Katy Jurado, a Force in Two Languages

Why do I need a reason? That’s what I asked myself after having missed her centennial last month. She was a unique beauty. She was determined. She was a master of her craft. She was a strong character and memorable talent, a free-spirited Latina in classic Hollywood who made her mark and paved the way. She was Katy Jurado.

María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado de García was born on January 16, 1924 to Luis Jurado Ochoa and Vicenta Estela Garcia. Katy, as Maria Cristina chose to be called, had a happy childhood next to her two younger brothers. Katy’s mother was a singer who performed on Mexico’s XEW radio station. Young Katy’s personality attracted attention, but her first thoughts on a career tended toward the law to follow in the footsteps of some of her father’s relatives who were prominent lawyers.

The Jurado family lived well. They came from old money owning land at one time owning land in a large part of what would become the state of Texas. Although the family lost much of its wealth during the Mexican revolution, their sensibilities remained high society. Katy was known to say, “My family is no longer very, very rich, but they still live that way.”

Katy began to catch the eye of film producers and directors at a young age, but her parents discouraged the thought of acting at every instance. After all, there was no good reason for the daughter of a good family to act for a living. They also discourage Katy’s other love, bullfighting. She would have spent her life fighting off bulls if they would have let her.

One afternoon in 1943, prominent director Emilio Fernandez approached Katy and offered her a part in his latest picture, La Isla de la Pasión (Passion Island 1942). To her parents acting was bad enough, acting in a picture with “passion” in the title was against everything they stood for. Still, the offer instilled in Katy the possibility of acting as a profession even though Fernandez’s picture did not come to pass. In 1943, while her parents were away, Katy signed a contract to appear in Chino Urueta’s No Mataras (1943). As Katy told the story, she was not too interested in being in this picture, it was the lure of the forbidden that first attracted her. However, from the moment Katy started work in her first movie, she said it all came easily to her. She watched legendary actors Sara Garcia and Carmen Montejo and knew exactly what to do. Against her parents’ wishes this was going to be her profession. That same year, Katy appeared in Gilberto Martinez Solares’ Internado Para Senoritas (Girls Boarding School 1943).

By the point she started her movie career, Katy had also married actor Victor Velazquez. This too was against her family’s wishes. The union to Velazquez was also frowned upon by Emilio Fernandez. Despite his interest in Katy early on, Fernandez now vowed to never work with her and never did, which was one of the biggest professional disappointments of Katy’s life. Katy was sure Fernandez would have nurtured her talent to the fullest. Although from this fan’s perspective she did quite nicely on our own.

Katy Jurado made three more pictures starring opposite some of Mexico’s biggest stars and made s splash in Roland Aguilar’s Balajú in 1944. In October of that year Katy gave birth to her son, Victor Hugo Velazquez. By the time her son was born, however, Katy’s marriage to Velazquez was already on the rocks. She filed for divorce while she was pregnant with daughter Sandra.

It was not easy to be a divorced pregnant woman with a small child in the 1940s, but Katy Jurado faced it all with her head held high. There were a relative few who offered her help, like actor Jorge Negrete, but she mostly fended for herself. Her ex-husband and the father of her children gave her no support and rarely, if ever, saw his family. Katy had to go back to work immediately continuing to make her mark in the golden age of Mexican cinema in movies like Rene Cardona’s El Museo del Crimen (1945), Jose Benavides’ Rose del Caribe (1946), Ismael Rodriguez’s Nosotros los Pobres (1948), which I remember watching on TV with my grandmother, and Roberto Rodriguez’s El Seminarista (1949). The last two opposite the handsome and talented Pedro Infante.

While enjoying a bullfight one day, Katy met director Budd Boetticher who immediately tried to convince her to be in his upcoming picture, Bullfighter and the Lady (1951). Thinking her English skills were lacking, Katy declined the offer but when producer John Wayne stepped in, he convinced her. Although Bullfighter and the Lady was shot in Mexico, the doors to Hollywood were now open to Katy Jurado and her soulful eyes. There she exhibited a particular talent for and attraction to Westerns.

Katy Jurado’s second Hollywood picture was as high profile as it gets. Starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and Lloyd Bridges, the Best Picture of 1952, Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon.

