Lupe Vélez — Thanks to Mexico (1928) 🇺🇸

If Lupe Velez had shone forth in the cinema firmament before Dolores del Río caught the public eye, there is no telling to what magnitude of brilliance she might, have attained.

Various people made this comment when Miss Velez [Lupe Vélez] made her debut, in The Gaucho. And it is a partial summing up of her advent on the screen.

Yet if you should meet her, you would find Lupe altogether different from Dolores. She has a sparkling and spicy quality that is not at all similar to the reserved girl from Mexico now so well known.

Lupe was born in Mexico, too, in San Luis Potosi, and before coming to Hollywood had danced in Mexico City.

It was a theatrical agent who induced her to try her fate in Hollywood, and her first engagement there was at the Hollywood Music Box. Hal Roach placed her under contract. Later, Doug Fairbanks [Douglas Fairbanks Sr.] was looking for a leading lady for The Gaucho, and his attention was called to Lupe.

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Collection: Picture Play Magazine, March 1928