SPAIN: MADRID: INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL HONOURS MARIA FELIX

Описание: (8 Apr 1997) Spanish/Nat

Mexican screen legend Maria Felix has been honoured at the first International Film Festival in Madrid.

It is a tribute to Felix's famous "rebel beauty" and her 30-year cinema career which included roles with some of the greatest directors of the 1950s and 1960s.

Looking her best, 82-year-old Maria Felix posed for the photographers in the Ritz Hotel, Madrid.

In the 1950's Maria Felix stole the hearts of men around the world with her passionate beauty and her famous "eyes of fire."

It is rumoured that King Farouk of Egypt once offered her his empire.

The film legend was honoured at the first Madrid International Film Festival with a special screening of her best known films.

It was a tribute to Felix's 30-year cinema career which included roles with some of the greatest directors of the 1950s and 1960s.

Maria Felix - also known as "La Doña de America" and "Maria Bonita" -- was Mexico's biggest screen star during the Golden Era of Mexican cinema in the 1950s.

Born in 1915 in the mountain village of the Sonora region, María Félix stepped into the film world by chance, when director Fernando Palacios discovered her.

SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"I started by improvising. I didn't know what cinema was. I knew nothing about this world. I was entering a different world, one that I knew nothing about. So I started learning as I worked and I continued to learn after I became successful. That's what forced me to learn. I learned the tricks of the trade and that's what was most difficult. When I watch my films I always think I could have done better."
SUPER CAPTION: Maria Felix, actress

Felix said she earned more that enough money in Mexico, but her reason for not doing films in Hollywood was not to do with money, but a matter of principle.

SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"I didn't work in the United States because they never offered anything worthwhile there. It's not that I didn't want to work in Hollywood, but they only offered me roles as an Indian and I'm not a person who goes around carrying a basket on my head."
SUPER CAPTION: Maria Felix, actress

Felix became famous in Emilio Fernandez's film "Enamorada" ("In Love") three years after her debut in 1942 in the film "El peñón de las águilas"( Eagles' peak).

It followed "Mare Nostrum,'' "La noche del sábado" (Saturday Night) and "Una mujer cualquiera" (A common woman).

Felix told reporters her formula for success.

SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"I think what has helped me a lot--if we are going to talk about help-- is discipline. Any job you do, even when you love, if you don't have energy or discipline, nothing happens. Everything goes wrong."
SUPER CAPTION: Maria Felix, actress

Italian actor Marcelo Mastronianni and Argentinean actress Isabel Sarli were also honoured at the Festival that will end Sunday.

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