María Félix

María de los Ángeles Félix Güereña (8 April 1914 – 8 April 2002) was a Mexican actress and singer. Alongside Pedro Armendáriz and Dolores del Río, she ranked among the most prominent figures in Latin American cinema during the 1940s and 1950s. Widely regarded as one of the most beautiful actresses of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, her forceful personality and refined tastes earned her the label of diva early on. She became known as La Doña, taken from her role in the 1943 film *Doña Bárbara*, and as María Bonita, thanks to a song composed as a wedding gift by her second husband, Agustín Lara. Her filmography includes 47 movies made in Mexico, Spain, France, Italy, and Argentina.

Born in Álamos, Sonora, on 8 April 1914, her birth was officially recorded on 4 May, a date later mistakenly cited as her birthday. Her father, Bernardo Félix Flores, was a military officer and politician with distant Yaqui ancestry; her mother, Josefina Güereña Rosas, grew up in California. Both were of Mexican descent. She had fifteen siblings: Josefina, María de la Paz, Pablo, Bernardo, Miguel, María de las Mercedes, Fernando, Victoria Eugenia, Ricardo, Benjamín, and Ana María del Sacramento. She spent her early years in Álamos, where she was especially close to her brother Pablo. Her mother, suspecting an incestuous relationship, separated them by sending Pablo to the Colegio Militar in Mexico City.

The family later moved to Guadalajara. At seventeen, her beauty drew notice, and she was crowned Beauty Queen at the University of Guadalajara. There she met Enrique Álvarez Alatorre, a Max Factor cosmetics salesman. After a brief romance, they married in 1931. In 1935, she gave birth to her only child, Enrique, nicknamed Quique. The marriage failed, and they divorced in 1937. Afterward, she returned to Guadalajara with her family, where gossip about her status as a divorcée prompted her to move to Mexico City with her son.

In Mexico City, she worked as a receptionist in a plastic surgeon’s office and lived in a guest house. One day, her ex-husband visited their son and refused to return him, taking the boy to Guadalajara. With help from Agustín Lara, her future second husband, she orchestrated an elaborate plan to recover the child by tricking the grandmother.

One afternoon, while walking down the street, director Fernando Palacios approached her and asked if she wanted to act in films. She initially refused, but Palacios persisted, becoming her mentor—her “Pygmalion”—training her and introducing her to film circles. She made her first appearance at the White and Black Ballroom of the Mexico City Country Club, where stars like Esther Fernández, Lupe Vélez, and Andrea Palma gathered. She was later taken to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood, where Cecil B. DeMille offered to launch her career, but she declined, preferring to start in Mexico. Palacios eventually secured her the female lead in *El Peñón de las Ánimas*, directed by Miguel Zacarías for Grovas Productions.

In that film, she starred opposite Jorge Negrete, who had wanted his girlfriend, Gloria Marín, for the role. Their tense relationship during filming helped cement Félix’s reputation as tough and arrogant. Her second film, *María Eugenia*, cast her against her usual temperamental persona; it is remembered as the only film where she appeared in swimwear. The same year, she made *La china poblana* (1943), directed by Palacios, which she considered a debt of gratitude. That film, the second color film in Mexican cinema, is now considered lost. She called both movies “her beginner sins.”

She earned the nickname La Doña from her role in *Doña Bárbara* (1943), based on Rómulo Gallegos’s novel. Though another actress, Isabela Corona, had been cast, Gallegos saw Félix and declared, “Here is my Doña Bárbara!” The film was shot in Venezuela and marked the start of major collaborations with director Fernando de Fuentes. They made two more films together: *La Mujer sin Alma* (1944) and *La Devoradora* (1946). As Félix later said, “With these films, I became the number one enemy of the Mexican family morals.”

She then took on sophisticated roles outside the “femme fatale” stereotype in *El monje blanco* (1945), directed by Julio Bracho, and *Vertigo* (1946), directed by Antonio Momplet, both requiring dramatic intensity. Under Emilio Fernández, she made three successful films: *Enamorada* (1946), *Río Escondido* (1947), and *Maclovia* (1948). Her relationship with Fernández was cordial despite his famous temper. In *Enamorada*, she found her ideal film partner in actor Pedro Armendáriz.