Lupe Vélez
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Lupe Vélez | |
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Lupe Vélez in Mexican Spitfire (1940)
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| Born | María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez July 18, 1908 San Luis Potosí, Mexico |
| Died | December 13, 1944 (aged 36) Glendale, California, U.S. |
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Cause of death
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Suicide |
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Resting place
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Panteón de Dolores, México City |
| Nationality | Mexican |
| Other names | The Mexican Spitfire The Hot Pepper |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1927–1944 |
| Spouse(s) | Johnny Weissmuller (1933–1939) |
Vélez's personal life was often difficult; a five-year marriage to Johnny Weissmuller and a series of romances with figures like Gary Cooper, were highly publicized. Her premature death from suicide, and the mysterious circumstances in which this occurred, made her an urban legend of the Hollywood industry.
She is often associated with the nicknames "The Mexican Spitfire" and "The Hot Pepper".[1]
Vélez was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood. The others are Dolores del Río, Katy Jurado and in more recent years, Salma Hayek.[2]
Contents
Early life
Vélez was born María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in the city of San Luis Potosí in Mexico, the daughter of Jacobo Villalobos Reyes, a colonel in the armed forces of the dictator Porfirio Diaz, and his wife Josefina Vélez Gomez, an opera singer according to some sources, or vaudeville singer according to others.[3] She had four younger siblings: Mercedes, Josefina, Reina and Emigdio. Because of her impulsive and aggressive behavior towards her classmates, when she was 13 years old, her parents sent her to study at Our Lady of the Lake (now Our Lady of the Lake University) in San Antonio, Texas. This was where she learned to speak English.After her 15th birthday and her father going missing in the Mexican Revolution, Vélez left the convent and moved with her family to Mexico City. In order to support her family, she worked in a warehouse as a clerk earning four dollars a week.[4]
Career
Mexican Revue
Lupe and her sister Josefina were presented by her mother with the popular star of the Mexican Revue Theatre María Conesa "La Gatita Blanca" requesting an opportunity in her shows. Conesa gave them a chance to sing and dance the shimmy Oh Charley, My Boy in the middle of one of her shows in the Teatro Principal of Mexico City. For Velez, Conesa was the biggest star.[3] In 1924, Aurelio Campos, a young pianist and friend of Vélez sisters, recommended Lupe with the stage producers Carlos Ortega and Manuel Castro Padilla, who were preparing a season revue at the Regis Theatre. They gave her his first opportunity in the company in March 1925. Initially, she was rejected by other more experienced vedettes because of her youth, specially with the popular Mexican vedettes Celia Montalvan and Delia Magaña, with whom she starred in some conflicts in public. In the same year (1925) the show Bataclan arrived from Paris, commanded by Madame Rasimí, and caused a sensation in the Esperanza Iris Theater. Given this presumption, the entrepreneurs fought back with two parodies: Mexican Rataplan and ¡No lo tapes!, starring by Vélez. Lupe Vélez caused furor; besides singing and dancing with suggestive and provocative pelvis movements, she appeared wrapped in rhinestones and feathers while singing songs full of mischief. Very young, and more famous that her rivals, Lupe (who because of her youth was called La Niña Lupe) soon established herself as one of the main stars of de vaudeville in Mexico.[5] Among her admirers were poets as Jose Gorostiza and Renato Leduc.[6]A family friend, Frank Woodward, recommended Vélez to actor Richard Bennett (the father of the actresses Joan and Constance Bennett), who was well known in the American theater. He needed a young woman with the characteristics of Vélez for the stage play The Dove. Vélez came to Los Angeles, but did not get the part.[7]
In California, she met the comedian Fanny Brice. Brice said she had never met a more fascinating personality that Velez.[7] Brice promoted her career as a dancer and who recommended her to Florence Ziegfeld in New York.[8] When Lupe was about to move to New York for a stage play, she received a call from Harry Rapf, an official of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who offered her a screen test. Hal Roach, producer and director of Pathé Pictures, saw the Vélez tests and hired her a role in the short film Sailors, Beware! with Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel.[7]
Silent films
The next year (1928) she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. The Hollywood entertainment columnists, christened with nicknames like The Mexican Panther, Miss Hot Tamale or Miss Chile Picante, phrases all about the personality of Vélez on the screen.[7] Most of her early films cast her in exotic or ethnic roles (Latina, Native American, French, Russian, and Asian).
