Maria Montez (June
6, 1912 – September 7, 1951) 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 films. 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 theFree 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.
The 39-year-old Montez died in Suresnes, 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 gives her amended year of birth (1918), not the actual year of birth
(1912). 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)
in her honor.
The American underground
filmmaker 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.
Actress (27 titles)
