Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez, known professionally as Lupe Velez, was born on July 18, 1908, in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
At the age of 13, she was sent to Texas to live in a convent, where she was not a diligent student due to her rambunctious nature.
Initially, Lupe had planned to become a champion roller skater, but life had other plans. She returned to Mexico to help her family financially, working as a salesgirl at a department store for a meager $4 a week.
Each week, she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but she would keep a little for herself to take dancing lessons. With her mature shape and grand personality, Lupe thought she could make a try at show business, which she believed was more glamorous than dancing or working as a salesclerk.
In 1924, Lupe started her show business career on the Mexican stage, wowing audiences with her natural beauty and talent. By 1927, she had emigrated to Hollywood, where she was discovered by Hal Roach, who cast her in a comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
Douglas Fairbanks then cast her in his feature film The Gaucho (1927) alongside himself and wife Mary Pickford. Lupe played dramatic roles for five years before switching to comedy.
In 1933, she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933),showcasing her comedic talents and helping her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful.
In 1934, Lupe appeared in three fine comedies: Strictly Dynamite (1934),Palooka (1934),and Laughing Boy (1934). By then, her popularity was such that a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films were written around her.
She portrayed Carmelita Lindsay in Mexican Spitfire (1939),Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940),The Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941),and Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943),among others. Audiences loved her in these madcap adventures, but it seemed at times that she was better known for her stormy love affairs.
She married one of her lovers, Johnny Weissmuller, but the marriage only lasted five years and was filled with battles. Lupe certainly did live up to her nickname.
She had a failed romance with Gary Cooper, who never wanted to wed her. By 1943, her career was waning. She went to Mexico in the hopes of jump-starting her career.
She gained her best reviews yet in the Mexican version of Naná (1944). Bolstered by the success of that movie, Lupe returned to the US, where she starred in her final film as Pepita Zorita, Ladies' Day (1943).
There were to be no others. On December 13, 1944, tired of yet another failed romance, with a part-time actor named Harald Maresch, and pregnant with his child, Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. She was only 36 years old.
