María Montez
Encyclopedia
María Montez was a Dominican
-born motion picture actress who gained fame and popularity in the 1940s as an exotic beauty starring in a series of filmed-in-Technicolor
costume adventure film
s. Her screen image was that of a hot-blooded Latin seductress, dressed in fanciful costumes and sparkling jewels. She became so identified with these adventure epics that she became known as "The Queen of Technicolor." Over her career, Montez appeared in 26 films, 21 of which were made in North America
and five in Europe
.
Her beauty soon made her the centerpiece of Universal
's Technicolor
costume adventures, notably the six in which she was teamed with Jon Hall
— Arabian Nights
(1942), White Savage (1943), Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
(1944), Cobra Woman
(1944), Gypsy Wildcat (1944), and Sudan (1945). Montez also appeared in the Technicolor
western
Pirates of Monterey (1947) with Rod Cameron and the sepia-toned swashbuckler
The Exile
(1948), directed by Max Ophuls
and starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
While working in Hollywood, she met and married French
actor Jean-Pierre Aumont
, who had to leave a few days after their wedding to serve in the Free French Forces
fighting against Nazi Germany
in the European Theatre of World War II
. At the end of World War II
, the couple had a daughter, Maria Christina (also known as Tina Aumont
), born in Hollywood in 1946. They then moved to a home in Suresnes
, Île-de-France
in the western suburb of Paris
under the French Fourth Republic
. There, Montez appeared in several films and a play written by her husband. She also wrote three books, two of which were published, as well as penning a number of poems.
, France
on September 7, 1951 after apparently suffering a heart attack
and drowning
in her bath. She was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris where her tombstone displays her theatrical year of birth, 1918.
In 1996, the city of Barahona opened the Aeropuerto Internacional María Montez (María Montez International Airport
) in her honor.
The American underground film
maker Jack Smith
idolized Montez as an icon of camp
style. Among his acts of devotion, he wrote an aesthetic manifesto
titled "The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez", referred to her as "The Wonderful One" or "The Marvelous One", and made elaborate homages to her movies in his own films, including the notorious Flaming Creatures
.
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
-born motion picture actress who gained fame and popularity in the 1940s as an exotic beauty starring in a series of filmed-in-Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
costume adventure film
Adventure film
Adventure films are a genre of film.Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way....
s. Her screen image was that of a hot-blooded Latin seductress, dressed in fanciful costumes and sparkling jewels. She became so identified with these adventure epics that she became known as "The Queen of Technicolor." Over her career, Montez appeared in 26 films, 21 of which were made in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and five in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Career
Her beauty soon made her the centerpiece of Universal
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
's Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
costume adventures, notably the six in which she was teamed with Jon Hall
Jon Hall
Jon Hall was an American film actor.-Biography:Born Charles Felix Locher in Fresno, California, and raised in Tahiti by his father, the Swiss-born actor Felix Locher, he was a nephew of James Norman Hall, one of the authors of Mutiny on the Bounty...
— Arabian Nights
Arabian Nights (1942 film)
Arabian Nights is a 1942 adventure film starring Sabu, Maria Montez, Jon Hall and Leif Erickson and directed by John Rawlins. The film is derived from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights but owes more to the imagination of Universal Pictures than the original Arabian stories...
(1942), White Savage (1943), Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944 film)
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is a 1944 adventure film starring Maria Montez and Jon Hall, and directed by Arthur Lubin. The film is derived from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights but its story departs greatly from the tale of the same name and includes an actual historic event...
(1944), Cobra Woman
Cobra Woman
Cobra Woman is a 1944 American melodrama/adventure film of the South Seas genre, directed by Robert Siodmak. It was mad in and starring Jon Hall, Sabu, Mary Nash, Lon Chaney, Jr. and, in a dual role, Maria Montez...
(1944), Gypsy Wildcat (1944), and Sudan (1945). Montez also appeared in the Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
Pirates of Monterey (1947) with Rod Cameron and the sepia-toned swashbuckler
Swashbuckler films
Swashbuckler films are an action-adventure subgenre often characterised by swordfighting and adventurous heroic characters, often set in Renaissance Western Europe with appropriately lavish costumes. Morality is often clear-cut, heroic characters are clearly heroic and even villains tend to have a...
The Exile
The Exile (1947 film)
The Exile is a film directed by Max Ophüls, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and María Montez. The film is based on the novel His Majesty, the King: A Romantic Love Chase of the Seventeenth Century by Cosmo Hamilton.-Plot summary:...
(1948), directed by Max Ophuls
Max Ophüls
Maximillian Oppenheimer — known as Max Ophüls — was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany , France , the United States , and France again...
and starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...
While working in Hollywood, she met and married French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
actor Jean-Pierre Aumont
Jean-Pierre Aumont
-Early life:Aumont was born Jean-Pierre Philippe Salomons in Paris, the son of Suzanne and Alexandre Salomons, owner of La Maison du Blanc . His mother's uncle was well-known stage actor Georges Berr. His father was from a Dutch Jewish family and his mother's family were French Jews...
, who had to leave a few days after their wedding to serve in the Free French Forces
Free French Forces
The Free French Forces were French partisans in World War II who decided to continue fighting against the forces of the Axis powers after the surrender of France and subsequent German occupation and, in the case of Vichy France, collaboration with the Germans.-Definition:In many sources, Free...
fighting against Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in the European Theatre of World War II
European Theatre of World War II
The European Theatre of World War II was a huge area of heavy fighting across Europe from Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 until the end of the war with the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945...
