Lupe Vélez (1908-1944) was a Mexican film actress. She is regarded as one of the most notable Mexican movie stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and is often associated with the nicknames "The Mexican Spitfire" and "The Hot Pepper".Vélez was born MarÃa Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in the city of San Luis Potosà in Mexico, the daughter of an army officer and his wife, an opera singer. 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. From an early age, she had a strong temper and an explosive personality. She took dancing lessons and in 1924, made her performing debut at the Teatro Principal in Mexico City. In 1923 she moved to Texas, where she began dancing in vaudeville shows and finding work as a sales assistant. She moved to California, where she met the legendary comedienne Fanny Brice, who promoted her career as a dancer[1]. In 1924 was first cast in movies by Hal Roach.Vélez's first feature-length film was The Gaucho (1927) starring Douglas Fairbanks. The next year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, the young starlets deemed to be most promising for movie stardom. Most of her early films cast her in exotic or ethnic roles (Hispanic, Native American, French, Russian, even Asian).
She work under the direction of notable film directors like VÃctor Fleming in The Wolf Song (1929) opossite Gary Cooper; D.W Griffith in Lady of the Pavements (1928) and Cecil B. de Mille in The Squaw Man in 1931. In the end of the silent era the sparkling personality of Lupe rivalized with the Flapper Girl Clara Bow.Within a few years Vélez found her niche in comedies, playing beautiful but volatile foils to comedy stars. Her slapstick battle with Laurel and Hardy in Hollywood Party and her dynamic presence opposite Jimmy Durante in Palooka (both 1934) are typically enthusiastic Vélez performances. She was featured in the final Wheeler & Woolsey comedy, High Flyers (1937), doing impersonations of Simone Simon, Dolores del Rio, and Shirley Temple.Vélez was now nearing 30 and hadn't yet become a major star. Disappointed, she left Hollywood for Broadway. In New York, she landed a role in You Never Know, a short-lived Cole Porter musical. After the run of You Never Know, Vélez looked for film work in other countries. Returning to Hollywood in 1939, she snared the lead in a B comedy for RKO Radio Pictures, The Girl from Mexico. She established such a rapport with co-star Leon Errol that RKO made a quick sequel, Mexican Spitfire, which became a very popular series. Vélez perfected her comic character, indulging in broken-English malaprops, troublemaking ideas, and sudden fits of temper bursting into torrents of Spanish invective. She occasionally sang in these films, and often displayed a talent for hectic, visual comedy. Vélez enjoyed making these films and can be seen openly breaking up at Leon Errol's comic ad libs.The Spitfire films rejuvenated Lupe Vélez's career, and for the next few years she starred in musical and comedy features for RKO, Universal Pictures, and Columbia Pictures in addition to the Spitfire films. In one of her last films, Columbia's Redhead from Manhattan, she played a dual role: one in her exaggerated comic dialect, and the other in her actual speaking voice, which was surprisingly fluid and had only traces of a Mexican accent.
Lupe Vélez was very popular with Spanish-speaking audiences. In 1943, she returned to Mexico and starred in the movies La Zandunga (1938), and an adaptation of Émile Zola's Nana (1944), which was well received. Subsequently, she returned to Hollywood.Emotionally generous, passionate, and high-spirited, Vélez had a number of highly publicized affairs, including a particularly emotionally draining one with Gary Cooper, before marrying Olympic athlete Johnny Weissmuller (of Tarzan fame) in 1933, and later, in 1938, with Mexican actor Arturo de Córdova. The fraught marriage with Weissmuller lasted five years; they repeatedly split and finally divorced in 1938. Other of her alleged romances in Hollywood including Charles Chaplin, Errol Flynn and John Gilbert.In the mid-1940s, she had a relationship with the young actor Harald Maresch, and became pregnant with his child. Vélez, 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. 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."Andy Warhol's film, Lupe (1965), is loosely based on this fateful night, suggesting that she was found with her head in the toilet due to nausea caused by the overdose. Another report says she tripped and fell head-first into the toilet, knocking herself unconscious and drowning. However, Kinder reports finding Vélez peacefully asleep in her bed.
