Lupe Vélez

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

Related Topics:
July 18 - 1908 - December 13 - 1944 - Mexican

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

Related Topics:
San Luis Potosí - Texas - 1924 - California - Hal Roach

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Her first feature-length film was Douglas Fairbanks' 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 Mexcan 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'.

Related Topics:
Douglas Fairbanks - WAMPAS Baby Stars - Silent film - Talkies

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Emotionally generous, she had a number of highly publicized affairs before marrying Johnny Weissmuller 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 Naná (1944), which was well received. Subsequently she returned to Hollywood.

Related Topics:
Johnny Weissmuller - 1933 - 1938 - Gary Cooper - 1943

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Lupe Vélez committed suicide in 1944, using secobarbital as her drug of choice, in Beverly Hills, California after the end of her relationship with Harold Raymond, whose child she was carrying. She retired to bed after taking the drug, but instead of sending her to sleep the drug upset her stomach and she was actually found dead in her bathroom. A persistant urban myth is that she drowned in the toilet after going to the bathroom to be sick; however, 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.

Related Topics:
Suicide - Secobarbital - Beverly Hills, California - Harold Raymond - Urban myth - Andy Warhol

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