Octavio Paz once wrote: “María Félix was born twice: once when her parents gave birth to her and another when she invented herself.” And in that invention of hers she created aesthetic and ideological worlds that also led the poet and Nobel Prize winner to say of her: “She is a lightning bolt that tears apart the shadows.” Everything was said about her: that she was arrogant, ambitious, calculating, a devourer of men, but the reality is that she was a woman ahead of her time who did not fit into an era where many things were kept silent and where a society of double standards reigned. . In her interviews, she brought up topics such as machismo and domestic violence and encouraged women to study and be self-sufficient. The press of the time was very cruel to her and described her as anything from a murderer to a drug addict without any basis. She, instead of getting upset, created an album with headlines that attacked her to revel in them and strengthen that self-construction of herself.
His creation was not limited to himself, but also to the world in which he wanted to live. She used to say: “Where the antiques are, I am.” And it was so true that she was discovered for the cinema when she was gazing enthralled at the window of an antique store. From that moment she began the invention of Félix by others, such as the designer Armando Valdés Peza and a team of hers that helped modulate her voice and disguise her stuttering to the point of making it imperceptible. But the great creation was personal and was born of vast intelligence, great discipline and the early understanding of what it caused in others. A power that was revealed when she, being a stranger, demanded that her debut in The Rock of Souls was in a starring role and that his salary was higher than that of any of his colleagues (including Jorge Negrete, who was already a star). He refused to wear the clothes that had been assigned to him and asked that all his wardrobe be bought at El Palacio de Hierro, which at that time was, in terms of fashion, the best that could be aspired to in Mexico, since it had a workshop. haute couture and a large fabric store.
Chavela Vargas said that Mexicans are born wherever they want and she chose not only to be born in Álamos, Sonora, in the north of Mexico, but also to do so and die on the same day: April 8 (2002) at the age of 88 ( was born in 1914), the number that resembles infinity, as Mary was infinite. To celebrate it, the Estate of María Félix and the Palacio de Hierro itself, through the María Félix Social Promotion and the collaboration of private collectors, set up Mary and fashion, 1914-2024, an exhibition that could be seen in Mexico City in April. She used to say: “I look for the beautiful, what no one has, I am a fan of splendor.” That and her taste for excess were palpable in her homes in Paris, Cuernavaca and the Polanco neighborhood in Mexico, as well as her mania for antique textiles and unsuspected ethnic collections.
Hanzel Ortegón, one of the great specialists on María Félix, curator of the exhibition and member of the Estate of María Félix, comments: “María was a collector of collections, her life could be divided like the rooms of a museum. She collected loves, songs and suitors, among whom were Diego Rivera, who brought her snakes from Oaxaca that she left free in the garden of one of her houses, and Luis Miguel Dominguín, with whom she went out sometimes after a meeting in the Baraja’s airport. He owned large collections of French porcelain, textiles and lace, silver, paintings (including portraits of him by artists such as Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Remedios Varo and her last partner, Antoine Tzapoff), antiques, old and rare books, of decorative arts, glassware, jewelry and much more that helped her achieve that spectacular atmosphere that always surrounded her.” Added to all this was her range of illustrious friendships, with characters as diverse as Dalí, the Duchess of Windsor or Sara Montiel, in addition to her five husbands (Enrique Álvarez, the singer Raúl Prado, the composer Agustín Lara, the actor Jorge Negrete and banker Alexander Berger).
“With her vision always of progress, when she married Alex Berger, the French businessman who gave her so much containment and support, and began to spend much longer periods in Paris, she began to wonder why Mexico City did not have a metro l
ike that of that capital. It was she and Berger who initiated the efforts to get it started. The first plans were presented in the living room of her house in Polanco. When they asked her what the best gift Berger had given her was, she answered: “The subway, which is mine and he gave it to me.”
“María was a show-stopper and that’s why she didn’t mind mixing one of her impressive Cartier snake or crocodile necklaces with a jewelry bow. Or, to the dismay of many, altering historical pieces so that they end up fitting with her world. María Félix crossed the oceans with about thirty suitcases, personal couturier, hairdresser, Topolino – the woman whom she took with her everywhere solely and exclusively to apply her eyelashes -, secretary and the boy, a briefcase in which she carried all her jewelry. In short, everything she needed to achieve the majesty and the desired effect,” explains Rodrigo Flores, Director of Experiences at El Palacio de Hierro.
As for that sideboard in the antique store in front of which she was discovered for the cinema, what María Félix was contemplating were a lamp and a mirror made of German Dresden porcelain in the chromatic range of pastel colors that she liked so much, the same ones that It was bought with her first film salary and that literally accompanied her the rest of her life. That same lamp was the one that was placed on her bed in her house in Polanco, where she died on April 8, 2002. It may be that when she received that first salary for her acting benefits there were many other basic needs to attend to, but María He always knew that life was going to continue giving him opportunities that he was going to take. Because she herself said it clearly: “I don’t live up to my expectations, I live up to my possibilities.”
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