Sarita Montiel

Omar ( 2008-01-23 )

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Montiel started in movies at 16 in her native Spain. Later she worked in Mexico starring in a dozen films in less than five years. Hollywood came calling and she was introduced to US moviegoers in Vera Cruz (1954). She was offered the standard seven-year contract at both Columbia and Warner but she refused afraid of Hollywood's typecasting of Hispanics. Instead she free-lanced at Warner in Serenade (1956) and at RKO in The Run of the Arrow (1957). She returned to Spain to star in a low budget film musical titled El Ultimo Cuple which unexpectedly became a huge box office success in Europe and Latin America. She accepted a multimillion dollar offer Fifteen more blockbuster films followed including La Violetera (1958), Carmen, la de Ronda (1959), Pecado de Amor (1961), La Bella Lola (1962), La Reina del Chantecler (1963), Samba (1964), La Dama de Beirut (1965), Tuset Street (1967), Varietes (1971) and many others. During these years she also recorded over 30 highly successful albums and appeared on stage and television all over the world. In 1974 Montiel retired from movies but continued non-stop performing live, recording and starring on her own variety TV shows in Spain. In 2000 her autobiography Memories: To Live Is A Pleasure became a huge best seller. Since then she seems to have slowed down a bit although her status as Spain's only legendary film star remains unchallenged