María Guadalupe "Lupe" Villalobos Vélez (July 18, 1908 – December 14, 1944) was a Mexican actress, singer, and dancer during the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

By the end of the decade, she was acting in full-length silent films and had progressed to leading roles in The Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928) and Wolf Song (1929), among others.

During the 1930s, her explosive screen persona was exploited in successful comedic films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934) and Hollywood Party (1934).

In the 1940s, Vélez's popularity peaked while appearing as Carmelita Fuentes in eight Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalize on her fiery personality.

[5] Their mother introduced Vélez and her sister Josefina to the popular Spanish Mexican vedette María Conesa, "La Gatita Blanca".

Ortega and Castro were preparing a season revue at the Regis Theatre, and hired Vélez to join the company in March 1925.

[7] Vélez, whose volatile and spirited personality and feuds with other performers were often covered by the Mexican press, also honed her ability for garnering publicity.

While Vélez was preparing to leave Los Angeles, she received a call from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Harry Rapf, who offered her a screen test.

Producer and director Hal Roach saw Vélez's screen test and hired her for a small role in the comic Laurel and Hardy short Sailors, Beware!

Several stars of the era saw their careers abruptly end due to heavy accents or voices that recorded poorly.

In 1931, she appeared in her second film for Cecil B. DeMille, Squaw Man, with Warner Baxter, and in Resurrection, directed by Edwin Carewe.

[21] In February 1932, Vélez took a break from her film career and traveled to New York City where she was signed by Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. to take over the role of "Conchita" in the musical revue Hot-Cha!.

In 1933, Vélez appeared in the films The Half-Naked Truth with Lee Tracy and Hot Pepper, with Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe.

She returned to Los Angeles the following year, where she signed with RKO for the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy High Flyers (1937, featuring some of her celebrity impersonations).

Holman also was irritated by the attention Vélez garnered from the show with her impressions of several actresses, including Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, and Shirley Temple.

[24] The feud came to a head during a performance in New Haven, Connecticut after Vélez punched Holman between curtain calls and gave her a black eye.

[27] Lupe Vélez was Hollywood's number-one Latina by this time, and producer-director Mark Sandrich asked her to headline a live stage show in Ensenada, Mexico.

Some of these films were Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga (with Leon Errol, 1941), Playmates (with John Barrymore, 1941), and Redhead from Manhattan (1943).

By that time, the mistaken-identity scripts and situations had been repeating themselves, and the novelty of the series had begun to wane,[26] but Vélez's energy and Errol's clowning never flagged.

After her death, journalist Bob Thomas recalled that Vélez was a "lively part of the Hollywood scene" who wore loud clothing and made as much noise as possible.

[31] She attended boxing matches every Friday night at the Hollywood Legion Stadium and would stand on her ringside seat and scream at the fighters.

[31][33] One such incident included Vélez chasing her lover Gary Cooper around with a knife during an argument and cutting him severely enough to require stitches.

[36][37] Vélez often targeted fellow actresses whom she deemed rivals, professionally or otherwise, a habit which began back in her vaudeville days and continued in films.

Vélez's image was that of a wild, highly sexualized woman who spoke her mind and was not considered a "lady", while fellow Mexican actress Dolores del Río projected herself as sensual, but elegant and restrained, often hailing from aristocratic roots.

Despite the fact that De Córdova was married to Mexican actress Enna Arana with whom he had four children, Vélez granted an interview to gossip columnist Louella Parsons in September 1943 and announced that the two were engaged.

[68] Despite the coroner's ruling that Vélez committed suicide to avoid the shame of bearing an illegitimate child, some authors have speculated that this was not entirely true.

In the book From Bananas to Buttocks: The Latina Body in Popular Film and Culture, Rosa-Linda Fregoso wrote that Vélez was known for her defiance of contemporary moral convention, and that it seems unlikely that she could not have reconciled having a child out of wedlock.

[71] In the 2002 book Tarzan, My Father, Johnny Weissmuller, Jr., recounted the events surrounding Vélez's death as a mystery caused by an attempt to "put a lid" on what happened.

In Anger's telling, Vélez planned to stage an elaborate suicide scene atop her satin bed, but the Seconal did not mix well with the "Mexi-Spice Last Supper" she had eaten earlier that evening.

Despite the fact that his version of events contradicts published reports and the official ruling, his story is often repeated as fact or for comedic effect – it was recounted in the pilot episode of the television comedy series Frasier, "The Good Son"; referred to in an episode of the cartoon The Simpsons; and mentioned in the song "I Wanna O.D."