In 1940 Maria Felix was walking on avenue Niño Perdido, near the Latin American tower in Mexico City, when a man approached her and invited her to act in a movie.

Maria, then 26, was distrustful, but when Fernando A. Palacios offered to be her representative, things changed. He was captivated with her beauty.

She only worked once with this director, in 1944, when she starred "La china poblana". She also starred "El peñon de las animas" along with Jorge Negrete, who became her husband, and "Doña Barbara", a role that gave her the surname "La Doña".

Maria had a strong character, but she wasn't always like that.

When she was a little girl she couldn't talk to her father while they sat at the table, and she stuttered a little, a speech disorder that she overcame by emphasizing each syllable in her dialogues with a deep voice.

In 1994 she wrote a chapter dedicated to her brother Pablo in her autobiography.

"He was so handsome that my legs shook. I thought I would find a guy like him, with his skin and eyes. It was silly, because no other love smells like the perfume of incest."

If Maria saw an actor reading his script on the set, she would grab the sheets, toss them and tell him that he should have studied at home.

In 1954 Maria acted in foreign films such as "French Can Can" (France) and "La bella Otero" (Italy).

She was also picky with her photos.

"That light is not right for me. That is not my angle," she used to say every time photographer Armando Herrera suggested a pose to her.

That is how La Doña was. So beautiful that Diego Rivera once said that he was no longer an atheist, because he had met a goddess.

Her love life

Maria Felix first husband and father of her son, Enrique Alvarez, was so jealous that when she took her to the movies, they came late and left early so that nobody would see her.

She also married singer and actor Jorge Negrete in 1952, even though their marriage only lasted one year because her husband died.

Felix left Agustin Lara when she learnt that he was unfaithful, and the same happened to politician Jorge Pasquel, who courted her with flowers and chocolates.

Three days before marrying Argentinean actor Carlos Thompson, she broke up with him because Felix realized she only felt a physical attraction for him. She didn't accept the marriage proposal of Jean Cau from France either, because she gave preference to her career.

La Doña lived with Alex Berger for 18 years in Polanco neighborhood, who made several paintings for her, and Antoine Tzapoff was her last partner.

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