DOLORES DEL RIO

Dolores Del Rio (born Dolores Martinez Asunsolo y Lopez Negrete) was a Mexican actress from the 1920s to the 1970s. She was born in 1904 to an aristocratic Mexican family, but they lost everything in the Mexican revolution of 1916. They started over in Mexico City, and Dolores became a socialite, and when she was 17, she married Jaime Martinez Del Rio, and the couple became friends with Hollywood director Edwin Carewe, and he got the couple to move to Hollywood. He cast her in Joanna in 1925, and she had a significant role, even though she had never acted before. The next year, she had her first leading role, and in 1928, she became a star with Carewe's Ramona, and she was referred to as the "female Valentino". She survived the change over to sound, and fortunately, she kept her looks as she aged (she reportedly slept 16 hours a day to maintain her beautiful skin and hair!), and she kept acting into the 1940s in sexy roles! She had a long term relationship with Orson Welles from 1938 to 1941, but they never married. Some of her movies include: Flying Down to Rio, Portrait of Maria, Rio Blanco, Journey Into Fear, and The Trail of '98. She passed away in 1983 at the age of 78.