Soon after the release of The Gaucho, Vélez made her second major film, Stand and Deliver (1928) for the Cecil B. DeMille division of Pathé Pictures. She showed a great talent as a comedienne. Her next film, Lady of the Pavements (1929), was directed by D. W. Griffith. The Irving Berlin song Where Is the Song of Songs for Me is nicely sung by Velez and makes for a nice theme throughout the film. Eventually, she appeared in Where East is East (1929), playing a young Chinese woman. She later appeared in The Wolf Song (1929), directed by Victor Fleming, opposite Gary Cooper.[10] She earned $14,000 whilst Cooper earned $2,750.
By the end of the silent era, Vélez's popularity was similar to the "It Girl" Clara Bow. She was named The Mexican "IT" Girl.[11]
1930s
Vélez made her first all-talking picture, Tiger Rose in 1929. With the arrival of the talkies, Vélez appeared in a series of Pre-Code movies like Hell Harbor (directed by Henry King), The Storm (directed by William Wyler), and the crime drama East is West with Edward G. Robinson (1930). In 1931 she worked with Cecil B. DeMille in the film Squaw Man. Another Vélez's notable work was in Resurrection, directed by Edwin Carewe.
Vélez soon found her niche in comedy, playing beautiful but volatile characters. In 1933, she appeared in The Half-Naked Truth with Lee Tracy and Hot Pepper, with Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe. In 1934 she filmed Palooka and Strictly Dynamite (both with Jimmy Durante). That same year, Vélez filmed Laughing Boy with Ramón Novarro. Despite both Vélez and Novarro's popularity, the film was a failure. Her battle with Laurel and Hardy in the film Hollywood Party is another of the typical enthusiastic Vélez performances.
Broadway
Vélez was now nearing 30 and had not become a major star. Disappointed, she left Hollywood for Broadway. The first musical in which she acted was Hot-Cha! presented at the famous Ziegfeld Theatre in 1932 and had 119 performances. It is the last work that Florenz Ziegfeld produced; he died in July of that year. In this musical revue Vélez sings several songs with Jack Whitney and choirs. The second raid of Lupe Velez on Broadway was with Jimmy Durante in the musical revue Strike Me Pink, which was presented at the Majestic Theatre in 1933. Her final appearance on Broadway was in 1938 in the musical You Never Know by Cole Porter, which was a failure. On February 5, 1938 The Pittsburgh Press broke the news that You Never Know would be presented at the Nixon Theatre in 1938.[12]Lupe Velez returned to Hollywood in 1937 to take part in the comedy Stardust. She also appeared in the final part of the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy High Flyers (1937). Her impersonations of Simone Simon, Dolores del Rio and Shirley Temple caused sensation in the audiences.
She enjoyed immense popularity among the Hispanic audiences. She entered into Mexican films in 1938, starring in La Zandunga (1938), directed by Fernando de Fuentes, with the popular Mexican actor Arturo de Córdova.
Mexican Spitfire
The Spitfire films rejuvenated Vélez's career, and for the next few years she starred in a total of six more Mexican Spitfire films. In addition to the Spitfire films, she appeared in a serie of musical and comedy features for RKO, Universal Pictures, and Columbia Pictures Some of these films were: Redhead from Manhattan, Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga and Playmates opposite John Barrymore.
In 1944, she returned to Mexican films starring in an adaptation of Émile Zola's novel Nana, which was well received. Vélez career during her early thirties suffered from too many exotic, two-dimensional roles designed with Hollywood's clichéd ideas of ethnic minorities in mind. In the late thirties the Latin temperament was no longer fashionable. Once these characters and films proved useless to Dolores del Río, she moved back to Mexico in 1943 and to more appropriate roles. Vélez apparently planned a similar move in 1944, but she was overwhelmed by the difficulties of her personal life.[11]
Personality
Velez was a prototype for contemporary female stars who have proclaimed their pleasure in their bodies and their sexual liberation. Unlike other contemporary female clowns such as Winnie Lightner or Charlotte Greenwood, Velez did not position herself as a spectacle of "failed femininity," nor did she construct her image as grotesque, graceless and gawky. Rather, she flaunted her sexual attractiveness as central to her comic persona. She was rendered funny because of an excess of sexual energy, not because of a lack of physical attractiveness. Velez emphatically refused to conform to the norms of decorum associated with the Hollywood system.
"Glamour girls" took a beating through her performances, as well. Velez was notorious for standing up at Hollywood parties and launching into vicious parodies of other screen actresses, especially those she regarded as rivals (such as Dolores del Río), or those she felt had "stolen" one of "her men." During the short season of the Broadway musical You Never Know, Vélez had a strong rivalry with Libby Holman and Vélez hit her in the face once, leaving her a black eye.[12] When she suspected Gary Cooper of having an affair with Marlene Dietrich during the filming of Morocco, she staged an outrageously off-color and grotesque impersonation of her.[15] Vélez once said, "If I had the chance, I would tear the eyes of Marlene Dietrich!"[16] Another of her celebrated imitations include Gloria Swanson, Fanny Brice and Katharine Hepburn.
