I'm mostly familiar with Velez as a punchline in various Hollywood stories - rooting Gary Cooper, marrying Johnny Weismuller, Mexican Spitfire movies being on a double bill with Magnificent Ambersons, suicide in Kenneth Anger's book. So I'm glad Golden gave her a bio.
She did a good job. There's probably a few too many reviews and recaps but a strong picture does emerge. Velez was lively, fun, nice, with a sex drive... she became a star quite quickly (stage appearance, then picked in The Gaucho) and Golden argues she had potential to do more than she did. I haven't seen enough of her work to comment but she definitely kept employed for her life as a name, which is not be be sneezed at.
Golden admits that Velez maybe wasn't her own best ally - she kept leaping from bad relationship to relationship, was involved in domestic violence situatiosn - but the author makes a good case as to Velez films to check out, which I will. She made a lot of them and not many are well known.
The ending is moving. The suicide seems to have caused by a number of things - pregnant, getting old, career going downhill.
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