Lupe Vélez was encrypted at the Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres in México City.ESPAÑOL: MarÃa Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez. (San Luis PotosÃ, 18 de julio de 1908 (ó 1909 ó 1910, según algunas biografÃas) - Beverly Hills, 13 de diciembre de 1944) fue una actriz y bailarina mexicana.Hija de una prostituta (cantante de ópera según algunas biografÃas). En 1921 su madre la envÃa a estudiar en un colegio de monjas en San Antonio Texas (Estados Unidos), de donde sale algunos años después para ayudar económicamente a su madre trabajando como dependienta en una tienda. Comenzo a tomar lecciones de baile y en 1924 trabaja como bailarina en el Teatro Principal de la Ciudad de Mexico.Gracias a Hal Roach (descubridor de El Gordo y El Flaco -Oliver Hardy y Stan Laurel-), Vélez comenzará su carrera de actriz en el Hollywood de los años 20.Tras unos primeros trabajos en cortos de la pareja cómica, su primer papel importante será en "El gaucho" (1927). Este film es el comienzo de su periodo más florido como actriz. Su belleza y gran personalidad la convierten pronto en una estrella popular. En 1928 es elegida como una de las WAMPAS Baby Stars. A la aparición del Cine Sonoro, participa en algunas comedias exitosas como Hollywood Party, con Laurel y Hardy, y Palooka (1934), con Jimmy Durante.En 1937, participa en la comedia de Wheeler & Woolsey High Flyers, donde realizaba imitaciones de sus compañeras actrices, como Marlene Dietrich, la francesa Simone Simon, Shirley Temple y su compatriota, Dolores del RÃo. A mediados de los treintas, abandona Hollywood por Broadway, participando en obras musicales como You Never Know, de Cole Porter. En 1938, la RKO Radio Pictures la contrata para estelarizar Girl from Mexico y su secuela, Mexican Spitfire , ambas junto a Leon Errol. Su personaje, Carmelita Lindsey, gana gran popularidad entre la audiencia estadounidense y en Latinoamerica, asà como en su Mexico natal. Lupe regresa a Mexico en 1938, para estelarizar La Zandunga, al lado de Arturo de Cordova. En 1943 estelarizaria también en su pais, Naná, basado en la novela de Emile Zola.Precisamente a causa de su carácter es conocida como "la explosiva mexicana". Su vida sentimental es tormentosa, teniendo varios romances con otros actores, entre ellos Gary Cooper y supuestamente Charles Chaplin.En 1933 contrae matrimonio con Johnny Weissmuller, del que se separarÃa cinco años después.
En 1944 queda embarazada de su último amante, el actor austriaco Harald Ramond. Ante la negativa de Ramond de casarse con ella, Vélez decide suicidarse (hay que recordar que en aquella época ser madre soltera era algo inaceptable que habrÃa puesto fin a su carrera).El 13 de diciembre de 1944 Lupe Vélez organiza una fiesta. Durante la cena inventa una excusa y se retira a su cuarto. Allà se desnuda, ingiere una dosis mortal de seconal y se tumba en su cama rodeada de una gran cantidad de flores.Su intención es que su cadáver forme una imagen hermosa cuando lo encuentren (se habÃa maquillado y habÃa depilado su vello púbico dándole forma de corazón).Sin embargo, la combinación de fármacos y el alcohol ingerido durante la cena la hacen sentirse indispuesta. Debido a las arcadas se levanta para ir al baño. Vomita antes de llegar a la taza. Pisa su propio vómito y resbala, dándose en la cabeza con el lavabo y cayendo inconsciente en la taza, donde perecerÃa ahogada y con el maquillaje desfigurado por el agua.Los restos mortales de Lupe Vélez están depositados en la Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres del Panteón de Dolores de la Ciudad de México.
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