Actors - Lupe Vélez

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	Actors - Lupe Vélez

Lupe Vélez (July 18, 1908 – December 13, 1944) was a Mexican actress.

Early Life

She was born María Guadalupe Vélez de Villalobos in the city of San Luis Potosí. 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 did 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'.

Emotional Problems

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.

Scandal and Untimely Death

Lupe 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. Raymond would not leave his wife, and Lupe, a devout Catholic, 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. 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 on the pilot episode of the television series Frasier.

Filmography

What Women Did for Me (1927 (short subject)
Sailor Beware (1927) (short subject)
The Gaucho (1927)
Stand and Deliver (1928)
Hollywood Snapshots #11 (1929) (short subject)
Lady of the Pavements (1929)
The Wolf Song (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
Tiger Rose (1929)
Hell Harbor (1930)
The Storm (1930)
East Is West (1930) (a Spanish language version was filmed, also starring Velez)
Resurrection (1931) (a Spanish language version was filmed, also starring Velez)
The Squaw Man
(1931)
The Cuban Love Song (1931)
The Voice of Hollywood No. 13 (1932) (short subject)
Men in Her Life (1932) (Spanish language version of 1931 film)
The Broken Wing (1932)
Kongo (1932)
The Half Naked Truth (1932)
Hot Pepper (1933)
Mr. Broadway (1933) (documentary)
Palooka
(1934)
Strictly Dynamite (1934)
Laughing Boy (1934)
Hollywood Party (1934)
The Morals of Marcus (1935)
Gypsy Melody (1936)
He Loved an Actress (1937)
High Flyers (1937)
La Zandunga (1938)
The Lady from Mexico (1939)
Mexican Spitfire (1940)
Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940)
To Remember Is to Live (1941) (short subject)
Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga (1941)
Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941)
Honolulu Lu (1941)
Playmates (1941)
Mexican Spitfire at Sea (1942)
Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost (1942)
Mexican Spitfire's Elephant (1942)
Ladies' Day (1943)
Redhead from Manhattan (1943)
Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943)
Nana (1944)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Lupe Vélez ]

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