The Pittsburgh Press (December 14, 1944)
Lupe Velez found dead of sleeping powders; note contents secret
Housekeeper finds actress’ body in bed; her last romance ended Sunday
Lupe Velez
Hollywood, California (UP) –
Lupe Velez, Mexican film star, was found dead today from an overdose of sleeping powders.
The body was taken to a mortuary in Beverly Hills.
Police said they had found a note, but did not divulge the contents.
Miss Velez, 33, who had flitted back and forth between New York and Hollywood for several years, had been scheduled to leave for Manhattan again Saturday to take a role in a play.
Body found in bed
The body was found in bed. A package of sleeping powders and a note were on a table.
Capt. W. W. White of the Beverly Hills Detective Squad, said Miss Velez’s housekeeper called the department in great excitement. “Miss Velez is asleep,” she said, “and I can’t wake her. I think she is dead. Please send someone right up.”
The actress was clad in a white nightgown.
House at ‘usual time’
The housekeeper said her mistress had come home at “the usual time” last night.
A doctor and a coroner’s agent were sent to the home.
Her last romance was with French actor Harold Ramond, whom she adored, she said, “because he tells me where to go.” She said two weeks ago:
I am very happy. Harold knows how to handle me. I’ve always been used to controlling men, but I try it with Harold and he tells me where to go.
Sunday, she said it was all over. “I told him to get out,” she said. “I like my dogs better and I’m going to take them to New York with me Saturday.”
The breakup followed a post-election argument, she said. They had planned to go to a party Saturday night. Lupe went alone.
Her greatest romance was with swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, the Tarzan of the screen.
Had series of battles
Their married life was a series of battles and two-language name-callings, after which reconciliations were announced. Three times she filed for divorce before finally going through with one.
Her other romantic interests included Gary Cooper and Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, one of the screen colony’s top polo players.
Her association with Cooper was one of the screen colony’s classics. The quiet, lanky, slow-to-anger and slow-to-speak Cooper was the silent partner of the couple.
Temperaments clashed
At one time they were reported about to be married. She tried to break him out of his strong silent man characterizations, but found instead that their temperaments would never match.
The fiery-tempered actress was born Guadalupe Villalobos Velez in the little Mexican town of San Luis Potosi, the daughter of an opera singer and an army colonel.
She learned English – which she spoke proficiently despite legend that her sentences were sprinkled with outlandish phrases – after entering a convent at San Antonio, Texas.
After a series of dancing jobs in Mexico and Hollywood, she landed her first motion picture assignment – a series of comedies for Hal Roach.
The late Douglas Fairbanks gave her her first chance for a serious acting and stardom role when he selected her as the wild mountain girl for his production of The Gaucho.
During her hectic movie career, she worked for most of the major studios and once traveled to England for a series of pictures. Recently, her motion picture acting had been limited mostly to a series of “Mexican spitfire” pictures.
She played opposite the old-time favorite, Rod La Rocque, in Stand and Deliver and worked for director D. W. Griffith in his production of Masquerade.
Other films
Paramount Studios borrowed her for Gary Cooper’s The Wolf Song. She appeared in other such widely known productions as Where East Is East, Tiger Rose, Men in Her Life and Redhead from Manhattan.
She went to Mexico recently to make a comedy version of Romeo and Juliet with the Mexican comedian Cantinflas.
Her mother, Josefina, who lives in San Luis Potosi, and her two sisters – Josefina and Queenie – with whom Miss Velez lived in Hollywood, survive her. She also had a brother.