On December 13, 1944, the actress took 64 seconal pills to end her life
Vélez committed suicide at age 36< p class="paragraph">“The story of my life? It is the story of a demon. And who wants to print the story of a demon? I'm wild, I can't help it”, this is how Lupe Vélez responded to a reporter's incisive question about her existence, marked by passionate romances and explosive scenes of jealousy.
Vélez, born in San Luis Potosí in 1908, was already one enshrined in Hollywood when her death shook the film industry.
The first Mexican star in Hollywood decided to end her life on December 13, 1944. She was only 36 years.
Then began the legend about the last hours in the life of the explosive Lupe, the woman who fell in love with Gary Cooper and Johnny Weissmuller(the famous Tarzan).
Guadalupe Velez observes some musical scores in the year 1925
Their relationships had the flame of passion, but also the dark side of emotions. With Cooper, Lupe had a three-year affair that included attempting to stab him with a knife while they were cooking, also trying to break a window to hold him while he was leaving on another train, and showing up at a train station to shoot him to avoid So I ran away to Europe. Lupe also engaged in a war of statements against Cooper's mother, through the press.
“You couldn't help but be attracted to Lupe Vélez”,Gary Cooper wrote decades later. “She would flash and storm and spark, and on set she would throw things if she thought it would do any good.”
“The Mexican Hurricane,” as Vélez was called in Hollywood, defended herself by saying: “I'm just Lupe”.
But it was that explosive character of the actress, added to a new disappointment in love, which led her to reach her lowest point in that December 1944.
She was known for her explosiveness
In a time when the term did not even exist, it is now believed that the actress may have suffered from bipolar disorder and the abandonment of her most recent lover would only have exacerbated the symptoms. Lupe could be funny and entertaining one minute and depressed and violent the next.
The actress became pregnant by the Frenchman Harald Ramond, whom she met in 1943, but he refused to take responsibility. However, according to Gabriel Ramírez, author of the book Lupe Vélez, the actress who breathed fire, the baby was actually Arturo de Córdova's.
As fervent Catholic, Lupe could not bear the idea of being a mother without being married and therefore would have made the decision to end her life. One more of the stories ensures that her fatal decision came after she found Arturo de Córdova c in a very compromising situation.on Harald.
The actress posing for a portrait
She filled her room with flowers and candles, put on her makeup and took the time to choose the clothes she would wear in her last hours. She then took 64 pills of the sedative secodal helped by a few swigs of brandy. She went to sleep and it was not until the morning of the next day that her assistant found her dead in her bed.
The version in the book Hollywood Babylon claimed that in the middle of After her suicide attempt, Lupe regretted it and ran to the bathroom to vomit, but the attempt was in vain, as she ended up dead with her head in the toilet. That story was never confirmed.
This was the end of the woman who made a place for herself in a racist and sexist Hollywood, who labeled her “hot tamale” or “Miss cyclone”. It ended her fight, too.
“People think I like to fight,” Lupe told her friend Estelle Taylor, “I have to fight for everything. I'm so tired of everything. Since I was a baby I have been fighting.”