Katy tells an interesting story about Fred Zinnemann wanting to shoot most of the scenes between her and Grace Kelly with the camera on Grace. Having completed her contract on the film, Katy threatened to walk off the picture. She did not feel she needed to be present only to give another actor all the scenes. Zinnemann gave in and Katy agreed to stay on set. According to Jurado, it is the reason she has so many close-ups in the picture, which garnered her two Golden Globe awards: Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer – Female. Katy Jurado was the first Latina honored with a Golden Globe.

A couple of weeks before the 1953 Golden Globes ceremony, Mexico saw the premiere of Luis Buñuel’s El Bruto (The Brute 1953), which is considered one her most important films. In El Bruto Katy stars opposite the great Pedro Armendáriz, who happened to have been her godfather when she was introduced to society at the age of fifteen. Jurado and Armendariz forged a close friendship that lasted their entire lives. Katy’s performance in The Brute won her the first of two Ariel awards, Mexico’s most prestigious acting honor although she claimed to never understand the director or that movie’s plot. Jurado won the second Ariel for Luis Alcoriza’s Fe, Esperanza y Caridad (Faith, Hope and Charity) in 1974.

In 1954 Katy Jurado appeared opposite a stellar cast that included Spencer Tracy, Jean Peters, Robert Wagner, and Richard Widmark in Edward Dmytryk’s Broken Lance. For her portrayal here Katy received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, the first Latina to receive that nod from the Academy. Katy was unimpressed with that honor, however, other than being grateful for having received respect from her fellow actors in Hollywood. But her public status was more important than her modesty indicated. In 1954, Jurado became and remains the only Mexican woman to have been awarded the keys to New York City.

Reflecting on her career late in her life, Katy spoke with pride about how everyone understood who and how she was, insisting on doing her own hair and make-up and choosing roles that depicted strong women. She never felt that she was chosen simply because she was a Mexican actor, but because her work was appreciated. Proud of her heritage, Katy Jurado made sure her depictions of Mexican women on the screen were authentic, dignified, not caricatures. She succeeded and often served her performances with a fiery truth that was difficult to ignore.

A few other notable pictures in which Katy appeared are Carol Reed’s Trapeze (1956), Henry Horner’s Man from Del Rio (1956), Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Carlos Toussaint’s Y Dios la Llama Tierra (1961), and Roberto Rodriguez’s La Bandida (1962). The last being notable because the cast could not be more entertaining. Maria Felix, Pedro Armendariz, Ignacio Lopez Tarso, and the one who vowed to never direct Katy, Emilio Fernandez, acts alongside her in the picture.

In 1958 Katy made The Badlands directed by Delmer Daves. This picture proved consequential personally for Jurado who met Ernest Borgnine during filming. The two were married in 1959 with the partnership ending in 1963, after four volatile years. To put it mildly. There are plenty of stories about Borgnine’s temper and he referred to Katy as “beautiful, but a tiger.”

Still, another divorce broke Katy’s heart. She stayed away from work for three years with no interest in making any more movies. Katy wanted to get her life back together. She never married again though rumors linked her romantically with novelist Louis L’Amour and actors Tyrone Power and Marlon Brando. Of Brando Katy said they were ‘blood brothers.’ He was a loyal friend and a man she genuinely loved.

Despite years of steady work in Hollywood, in Mexico, France and Spain after her return to the big screen in 1966, Katy Jurado never made Hollywood her home. She preferred to travel back to Mexico between assignments to be close to her children. Jurado remained – as always – particular about the movies she appeared in.

Katy was about to start filming Fernando Vallejo’s Barrio de Campeones (1981) when she learned her son was killed in a car accident. He was 37 years old, and Katy never got over that loss. Katy continued to work in Mexico, including making two telenovelas, Mas Alla del Puente, and Te Sigo Amando. Bouts of intermittent depression made work difficult at times and she was not comfortable with the work on these long, daily productions. Her family said she felt that at that point in her career Katy had already said all she was meant to say with her art.

Katy Jurado died in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 2007 at the age of seventy-eight. At the end of her life, she said that acting was a cruel career. “They forget what you did, and they forget who are,” she said, but if she only knew. I cannot forget her, and I am not alone. Jurado’s innate strength of character was evident in every woman she played on screen. In 29 Mexican pictures and 23 Hollywood productions Katy Jurado was a force. In two languages.

Bonus:

It is highly unlikely that the pairing of Elvis Presley and Katy Jurado in Peter Tewksbury’s Stay Away, Joe (1968) would get a mention as a highlight in either of their careers. However, sometimes highlights are in the eyes of the beholder.

Sources: Katy Jurado interview with Historias Engarzadas and Cronicas De Pact Macias