I have been fascinated by Mexican cinema for as long as I can remember. Growing up in Los Angeles, I would often take the bus downtown with my girlfriends to the Mexican movie theaters. By then, Dolores del Río was no longer a box office draw. My favorite stars were Rosita Quintana, Lola Beltrán, and Amalia Mendoza. I must have seen ¿Dónde estás, corazón? at least twenty times.
My interest in Dolores del Río, known as Lola to her intimates, didn’t blossom until decades later, when I wrote the novel Frida. As a friend of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, del Río came up repeatedly in my research, and she figured in my book as an elegant foil to Kahlo, a foul-mouthed, irreverent rebel. I began to watch the films del Río had made during her heyday in Mexico—those exquisite avatars of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema directed by Emilio Fernández—and mentioning her in courses I taught at Georgetown University on Kahlo and the art of the Mexican Revolution.
I was impressed with del Río’s talent, her enduring beauty, and the way she flirted with the camera, positioning herself just so to highlight her colossal brown eyes and sculpted cheekbones. But after I began reading about her, I realized that Dolores del Río was more than just a pretty face. She was an extraordinarily resilient woman who learned early in life to cope with adversity. In spite of her professional success, she was painfully aware of the vapidity of Hollywood life and yearned to make socially relevant films. Although she was born into a wealthy family, she never lost sight of those less fortunate than herself. Once she returned to Mexico, she was able to star in films that exalted Mexico’s rich cultural heritage and Indigenous peoples. Over the years, she became a symbol of Mexican womanhood, an icon of female Mexican beauty. Her project to establish day care centers for working women illustrates her commitment to serve the needs of her people. Once I had learned about her fascinating life, I realized that I had to novelize her story.
Naturally, a biofictional novel combines fact and fiction. The historical situations depicted in Miss del Río are true: the escape from Durango, Jaime’s failure as a scriptwriter, the miscegenation laws, the Hays Code, Lola’s return to Mexico, etc. Yet, although biographical fiction draws on fact, the bio-novelist must sift through the verifiable data to determine what is relevant to the portrayal of the subject’s deeper dramatic truth. Bio-novelists do not seek merely to recount their subjects’ lives, but to convey the essence of their subjects’ personalities. To do so, they may have to modify history, imagining intimate moments or even inventing new characters. Merely to describe the life of Dolores del Río would have produced a biography (not a novel) devoid of the personal perspective—the reactions, judgments, and intimate interactions—necessary to make the character come alive. Therefore, I invented an unabashedly opinionated narrative voice for Miss del Río.
Lola’s best friend, the fictional hairdresser Mara, is based on my own mother, Frieda, who, like Miss Marie, studied cosmetology at the prestigious Marinello School of Beauty, moved to California, and worked in beauty shops similar to Mr. Edmond’s. I grew up hearing about the beauty business, although I was never very good at doing my own hair. My mother was a champion Marcelizer, and, although Marcel curls went out of style long before I was born, I knew what a Marcel iron was by the time I was seven. Mrs. Carver, Miss Marie’s loyal customer, is based on one of my mother’s steady customers. Mr. Edmond and Miss Kathy are fictional characters based on my mother’s first employers. Other fictional characters include Tía Emi and Carla Myer, reporter for the fictional Star World.
Even when characters are real, sometimes uncertain or conflicting information exists about them. In those cases, the novelist must make a choice. For example, some sources give Cedric Gibbons’s birth date as 1890 and others as 1893. I chose 1893 to make his age closer to Lola’s. Some sources give his birth place as New York City, others as Dublin. I chose Dublin because an important theme of the book is the immigrant experience.
A project of the scope and size of Miss del Río requires more than one person to bring to fruition. I wish to thank my husband, Mauro, for his encouragement and abiding faith in my work. I am also indebted to my fabulous agent, Leticia Gómez, and my editors, Melanie Fried and Gina Macedo.