Katy Jurado Mexican Actress

María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García (16 January 1924 – 5 July 2002), better known as Katy Jurado, was a Mexican actress of film, television, and theater. Jurado began her acting career in Mexico. She achieved some renown in her country’s cinema during the period known as the Golden Age of Mexican cinema (the 1940s–1950s). In 1951 she was discovered by American filmmakers in Mexico and began her Hollywood career.

She acted in notable Western films of the 1950s and 1960s. An exotic beauty, Jurado specialized in interpretations of complex, stereotyped and sexualized women. Her talent for playing a variety of characters helped pave the way for Mexican actresses in American cinema. She was the first Latin American actress nominated for an Academy Award, as Best Supporting Actress for her work in Broken Lance (1954), and was the first to win a Golden Globe Award, for her performance in High Noon (1952).

Katy Jurado Spouse

Jurado’s first husband was the Mexican actor Victor Velázquez (the stepfather of the popular Mexican actresses Tere and Lorena Velázquez). With Velázquez she had two children, Víctor Hugo (d. 1981) and Sandra.

Early in her career in Hollywood, Jurado had affairs with the filmmaker Budd Boetticher and actor Tyrone Power.

Marlon Brando was smitten with Jurado after seeing her in High Noon. They met when Brando was in Mexico filming Viva Zapata! (1952). He was involved at the time with Movita Castaneda and was having a parallel relationship with Rita Moreno. Brando told Joseph L. Mankiewicz that he was attracted to “her enigmatic eyes, black as hell, pointing at you like fiery arrows”. Jurado commented:

However, their first date became the beginning of an extended affair that lasted many years and peaked at the time they worked together on One-Eyed Jacks (1960), a film directed by Brando.

During the filming of the movie Vera Cruz (1954) in México, Jurado met the American actor Ernest Borgnine, who became her second husband on December 31, 1959. Although initially, their relationship was harmonious, the situation became complicated after their marriage. The temperament of both led to numerous violent confrontations, some of which were documented by the newspapers of the time. Jurado claimed to have suffered physical violence from Borgnine during their marriage. Jurado and Borgnine finally divorced in 1963.

Jurado had a romantic relationship with the western novelist Louis L’Amour. She said: “I have love letters that he wrote to me until the last day of his life.”

Jurado claimed to have been one of the first people to find the body of Mexican actress Miroslava Stern after her tragic suicide. According to Jurado, the picture that Miroslava had between her hands was of Cantinflas, but artistic manager Fanny Schatz exchanged the photo for one of the Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín.

Katy Jurado Awards

Academy Awards, USA

Golden Globes, USA

ALMA Awards

Ariel Awards, Mexico

Golden Boot Awards

Guadalajara International Film Festival

Mexican Cinema Journalists

Premios ACE

Walk of Fame

Katy Jurado Movies

In addition to acting, Jurado worked as a movie columnist, radio reporter and bullfight critic to support her family. She was on assignment when filmmaker Budd Boetticher and actor John Wayne spotted her at a bullfight. Neither knew she was an actress. However, Boetticher, who was also a professional bullfighter, cast Jurado in his 1951 film Bullfighter and the Lady, opposite Gilbert Roland, as the wife of an aging matador. She had rudimentary English language skills, and memorized and delivered her lines phonetically. Despite this handicap, her strong performance brought her to the attention of Hollywood producer Stanley Kramer, who cast her in the classic Western High Noon (1952), starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Jurado learned to speak English for the role, studying and taking classes two hours a day for two months. She played saloon owner Helen Ramírez, the former love of reluctant hero Cooper’s Will Kane. She earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and gained notice in the American movie industry. In 1953 she had a role in Arrowhead with Charlton Heston and Jack Palance, playing an evil Comanche woman, the love interest of Heston’s character.

In 1954, Jurado was chosen to play Spencer Tracy’s Comanche wife in the film Broken Lance, directed by Edward Dmytryk. The role had originally been intended for Dolores del Río, but the U.S. government, accusing del Rio of being a communist sympathizer at the height of the McCarthy era, refused permission for her to work in the United States. Jurado was then selected for the role, despite the resistance of the studio because of her youth. But after viewing footage of her scenes, studio executives were impressed and their objections vanished. Her performance garnered an Academy Award nomination. Jurado was the first Latin American actress to compete for the Oscar statuette.

In the same year, Jurado appeared with Kirk Douglas in the Henry Hathaway film The Racers. In 1955, Jurado filmed Trial, directed by Mark Robson, with Glenn Ford. It was a drama about a Mexican boy accused of raping a white girl, with Jurado playing the mother of the accused. For this role, she was again nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the same year, she traveled to Italy for the filming of Trapeze, directed by Carol Reed, with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.

Though the theater did not interest her, Jurado agrees to star in The Best House in Naples (1956), a play by Eduardo de Filippo, opposite Raf Vallone on Broadway.

As Jurado’s Hollywood career continued, she specialized more in Western films. She participated in Man from Del Rio (1956), opposite Anthony Quinn, and Dragoon Wells Massacre (1957) with Barry Sullivan. In 1957 she debuted on television with a guest appearance in an episode of Playhouse 90. In 1959 she acted in an episode of The Rifleman, written and directed by Sam Peckinpah. In 1958, she acted in The Badlanders, with Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine, with whom Jurado was already in a relationship. In 1959, Marlon Brando, with whom Jurado maintained a close friendship, invited her to participate in One-Eyed Jacks, his first film as director. After marrying Borgnine, he and Jurado founded their own production company called Sanvio Corp. The couple traveled to Italy, where they partnered with the producer Dino de Laurentiisin Barabbas (where both acted together with Anthony Quinn), and I braganti Italiani, directed by Mario Camerini.

In 1961, Jurado returned to Mexico and filmed Y dios la llamó Tierra (1961) and La Bandida (1963).

In 1962 she appeared as the historical character La Tules in an episode of the syndicated anthology series Death Valley Days.

Her stormy marriage with Borgnine ended in 1963. Depressed, Jurado returned to Mexico and established her residence in the city of Cuernavaca.

In 1965, Jurado returned to Hollywood for the film Smoky, directed by George Sherman, starring Fess Parker. In 1966, she played the mother of George Maharis’s character in A Covenant with Death. In 1968 she appeared in the film Stay Away, Joe in the role of the half-Apache stepmother of Elvis Presley’s character.

Katy Jurado Cause Of Death

Towards the end of her life, Jurado suffered from heart and lung ailments. She died of kidney failure and pulmonary disease on 5 July 2002, at the age of 78, at her home in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. She was buried in Cuernavaca at the Panteón de la Paz cemetery.

Jurado has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7065 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to motion pictures.

In 1953, Jurado was captured in a portrait by Mexican artist Diego Rivera.

In 1998, the Mexican composer Juan Gabriel dedicated a song to Jurado called Que re’chula es Katy (What a beauty is Katy).

She was honored with a Google Doodle on January 16, 2018.

Katy Jurado High Noon

Katy Jurado And John Wayne

Mexican Actress Katy Jurado was born María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García on 16th January 1924 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico and passed away on 5th Jul 2002 Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico aged 78. She is most remembered for Broken Lance. Her zodiac sign is Capricorn.

American Actor John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison on 26th May 1907 in Winterset, Iowa, USA and passed away on 11th Jun 1979 Los Angeles, California, USA aged 72. He is most remembered for The Duke. His zodiac sign is Gemini.

Katy Jurado Net Worth