“Mexican Spitfire” Mystery Solved After 7 Decades!
by Barbara Schroeder
Emmy award-winning journalist
Beautiful actress Lupe Velez, the Sofia Vergara of her day, was famous for not only her passionate acting and love life (plenty of paramours and a marriage to “Tarzan” aka Johnny Weismuller) but also for a devastating tragedy and urban myth: that she died with her head in a toilet after committing suicide once she found out she was pregnant by a new lover who “didn’t want to marry her.”
It appears the tempestuous Lupe preferred death over unwed motherhood, and the actress carefully scripted the last moments of life. Her plan? Dress in a beautiful gown trimmed with flowers, lie down on her silk-covered movie star bed, overdose on Seconal sleeping pills and drift off to death.
But the scene didn’t play out like the 36-year-old fiery bombshell intended, and gossip vultures descended. Word leaked out that the lifeless Lupe wasn’t found sleeping peacefully on her bed, and rumors began to swirl, reaching an ugly crescendo in the underground best-selling book “Hollywood Babylon.” Author Kenneth Anger claims Lupe was found drowned with her head in the toilet after throwing up the remains of a spicy last meal.
For years, fans and officials have searched unsuccessfully for death scene photos to prove once and for all what really happened the night of Dec. 14th, 1944 at Lupe Velez’s Rodeo Drive home, but no pictures could be found and her file had mysteriously “disappeared” from the police department.