Dolores del Río (August 3, 1905 – April 11, 1983) was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and became an important actress in Mexican films later in her life.
Born Dolores Martínez Asúnsolo y López Negrete in Durango, Mexico, del Río was the second cousin of actor Ramón Novarro. Her wealthy family lost all their assets during the Mexican Revolution, and a desire to restore her comfortable lifestyle inspired her to follow a career as an actress.
In 1921 at the age of 16, she married Jaime Martinez del Rio, and through a Hollywood friend the couple emigrated to the USA with the plan of establishing show business careers for themselves: as screenwriter and actress, respectively. The marriage ended in divorce, but del Río retained her married name, continued to pursue a career as an actress, and made her first film appearance in Joanna (1925) in which Hollywood first noticed her appeal as a sex siren, but struggled against the "Mexicali Rose" image initially pitched to her by Hollywood executives.
She was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926 (along with fellow newcomers Joan Crawford, Fay Wray, Janet Gaynor, and Mary Astor), but initially overcame prejudice that same year in one of that year's biggest screen successes, What Price Glory opposite Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen. She came to be admired as one of the most beautiful women on screen, and her career flourished until the end of the silent era with successful films such as Resurrection, Ramona, and Evangeline (1929).
In 1930, she married Cedric Gibbons, one of MGM's leading art directors and production designers. With the advent of talkies she was usually relegated to exotic and unimportant roles, but scored successes with Bird of Paradise (1932) Flying Down to Rio (the film that launched the careers of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) (1933) and Madame DuBarry (1934), Wonder Bar (1934) and In Caliente (1935).
Divorced from Gibbons in 1941, Orson Welles fell madly in love with her although he was 10 years younger. The affair with Orson Welles was reported to have been the cause of her divorce from Gibbons in 1941. She collaborated with Welles in the film, Journey Into Fear (1942).
She returned to Mexico in 1942. She was soon approached by director Emilio Fernández, and she began making Spanish-language films that brought her great success in Mexico and Hispanic America over the next twenty years. Among her most successful films were Flor Silvestre (1943) Maria Candelaria (1943), Bugambilia, Las Abandonadas (1944), The Fugitive (1947, directed by John Ford), La Otra, La Malquerida (1949), El Niño y la Niebla (1953), La Cucaracha (1959). She was nominated for Mexico's Silver Ariel Award many times, winning four awards for her performances.
In 1960 she starred with Elvis Presley in Flaming Star directed by Don Siegel. In 1964 she appeared in Cheyenne Autumn directed by John Ford.
On April 11, 1983 Dolores Del Rio died from liver disease at the age of 77, in Newport Beach, California.
She was cremated and her ashes were interred in the Panteón de Dolores cemetery in Mexico City, Mexico.
Dolores del Río has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1620 Vine Street, in recognition of her contributions to the motion picture industry.
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