Trivia: Born into an aristocratic Mexican family, actress Dolores Del Rio was the daughter of a prominent banker. After a convent education, she was married at age 16 to writer Jaime Del Rio, whose name she retained long after the marriage had dissolved. The second cousin of silent film star Ramon Novarro, Del Rio was a regular guest at Hollywood parties; at one of these, director Edwin Carewe, struck by her dazzling beauty, felt she'd be perfect for a role in his upcoming film Joanna (1925). Stardom followed rapidly, with Del Rio achieving top billing in several major silent productions, including What Price Glory? (1927), as the French coquette Charmaine, and The Loves of Carmen (1927), in the title role. Since Del Rio spoke fluent English, the switch-over to sound posed no problem for her, though her marked Hispanic accent limited her range of roles. Most often, she was cast on the basis of beauty first, talent second; she is at her most alluring in 1932's Bird of Paradise, in which she appears all but nude in some sequences. Del Rio looked equally fetching when fully clothed, as in the title role of Madame Du Barry (1934). Upon the breakup of her second marriage to art director Cedric Gibbons, the graceful, intelligent Del Rio became the most eligible "bachelor girl" in Hollywood; one of her most ardent suitors was Orson Welles, ten years her junior, who cast her in his 1942 RKO production Journey Into Fear. In 1943, Del Rio returned to Mexico to star in films, negotiating a "percentage of profits" deal which increased her already vast fortune. Enormously popular in her native country, Del Rio returned only occasionally to Hollywood, usually at the request of such long-standing industry friends as director John Ford. Her seemingly ageless beauty and milk-smooth complexion was the source of envy and speculation; from all accounts, she used no cosmetic surgery, maintaining her looks principally through a diligent (and self-invented) diet and exercise program. Even as late as 1960, she looked far too young to play Elvis Presley's mother in Flaming Star. Del Rio retired from filmmaking in 1978, choosing to devote her time to managing her financial and real estate holdings, and to her lifelong hobbies of writing and painting.

Trivia: Known to his devotees as "El Indio" because of his mixed parentage, Emilio Fernandez was not yet out of his teens when his participation as an officer in Mexico's Huerta rebellion earned him a 20-year prison sentence. Escaping to the United States in 1923, Fernandez worked as a Hollywood extra and bit player, returning to Mexico when granted amnesty in 1934. His directorial career began in 1941 with La Isla de la Pasion. Within a few years he was Mexico's foremost filmmaker specializing in populist dramas, many of them starring his wife, Columba Dominguez. His 1943 film Maria Candelaria won a Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize, while his 1946 adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Pearl, starring his favorite actor Pedro Armendariz and photographed by his longtime collaborator Gabriel Figueroa, earned several additional awards. His fame and prestige did nothing to quench his personal combustibility; notorious in cinematic circles as the only prominent director who ever actually shot a film critic, he later served six months of a four-and-a-half year sentence for manslaughter after killing a farm laborer during an argument. In the '50s Fernandez's prestige declined as the quality of his films slackened and he returned to acting; however, every few years he also directed. In the '60s and '70s he appeared in a number of American films.