She was born Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez in San Luis PadosĂ, Mexico, in July 18, 1908, and passed away in Glendale, California, on December 13, 1944.
(Source: Tumblr)
She began her career as a dancer in Mexico in vaudeville before she moved to the United States, where she soon entered the film industry, having her first appearance in 1927, in the movie The Gaucho.
By the end of the decade, she had some leading roles and was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood.
She worked with directors like D. W Griffith, Cecil B. Demille, Victor Fleming and William Wyler and when the Talkies started, her career turned to Comedy style.
Lupe became popular with the Characterization of the explosive, rebellious, irreverent “Latina woman” and that made her popular with the Hispanic audience.
Lady of the pavements from 1928, The Wolf song from 1929, Palooka (1933 ) and Laughing Boy (1934) were some of her memorable movies as well as a series of movies created in 1940s especially for her called “Mexican Spitfire”.
She was also a prototype for the contemporary female stars who have proclaimed their pleasures in their bodies and their sexual liberation. She was seen as “funny” due to her excess of sexual energy, not because of lack of physical attractiveness.
She also refused to conform to the decorum norms associated with Hollywood.
She also received the nicknames: Mexican Spitfire and The Hot Pepper.
Her personal life was difficult. She dated many men and never made qualms about this fact. it included a 5 year marriage to Austro-Hungarian-American Johnny Weissmuller and some romances with figures like: Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Errol Fynn, Erich Maria Remarque and actor Gary Cooper, were highly publicized by the media.
Her first widely, publicized love, was with American screenwriter, actor and director John Gilbert, but for sure, her involvement with Gary Cooper, that she met during the filming of The Wolf Song, in 1929 and lasted 2 years, was the one that attracted more attention for being passionate and stormy. From Lupe’s incontrollable rage moment in a train station in Los Angeles, to Lupe being taken in custody after she was spotted giving Gary oral sex on his car parked in a park and on one situation when Lupe attacked him with a knife, and in another situation, when she shot at his head, but the bullet caught on a station platform as Cooper, was trying to escape from her to New York. He escaped unharmed.
(Lupe Velez and Gary Cooper)
Their relationship ended also because of his mother, who didn’t support it. It has been said that Gary was controlled by Lupe.
The break up was really difficult for her, she had tried to forget him using the help of narcotics and seeking comfort on the arms of other lovers.
She married Johnny Weissmuller in 1933, but the marriage would also be no good due to misunderstanding and jealousy that resulted on domestic violence. Violence that had to be hidden with the help of makeup during the filming of Tarzan.
When she returned to Mexico to film La Zandunga with actor Arturo de CĂłrdova, a man who fascinated the female audience, including Lupe herself, she fell in love with him, ignoring the fact that he was married and had children.
Their relationship was complex because he wanted to keep his reputation and he feared the scandal that a divorce might bring to his career. in 1939 she was divorced from Weissmuller.
She tried to convince Arturo to divorce his wife, but his wife was humiliated that her private life was exposed and refused to give him the divorce.
By 1944, she met an Austrian actor named Harald Maresch, who had worked with Córdova in Frenchman’s Creek, in 1944 and was trying to start a career in Hollywood using the name Harald Ramond. She recommended him to some producers, and she fell in love with him and asked him to marry her and he agreed, but only thinking about what she could offer him.
In September she found out that she was 4 months pregnant, and in December she saw the real face of Ramond, when a woman named Francesca Vitner, who had been with Ramond (Maresch), sued him for breach of promise. She saw that he wasn’t the inexperienced man she thought he was and had protected.
Now comes the part that basically turned her into an “Hollywood Urban Legend”.
Her death was attributed to suicide, and many believed that the reason that led her to end her life, it was find out that she was pregnant and that she would give birth to a child out of wedlock.
Another version says that the child she expected was fathered by Córdova, and once he wouldn’t get divorced and their Catholic roots was against abortion, she decided to look for a man who would marry her, and this man was Maresch.
Another version has Lupe finding CĂłrdova in the bed with Maresch and ending he life because of it. And yet, another version, that was provided by a journalist was that Gary Cooper was the father of her child.
“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 kill him. Lupe” (That’s her suicide note)
She had an overdose of sleeping pills (she took 80 Seconal pills).
According to newspapers, her body was found by her secretary and friend of 10 years, Beulah Kinder, on her bed surrounded by flowers, just like she wished.
Huffington Post on may 24, 2013, repost the first ever photo of the scene of Lupe’s death, showing that she was found on the floor and not on the bed.
People still wonder what actually led her to suicide: if it was actually the fact that she would have a child in those conditions or if it was due depression, once she presented signs of depression and extreme motion and manias. Some biographers suggested that she suffered from bipolar disorder, that once left untreated, resulted on her suicide.
On her funeral, more than 4.000 people walked past her casket in Glendale, California, and later, in Mexico City, thousands more including actors as Cantinflas, Jorge Negrete and Maria FĂ©lix attended to say their final farewell.
She 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 Mexico’s National association of Actors.
She has a Hollywood Walk of Fame star at 6927 Hollywood Boulevard.
Marilyn Monroe told a journalist about her first encounter with Lupe
“My mother worked in RKO film studios and sometimes took me with her. Here i first saw Lupe Vélez, a Mexican girl that was all rage, whose appearance and physical character fascinated me. Then my dream was to be someday, someone like her.”
Hollywood Golden Era 