Vélez stated,
To what do I attribute my success? I think, simply, I'm different. I'm not beautiful, but I have lovely eyes and I know exactly what to do with them. Even though the public thinks I'm a pretty wild girl, I'm really not. I'm just me, Lupe Vélez, a simple and natural Lupe. If I'm happy, I dance and sing and act like a puppy without a care. And if something angers me, I scream, and sob, and I feel a little better. Someone named that "personality". Personality is nothing more than being to other people what you are to yourself. If I tried to look and act like Norma Talmadge, the great dramatic actress, or like gorgeous Corinne Griffith, movie's aristocrat, or like Mary Pickford, sweet and gentle Mary, I would be nothing more than an imitation. That's why I only want to be me, Lupe Vélez.[17]
Personal life
Relationships
Lupe loved many men, and had no qualms about expressing that fact. Her first widely publicized love affair was with John Gilbert.[18] She also had affairs with Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Erich Maria Remarque and Errol Flynn.[19][20]One of Vélez's more publicized relationships was with actor Gary Cooper. Vélez met Cooper during the filming of The Wolf Song and began a two-year affair with him.[21] Two years of very intense relationship summarized in a quote from Marlene Dietrich: Gary is completely controlled by Lupe. It was he who helped pay for her new mansion in Beverly Hills, where they lived together for some months and where she lived until her death.[22]
Her relationship with Gary was passionate but often stormy. On one occasion, she was about to rip his ear off at a train station in Los Angeles as he prepared to flee from her uncontrollable rage. Irrepressible, she was taken into police custody when a police patrol spotted Lupe performing oral sex on Gary in his car in a park. The torrid affair was eventually ended, influenced in part by Cooper's mother. Cooper's mother had long opposed Lupe's involvement with her son and Cooper was unwilling to disobey his mother's wishes. One day Vélez began a fierce argument with Mrs. Cooper in which Vélez stated: Stay with your child. I have plenty of men.[22] According to several biographers, Cooper was the great love of her life.[13] The affair with Gary Cooper almost ended tragically on several occasions. On one occasion Lupe slashed him with a knife, which she always kept with her, and on another she shot at his head but the bullet caught on the station platform as Cooper was trying to escape from her to New York. Fortunately, Cooper was able to escape the ordeal unharmed. [23][24]
For Velez the breakup with Gary Cooper was a terrible blow. She tried to forget him with the help of narcotics and the comfort of new lovers. It is likely that Lupe's bitter break-up influenced her to marry Johnny Weissmuller in 1933. However, this new marriage would be equally troubled. Misunderstandings and jealousy culminated in domestic violence between Vélez and Weissmuller. During the filming of Tarzan, makeup artists had to disguise several bruises and scratches.[22]
In 1944 she met an young Austrian actor named Harald Maresch, who was trying to start an acting career in Hollywood under the name Harald Ramond. Maresch acted with de Cordova in Frenchman's Creek. Vélez recommended him to some producers. During this time she fell in love with Harald and asked him to marry her. Harald agreed, but only for convenience. In September, Vélez discovered she was four months pregnant. In December 1944, when it became known that Vélez would marry Ramond,[25] Francesca Vitiner, a woman who had been with Maresch, sued him for breach of promise. Vélez realized that Maresch was not the inexperienced young man whom she had protected.[26]
Death
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Unable to face the shame of giving birth to a child out of wedlock, she decided to take her own life. However, this is not the only version and many argue in favor of a more sordid tale. She expected a son of De Córdova. As he could not divorce and the Catholic roots of both discarded abortion, she sought for a man who would marry her: Maresch. But one day Lupe came to the apartment and found Arturo in bed with Maresch. It is believed that the incident pushed her over the edge. De Córdova's bisexuality was always a taboo subject. The disappointment of the two men, and a son who would unite forever with both, took her to make a drastic decision.[22][27]
Another version was provided by journalist Robert Slatzer. This version mentions Gary Cooper as the father of Lupe's baby. Slatzer talk with the Cooper's ex-lover Clara Bow. Bow revealed that Cooper called her in complete shock, crying and screaming that he was going to kill Maresch for getting her pregnant. However Bow said she never believed the baby was fathered by Maresch. Bow was convinced that Lupe called Ramond to protect Cooper.[28]
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 killin' him.The last day of her life she breakfasted with Bruce Cabot and Errol Flynn,[20] and dined with her two best friends, Estelle Taylor and Benita Oakie, on Mexican food, drank brandy, smoked and spent a good evening.[30] She retired to bed after taking an overdose of sleeping pills;[31] specifically, she swallowed 80 Seconal pills.[32] According to newspaper accounts at the time, her body was found by her secretary and companion of ten years, Beulah Kinder, on her bed surrounded by flowers, as she had wished. But in a Huffington Post report on May 24, 2013, the first ever photo of the scene of Lupe's death was published, showing how she was found by police: on the floor, not on her bed.
