Lon Chaney and Lupe Velez in a still from “Where East Is East,” listed on EBay with bids starting at $35.
For my money, Lupe Velez has it all over Garbo—she was just as beautiful, and not only a great dramatic and comedic actress, but she could sing and dance like nobody’s business. Sadly, after a great start out of the gate, Lupe found herself typed as “the sexy funny-accent girl,” like Carmen Miranda, Lyda Roberti, the Gabors, Fifi D’Orsay, and today’s Sofia Vergara. We all know of her sad ending: unmarried, pregnant and Catholic, she killed herself in 1944, aged 38 (and no, she did not drown in her toilet—gawd, Kenneth Anger has a lot to answer for).
Here she is burning up the stage in a number from the very pre-Code The Half-Naked Truth (1932), the film that really made her name as a comedienne:
Five years later, here she is clowning around with Robert Woolsey in the utterly charming little 1937 B-comedy High Flyers (Woolsey’s last film; he died the following year):
ladailymirror.com 
Mucho gracias, senora Golden!
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Lupe’s dancing really picks up after a minute or so and the music gathers steam also! Love the audience’s evening wear.
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I really enjoyed those clips. Thanks.
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Lupe was such a gem! Every time I see her I’m entertained.
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She so deserves to be remembered for her talent than her death. Damn that ugly toad Kenneth Anger.
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The comparison to Sofia Vergara is interesting, as she and Velez both married movie strongmen.
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I also liked her bar fight with Laurel and Hardy in HOLLYWOOD PARTY (1934).
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Eve Golden followed through with a wonderful hard back biography in 2023: “Strictly Dynamite: The Sensational Life of Lupe Velez” published by The University Press of Kentucky.
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