Considered one of the most beautiful actresses of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, her strong personality and taste for finesse garnered her the title of diva early in her career.

[5] She was the daughter of Bernardo Félix Flores, a military officer and politician who was of distant Yaqui descent, and Josefina Güereña Rosas, who grew up in the U.S. state of California; both were of Mexican ancestry.

[9] One afternoon after work when walking down the street in Mexico City, director and filmmaker Fernando Palacios approached her asking if she wanted to make movies.

She made her first appearance in the "White and Black Ballroom" of the Mexico City Country Club where some of the great Mexican movie stars of the era (Esther Fernández, Lupe Vélez, Andrea Palma) gathered.

Finally, thanks to Palacios, she was offered the female lead role in a film by Grovas Productions: El Peñón de las Ánimas, directed by Miguel Zacarías.

[10] In the film El Peñón de las Ánimas, Félix starred opposite the popular Mexican actor and singer Jorge Negrete.

María Félix and Jorge Negrete got off to a bad relationship during the filming because he had asked that his girlfriend, the actress Gloria Marín, be given the lead role.

Under the direction of Emilio Fernández, María Félix made three successful films: Enamorada (1946), Río Escondido (1947), and Maclovia (1948).

In 1951, she filmed the French-Spanish production La Couronne Noire directed by Luis Saslavsky based on a story by Jean Cocteau.

In France she made the films La Belle Otero (1954), and Les Héros sont Fatigués (1955), alongside Yves Montand.

Most of the rumors agree in claiming that Prado and Félix allegedly got married in 1943 after meeting on the set of The Rock of Souls and separated two months after the wedding.

Serna, who also interviewed Félix, said "On our first meeting I asked her about her marriage to Raúl Prado (which she denied until the end), the member of the Calaveras trio who sang in Jorge Negrete's films, and she told me that if I was going to go on with those lies, we were not going to be able to work on the book."

Lara immortalized Félix in a number of songs, such as "Humo en los ojos" ("Smoke in the eyes"), "Cuando vuelvas" ("When you come back"), "Dos puñales" ("Two daggers"), "Madrid" and especially the famous theme "María Bonita", composed in Acapulco during their honeymoon.

[27] After her second divorce, Félix had romances with some well-known men, such as Mexican aviation entrepreneur Jorge Pasquel, Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín, and Argentine actor Carlos Thompson.

However, once in Mexico, Félix canceled the wedding days before it would take place, stating that she concluded that the only thing that united her to Thompson was a mere physical attraction and not true love.

[30] From the end of 1950 to the spring of 1954, Félix also had a passionate same-sex affair with Suzanne Baulé, better-known as Frede, who at the time ran the cabaret Le Carroll's on Rue de Ponthieu in Paris, and the two women lived together at the Hotel George-V.

However, they would violently break-up for good in 1954, leading to a trial in which Félix wanted to take back jewellery she had given to Frede and accused her of theft.

Unlike their difficult first meeting ten years ago on the set of El peñón de las ánimas, Félix found Negrete, in her own words: "surrendered to my feet".

Negrete was already ill when the marriage took place, and died eleven months later at a hospital in Los Angeles, United States, while Félix was in Europe shooting La Belle Otero.

[35] It was at this time that she built her famous home, La Casa de las Tortugas (The House of Turtles), designed by Pepe Mendoza and resembling an Italian villa, in Cuernavaca.

[38] The press speculated about a strong rivalry between Félix and Dolores del Río, the other leading female figure of Mexican cinema and a successful Hollywood star.

Later, Diego wanted that portrait for an exhibition in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, but since I did not lend it to him, he stopped talking to me for more than a year.

Other renowned artists who recorded Félix in their canvases were the Surrealists Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Bridget Tichenor[41] among others.

Among them they are Renato Leduc, Xavier Villaurrutia, Salvador Novo, Pita Amor, Jean Cocteau and Octavio Paz.

Her relationship with Fuentes was terminated when the author made the play Orchids in the Moonlight, in which he parodies the figures of Félix and Dolores del Río.

The case of the La Doña de Cartier features a trapezoid shape with an asymmetrical profile reminiscent of a crocodile's head.

[44] Mexican milliner to the stars Gladys Tamez dedicated a hat collection "El Fénix" inspired by and intended to honor Félix.

[45] In 2023, Museo Jumex in Mexico City displayed iconic jewelry pieces worn by Maria Félix in the exhibition “Cartier Design: A Living Legacy” that featured more than 160 pieces and was designed by renowned Mexican architect Frida Escobedo and curated by the Mexican art critic Ana Elena Mallet.

[47] A skeletal version of Felix appears briefly in the 2017 Pixar film Coco, as a guest at a party in the Land of the Dead, with luchador El Santo as her date.

On 21 July 2022, the TelevisaUnivision produced biopic María Félix: La Doña, starring Sandra Echeverría, was released on streaming service Vix.