Lupe."[29]
There is skepticism surrounding whether it was simply the shame of bearing a child out of wedlock that led Vélez to end her life. Throughout her life she showed signs of extreme emotion, mania and depression. Consequently, some biographers have suggested that Vélez suffered from bipolar disorder, which, left untreated, ultimately led to her suicide. Rosa Linda Fregoso writes that Vélez was known for her defiance of contemporary moral convention, and it seems unlikely that she could not have reconciled an "illegitimate child."[33]
At the time of her death, Lupe Vélez was extremely popular with the public, exemplified by the more than 4000 people who filed past her casket during funeral services in Glendale, California. Later, in services in Mexico City, thousands more attended to give a final farewell, including renowned actors like Cantinflas, Jorge Negrete and María Félix. Johnny Weissmuller joined actors Arturo de Córdova and Gilbert Roland to act as pallbearers.[34]
Lupe Vélez was buried in the Panteón de Dolores, in the Tacubaya section of Mexico City, in a walled section within the walled cemetery, reserved for artists and administered by the Asociación Nacional de Actores of México.
Vélez has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6927 Hollywood Boulevard, in honor of her contributions to the motion picture industry.
Once, Marilyn Monroe told a journalist who asked about her first encounter with the cinema:
My mother worked in the RKO film studios and sometimes took me with her. Here i first saw Lupe Vélez, a Mexican girl that was all the rage, whose appearance and physical character fascinated me. Then my dream was to be, someday, someone like her.[35]
References in popular culture
- Kenneth Anger in his book Hollywood Babylon (1959) gave his version of the night of the Vélez's death, claiming that she was found dead with her head in the toilet, drowned in her own vomit after ingesting the lethal dose of Seconal in bed after a spicy Mexican meal that reacted with it violently, rising to avoid soiling her bedroom. For a long time, many people took this story as truth, despite no evidence to verify it.
- In a poll of Mexican filmgoers, actresses Marquita Rivera and Amalia Aguilar were chosen to star in a Hollywood film based on the life of the actress. However, due to the controversy over Vélez's suicide at that time, the film was never produced.
- Andy Warhol's underground film, Lupe (1965), starring Edie Sedgwick as Vélez, is loosely based on the night of her suicide. The film suggests that Vélez was found with her head in the toilet due to nausea caused by the overdose.
- In the first episode of the sitcom Frasier, "The Good Son", Frasier Crane's producer Roz Doyle tries to improve Frasier's outlook on his life by telling him the story of Lupe Vélez, "last seen with her head in the toilet". Apparently (according to Roz), the pills she had taken did not mix well with "the enchilada combo plate she sadly chose as her last meal." When Frasier asks how her story is supposed to make him feel better, Roz responds that sometimes things don't go the way we want them to, but can work out in the end, anyway. She adds, "All she wanted was to be remembered. Will you ever forget that story?".[36]
- She was mentioned in The Simpsons episode titled "Homer's Phobia". Guest star John Waters gave the Simpson family, sans Homer, a driving tour of Springfield's shopping district, where he pointed out the store where reportedly Vélez bought the toilet she drowned in.[37]
- In Robert Stone's novel Children of Light, a troubled actress refers to a suicide-by-drowning scene she has just acted out as "Lupe Vélez takes a dunk."
- She is mentioned in the Michael Chabon novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, as well as the 2000 film Wonder Boys, adapted from the Chabon novel of the same name.
- In 2009 the Mexican film director Martín Caballero made the short film Forever Lupe based on the life of Vélez. Mexican actress Marieli Romo played the role of Vélez in the film.
- The Mexican director Carlos Carrera reportedly was preparing to film the life of Lupe Vélez in a Mexican-American production. Mexican actress Ana de la Reguera was chosen to interpret Velez in the film.[38]
- Vélez is played by the Cuban-Venezuelan actress María Conchita Alonso in the movie Return to Babylon in 2014.
Filmography
Main article: Lupe Vélez filmography
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