During the 1950s and 1960s, Mexico was full[citation needed] of English/Spanish crossover movie stars, including Antonio Aguilar, making Western films and usually singing in them like a Latin version of Elvis; the scripts were groomed to fit their more high-profile careers.
Bravo played a small part in Un Toro Me Llama (1968) (English title Call of a Bull).
[2][3] The film starred Emilio Fernández and a cast of Americans, with the main theme being about a woman wanting to be a bullfighter.
It starred Lana Turner, Cliff Robertson, Hugh O'Brian, Ruth Roman, and Stefanie Powers.
During an August 1968 corrida, playing to the tourist crowds of Tijuana, Bravo "requested the animal be spared.
This, in turn, was denied, and the torero [Bravo] who refused to kill the bull was escorted to the local jail and fined".
Cameras captured countless photos of Bravo being cuffed, escorted from the bullring, and locked in a jail cell.
Gossip around Bravo was further promulgated by such actions as his behavior during a 1957 Tijuana bullfight, during which he tossed flowers to Ava Gardner from the ring.
His profile remained such that he could still draw crowds from within the Mexican interior and the US, especially with a large following in border towns such as Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, and Matamoros, and states such as California, Arizona, and Texas.