toilet after going to the bathroom to be sick. Logic suggests this is, in reality, extremely unlikely. Her suicide and the circumstances surrounding it have spawned a cruel but grimly amusing story, made into a film by Andy Warhol in 1965 as Lupe, and repeated as an elaborate anecdote in step-by-step detail by the 'Roz' character in the pilot episode of the television series Frasier and is briefly mention in The Simpsons episode "Homer's Phobia". Trivia * Vélez is mentioned in the Frasier pilot episode The Good Son by Roz near the end of the episode. She says that Vélez's suicide was caused by a desire to be remembered after her career went downhill. * She was mentioned in the episode of The Simpsons called Homer's Phobia. John Waters gave the Simpsons, excluding Homer Simpson, a tour including where Vélez bought the toilet she supposedly drowned in. * Mexican biographers and genealogists claimed to trace Vélez's ancestors to Native Americans in the U.S., who came to Mexico in the 1850's. [citation needed] Filmography - taken from imdb.com 1. Nana (1944) .... Nana 2. Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943) .... Carmelita Lindsay 3. Redhead from Manhattan (1943) .... Rita Manners/Elaine Manners 4. Ladies' Day (1943) .... Pepita Zorita 5. Mexican Spitfire's Elephant (1942) .... Carmelita Lindsay 6. Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost (1942) .... Carmelita Lindsay 7. Mexican Spitfire at Sea (1942) .... Carmelita Lindsay 8. Playmates (1941) .... Carmen del Toro 9. Honolulu Lu (1941) .... Consuelo Cordoba 10. Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941) .... Carmelita Lindsay 11. Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga (1941) .... Madame La Zonga 12. Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940) .... Carmelita Lindsay 13. Mexican Spitfire (1940) .... Carmelita Lindsay 14. The Girl from Mexico (1939) .... Carmelita Fuentes 15. Zandunga, La (1938) .... Lupe 16. High Flyers (1937) .... Maria Juanita Rosita Anita Moreno del Valle 17. Stardust (1937) .... Carla de Huelva ... aka He Loved an Actress (USA) ... aka Mad About Money (USA: new title) 18. Gypsy Melody (1936) .... Mila 19. The Morals of Marcus (1935) .... Carlotta 20. Hollywood Party (1934) .... The Jaguar Woman/Jane in Schnarzan sequence 21. Laughing Boy (1934) .... Slim Girl 22. Strictly Dynamite (1934) .... Vera Mendez 23. Palooka (1934) .... Nina Madero ... aka Joe Palooka ... aka The Great Schnozzle (UK) 24. Hot Pepper (1933) .... Pepper 25. The Half Naked Truth (1932) .... Teresita 26. Kongo (1932) .... Tula 27. The Broken Wing (1932) .... Lolita 28. Hombres de mi vida (1932) .... Julia Clark 29. The Cuban Love Song (1931) .... Nenita Lopez 30. The Squaw Man (1931) .... Naturich ... aka The White Man (UK) 31. Resurrection (1931) .... Katusha Maslova 32. Resurrección (1931) .... Katyusha Maslova 33. East Is West (1930) .... Ming Toy 34. The Storm (1930) .... Manette Fachard 35. Hell Harbor (1930) .... Anita Morgan 36. Oriente y occidente (1930) .... Ming Toy 37. Tiger Rose (1929) .... Rose 38. Where East Is East (1929) .... Toyo Haynes 39. The Wolf Song (1929) .... Lola Salazar 40. Lady of the Pavements (1929) .... Nanon del Rayon ... aka Lady of the Night (UK) 41. Stand and Deliver (1928) .... Jania 42. The Gaucho (1927) .... The Mountain Girl 43. Sailors Beware (1927) (uncredited) .... Baroness Behr 44. What Women Did for Me (1927) (uncredited) .... Bit Part Soundtrack 1. Playmates (1941) (performer: "Que Chica" (1941)) 2. The Girl from Mexico (1939) ("Negra Consentida (Black Allowed)", "She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain", "Chiapanecas") The pictures I found on various sites using mainly google Quote
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