Katy Jurado

María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García (16 January 1924 – 5 July 2002), known professionally as Katy Jurado ( jə-RAH-doh, Spanish: [ˈkati xuˈɾaðo]), was a Mexican actress. She followed in the footsteps of earlier Mexican actresses in Hollywood; including Dolores Del Rio, Lupe Velez, and María Félix. And her talent for playing a variety of characters helped to promote later Mexican actresses in American cinema. She acted in popular Western films of the 1950s and 1960s. She was the first Latin American actress nominated for an Oscar, as Best Supporting Actress for her work in Broken Lance (1954), and was the first to win a Golden Globe Award, for her performance in High Noon (1952).

Life and career

1924–1943: Childhood and early years

María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García, known from early childhood as "Katy", was born on 16 January 1924, in Mexico City, Mexico, the daughter of Luis Jurado Ochoa, a lawyer, and Vicenta García, a singer. Jurado's younger brothers were Luis Raúl and Óscar Sergio. Her mother was a singer who worked for the Mexican radio station XEW (the oldest radio station in Latin America). Her mother was sister of Mexican musician Belisario de Jesús García, author of popular Mexican songs such as Las Cuatro Milpas. Jurado's cousin Emilio Portes Gil was President of Mexico (1928–1930).

Jurado lived her first years and studied at a school run by nuns in the Guadalupe Inn neighborhood of Mexico City. She later studied to be a bilingual secretary. She wanted to study law and become a lawyer.

Her singular beauty drew attention since she was a teenager, and she was invited to work as an actress by producers and filmmakers, among them Emilio Fernández (one of the most prominent Mexican filmmakers at that time) who offered her a role in his first movie The Isle of Passion (1941). Although her godfather was Mexican actor Pedro Armendáriz, her parents never gave their consent.

Another filmmaker interested in her was Mauricio de la Serna who offered her a role in the film No matarás (1943). She signed the contract without authorization from her parents, and when they found out, they threatened to send her to a boarding school in Monterrey. Around this time, she met the aspiring actor Víctor Velázquez and married him soon afterward. Her marriage was largely motivated by the desire to continue a career as an actress and to escape the yoke of her parents. Velazquez was the father of her children, Victor Hugo and Sandra. The marriage ended in 1943, shortly after Jurado began her film career.

1943–1951: First Mexican films

Jurado debuted as an actress in the Mexican film No matarás (1943). From that moment on, her acting talent, but above all her exotic beauty and sensual appeal, gave her the opportunity to work in numerous films. She specialized in playing wicked and seductive women. Jurado said:

I knew that my body was provocative, but also that I was not beautiful, although yes, I admit, my physique was different and very sensual.

She appeared in 16 more films over the next seven years in what film historians have named the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. She acted with acclaimed Mexican film stars such as Pedro Infante, Sara Montiel, Pedro Armendáriz and others. In 1953, she starred in Luis Buñuel's film El Bruto, for which she received an Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actress, Mexico's equivalent of an Academy Award.

1951–1968: Success in Hollywood

In addition to acting, Jurado worked as a movie columnist, radio reporter, and bullfight critic to support her family. She was on assignment when filmmaker Budd Boetticher and actor John Wayne spotted her at a bullfight. Neither knew she was an actress. However, Boetticher, who was also a professional bullfighter, cast Jurado in his 1951 film Bullfighter and the Lady, opposite Gilbert Roland, as the wife of an aging matador. She was not interested in working in American films but accepted because the film would be shot in Mexico. She had rudimentary English language skills and memorized and delivered her lines phonetically. Despite this limitation, her strong performance brought her to the attention of Hollywood producer Stanley Kramer, who cast her in the classic Western High Noon (1952), starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Jurado learned to speak English for the role, studying and taking classes two hours per day for two months. She played saloon owner Helen Ramírez, former love of reluctant hero Cooper's Will Kane. She earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and gained notice in the American movie industry.

From the success of the film, Jurado began working on numerous American films, most of them in the Western genre. In 1953, she had a role in San Antone, directed by Joseph Kane and opposite Rod Cameron. In the same year, she had a role in Arrowhead with Charlton Heston and Jack Palance, playing an evil Comanche woman, the love interest of Heston's character.

In 1954, actress Dolores del Río was accused of being a communist sympathizer at the height of the McCarthy era, and the U.S. government refused permission for her to work in the film Broken Lance, directed by Edward Dmytryk and where she was going to interpret Spencer Tracy's Comanche wife. Jurado was selected for the role despite the resistance of the studio because of her youth. After viewing footage of her scenes, studio executives were impressed. Her performance garnered an Academy Award nomination. Jurado was the first Latin American actress to compete for the Oscar.

In the same year, Jurado appeared with Kirk Douglas in the Henry Hathaway film The Racers. In 1955, Jurado filmed Trial, directed by Mark Robson, with Glenn Ford. It was a drama about a Mexican boy accused of raping a white girl, with Jurado playing the mother of the accused. For this role, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the same year, she traveled to Italy for the filming of Trapeze, directed by Carol Reed, with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. On set, Jurado had severe friction with the film's other female star, actress Gina Lollobrigida.

Despite the fact that she always stated that acting in the theater did not please her, in 1956, Jurado debuted on Broadway in the play The Best House in Naples (1956), by Eduardo de Filippo.

In 1956, she participated in the film Man from Del Rio (1956), opposite Anthony Quinn, one of the few Hollywood movies to have Mexican actors as main stars. Later she acted in Westerns Dragoon Wells Massacre (1957) with Barry Sullivan, and The Badlanders (1958), with Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine. In 1957, she debuted on television with a guest appearance in an episode of Playhouse 90. In 1959, she acted for the first time under Sam Peckinpah's direction in an episode of The Rifleman. In 1962 she appeared as the historical character La Tules in an episode of Death Valley Days.

In 1959, Marlon Brando, with whom Jurado maintained a close friendship, invited her to participate in One-Eyed Jacks, his first film as director. After marrying Ernest Borgnine, they founded their own production company called Sanvio Corp. The couple traveled to Italy where they partnered with the producer Dino de Laurentiis in Barabbas (where both acted with Anthony Quinn) and I briganti Italiani, directed by Mario Camerini.

In 1961, Jurado returned to Mexico and filmed La Bandida (1962) where she shared credits with Pedro Armendáriz and the temperamental Mexican actress María Félix, with whom Jurado had friction on the set. Her stormy marriage with Borgnine ended in 1963. Depressed, Jurado returned to Mexico and established her residence in the city of Cuernavaca; however, she decided to alternate her work with films between Mexico and the United States. In 1965, Jurado returned to Hollywood for the film Smoky, directed by George Sherman, starring Fess Parker. In 1966, she played the mother of George Maharis's character in A Covenant with Death. In 1968, she appeared in the film Stay Away, Joe in the role of the half-Apache stepmother of Elvis Presley's character.

1970–2002: Later years

In the next years, Jurado alternated her work between Hollywood and Mexico. In 1970, she filmed The Bridge in the Jungle opposite John Huston. In 1973, she appeared in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, directed by Sam Peckinpah.