. At the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the couple had a daughter, Maria Christina (also known as Tina Aumont
Tina Aumont
Maria Christina Aumont , best known as Tina Aumont, was an American actress.She was of French Jewish and Dominican descent....
), born in Hollywood in 1946. They then moved to a home in Suresnes
Suresnes
Suresnes is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The nearest communes are Neuilly-sur-Seine, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud and Boulogne-Billancourt...
, Île-de-France
Île-de-France (région)
Île-de-France is the wealthiest and most populated of the twenty-two administrative regions of France, composed mostly of the Paris metropolitan area....
in the western suburb of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
under the French Fourth Republic
French Fourth Republic
The French Fourth Republic was the republican government of France between 1946 and 1958, governed by the fourth republican constitution. It was in many ways a revival of the Third Republic, which was in place before World War II, and suffered many of the same problems...
. There, Montez appeared in several films and a play written by her husband. She also wrote three books, two of which were published, as well as penning a number of poems.
Death
The 39-year-old Montez died in SuresnesSuresnes
Suresnes is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The nearest communes are Neuilly-sur-Seine, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud and Boulogne-Billancourt...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
on September 7, 1951 after apparently suffering a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
and drowning
Drowning
Drowning is death from asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia....
in her bath. She was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris where her tombstone displays her theatrical year of birth, 1918.
Legacy
Shortly after her death, a street in the city of Barahona, Montez's birthplace, was named in her honor.In 1996, the city of Barahona opened the Aeropuerto Internacional María Montez (María Montez International Airport
María Montez International Airport
María Montez International Airport is an international airport located in Barahona, Dominican Republic. It is named after the late film star Maria Montez, who was born in the province of Barahona.- Airlines and destinations :- Former Destinations :...
) in her honor.
The American underground film
Underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre, or financing.-Definition and history:The first use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic Manny Farber, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of...
maker Jack Smith
Jack Smith (film director)
Jack Smith was an American filmmaker, actor, and pioneer of underground cinema...
idolized Montez as an icon of camp
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
style. Among his acts of devotion, he wrote an aesthetic manifesto
Manifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
titled "The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez", referred to her as "The Wonderful One" or "The Marvelous One", and made elaborate homages to her movies in his own films, including the notorious Flaming Creatures
Flaming Creatures
Flaming Creatures is an American experimental film by filmmaker Jack Smith. Due to its surreal, graphic depiction of sexuality, the film was seized by the police at its premiere, and was officially determined to be obscene by a New York Criminal Court. The 43-minute featurette attracted media and...
.
Filmography
- Boss of Bullion City (1940)
- The Invisible WomanThe Invisible WomanThe Invisible Woman is a science fiction, comedy film that was released near the end of 1940 by Universal. It is the third film follow Invisible Man and The Invisible Man Returns which had been released earlier in the year. The comedic writers Robert Lees and Fred Rinaldo wrote the screenplay in...
(1940) - Lucky Devils (1941)
- That Night in RioThat Night in RioThat Night in Rio is a 1941 musical comedy film starring Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche . It is one of several film adaptations of a play called The Red Cat by Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler...
(1941) - Raiders of the Desert (1941)
- Moonlight in Hawaii (1941)
- South of Tahiti (1941)
- Bombay Clipper (1942)
- The Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)
- Arabian NightsArabian Nights (1942 film)Arabian Nights is a 1942 adventure film starring Sabu, Maria Montez, Jon Hall and Leif Erickson and directed by John Rawlins. The film is derived from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights but owes more to the imagination of Universal Pictures than the original Arabian stories...
(1942) - White Savage (1943)
- Ali Baba and the Forty ThievesAli Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944 film)Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is a 1944 adventure film starring Maria Montez and Jon Hall, and directed by Arthur Lubin. The film is derived from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights but its story departs greatly from the tale of the same name and includes an actual historic event...
(1944) - Follow the BoysFollow the BoysFollow the Boys , also known as Three Cheers for the Boys, is a musical film made by Universal Pictures as an all-star cast morale booster to entertain the troops abroad and the civilians at home. The film was directed by A. Edward "Eddie" Sutherland and produced by Charles K. Feldman...
(1944) - Cobra WomanCobra WomanCobra Woman is a 1944 American melodrama/adventure film of the South Seas genre, directed by Robert Siodmak. It was mad in and starring Jon Hall, Sabu, Mary Nash, Lon Chaney, Jr. and, in a dual role, Maria Montez...
(1944) - Gypsy Wildcat (1944)
- Bowery to Broadway (1944)
- SudanSudan (film)Sudan is a 1945 historical drama film set in Egypt during the reign of the pharaoh Khafra . The film was directed by John Rawlins and starred Maria Montez.-Cast:* Maria Montez as "Naila"* Jon Hall as "Merab"* Turhan Bey as "Herua"...
(1945) - Tangier (1946)
- The ExileThe Exile (1947 film)The Exile is a film directed by Max Ophüls, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and María Montez. The film is based on the novel His Majesty, the King: A Romantic Love Chase of the Seventeenth Century by Cosmo Hamilton.-Plot summary:...
(1947) - Pirates of Monterey (1947)
- Siren of Atlantis (1949)
- Wicked City (1949)
- Portrait of an Assassin (1949)
- Revenge of the Pirates (1951)
- City of Violence (1951)
- Camorra (1951)
- The Thief of Venice (1951)