Maria Montez

Adapted from the article Maria Montez (http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.phtml?title=Maria_Montez), from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.. Ouspenskaya died from a stroke several days after receiving severe burns in a house fire, which she had caused by falling asleep while smoking a cigarette. Her legacy as the only great star from that country remains, and in 1996 the Maria Montez International Airport opened in Barahona. Despite her two Academy Award nominations her later films were inferior productions such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and Tarzan and the Amazons (1945). Much loved by the people of the impoverished Dominican Republic, in her birthplace of Barahona the city changed the name of an existing street to that bearing her name. Her other successes included The Rains Came (1939), Waterloo Bridge (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), and Kings Row (1942). She was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris where her tombstone reads her theatrical year of birth 1918-1951. She received a second nomination in 1939 for her role in Love Affair.

The 39-year-old Montez died after apparently suffering a heart attack and drowning in her bath. Her first Hollywood role, in Dodsworth (1936) brought her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also wrote 3 books, two of which were published, as well as penning a number of poems. Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier, Ouspenskaya had avoided making a career in film, until the financial hardship of her school forced her to consider the possibilities of film to help her build her finances. There, Maria Montez appeared in several films and a play written by her husband. One of Ouspenskaya's students at the school during this period was the then unknown teenager, Anne Baxter. At War's end, the couple had a daughter, Maria Christina, born in Hollywood in 1946 following which they moved to a home in Suresnes, Île-de-France in the eastern suburb of Paris, France. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade, and in 1929 she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York.

While working in Hollywood, she met and married French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont (1911-2001) who had to leave a few days after their wedding to serve in the Free French Forces fighting the Nazis in Europe. The Moscow Art Theatre travelled widely throughout Europe and when it arrived in New York in 1922 she decided to remain. Over her career, Maria Montez appeared in 26 films, 21 of which were made in North America and five in Europe. A member of the Moscow Art Theatre, she was directed by Konstantin Stanislavski, and for the remainder of her life advocated and taught his method. Dubbed the "The Queen of Technicolor," she made her film debut in 1940 opposite Johnny Mack Brown, marking a career that saw her much loved by audiences, usually in adventure films as the beautiful damsel in distress. Born in Tula, Russia, Ouspenskaya studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow and performed extensively in Russian theater. Her screen image was crafted as that of a hot-blooded Latin seductress, playing characters dressed in exotic costumes and sparking jewels. Maria Ouspenskaya (July 29, 1876 - December 3, 1949) was a Russian born actress who achieved success as an stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.

Eventually she accepted an offer from a Hollywood film studio. Determined to become a stage actress, she hired an agent and created a résumé that made her several years younger by listing her birth as 1917 in some instances and 1918 in others. Her marriage lasted several years but in 1939 she ended up in New York City where her exotic looks landed her a job as a model. At a young age, she taught herself to speak English, and in 1932 she married William McFeeters, an American banker working in her seaside home town of Barahona.

The second daughter of 10 children, she was given the name Maria Africa in honor of her diplomat/businessman father's native land, the Spanish Isla de la Palma, on the African continent. Maria Montez was the stage name for Maria Africa Gracia Vidal (June 6, 1912, Barahona, Dominican Republic - September 7, 1951, Paris, France). La Vendetta del corsaro (1951). Amore e sangue (1951).

Il Ladro di Venezia (1950). Portrait d'un assassin (1949). Hans le marin (1948). Siren of Atlantis (1948).

Pirates of Monterey (1947). The Exile (1947). Tangier (1946). Sudan (1945).

Bowery to Broadway (1944). Gypsy Wildcat (1944). Cobra Woman (1944). Follow the Boys (1944).

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944). White Savage (1943). Arabian Nights (1942). The Mystery of Marie Roget (1942).

Bombay Clipper (1942). South of Tahiti (1941). Moonlight in Hawaii (1941). Raiders of the Desert (1941).

That Night in Rio (1941). Lucky Devils (1941). The Invisible Woman (1940). Boss of Bullion City (1940).