Lupita Tovar

Guadalupe Natalia Tovar Sullivan (27 July 1910 – 12 November 2016), known professionally as Lupita Tovar, was a Mexican-American actress. She is best known for her starring role in the 1931 Spanish-language version of Drácula, filmed in Los Angeles by Universal Pictures at night using the same sets as the Bela Lugosi version, but with a different cast and director; and her leading-lady role in the British-made Buster Keaton feature The Invader (1935, released in the United States as An Old Spanish Custom).

She also starred in the film Santa (1932), one of the first Mexican sound films, and one of the first commercial Spanish-language sound films. After dying at the age of 106 in 2016, she registered a record of having been the oldest living Mexican actress, before being surpassed in 2026 by Dolores Muñoz Ledo, who died at 107.

Early life Tovar was born in Matías Romero, Oaxaca, Mexico, the daughter of Egidio Tovar, who was from Tehuacán, Puebla, Mexico, and Mary Tovar (née Sullivan), who was Irish-Mexican, from Matías Romero, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Career

Early career

Tovar was discovered in Mexico City by documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty. She had performed in a dance class and was invited, along with other girls, to do a screen test as part of a competition. Tovar won first place.

In 1930, Tovar starred opposite Antonio Moreno in La Voluntad del Muerto, the Spanish-language version of The Cat Creeps. It was based on the John Willard mystery play, The Cat and the Canary. Both The Cat Creeps and La Voluntad del muerto were remakes of The Cat and the Canary (1927). Casting was done in July 1930 with the film being released later the same year. The Spanish version was directed by George Melford and, like the Spanish-language version of Dracula (1931), was filmed at night using the same sets as those used for filming the English-language version during the day.

Tovar shot Drácula, in 1930, when she was 20 years old. The film was produced by Paul Kohner. The couple soon married.

The film was based on a famous book featuring an innocent girl from the country who has an affair with a soldier and later is abandoned, becoming a prostitute to survive. Santa was such a hit that the Mexican government issued a postage stamp featuring Tovar as Santa. "I tell you I could not walk on the streets when Santa came out," Tovar said. "People tore my dress for souvenirs. It was something."

In 2006, Santa was shown in a celebratory screening by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences called "A Salute to Lupita Tovar". The event also featured a conversation between Tovar and film historian Bob Dickson.

Other films In 1931, Melford directed Tovar in another Universal picture, East of Borneo, which starred Rose Hobart. Tovar also worked on films at Columbia Pictures.

In 1935 she co-starred opposite Buster Keaton in The Invader, filmed in England. It is better known by its American title, An Old Spanish Custom.

Personal life Tovar went by the nickname Lupita from the time she was a child. Their grandsons, Chris and Paul Weitz, are successful film directors.

Tovar owned a bassinette that she loaned to friends in New York who had children after her: including Julie Baumgold, a writer and her husband Edward Kosner, publisher of New York; Elizabeth Sobieski, a novelist; Judy Licht, a TV newswoman, and her husband Jerry Della Femina, an advertising executive.

In the early 1990s, the release of the Spanish-language Drácula on home video sparked a revival of interest in Tovar's films. She said, "It's like a dream being invited to all of these festivals and showings of my films. Was that really me up there on the screen? I had almost forgotten I was an actress. It has been absolutely wonderful how people have been so nice. Usually people die and then they get the award, but to be alive and receive this honor is fantastic!"

Death Tovar died at the age of 106 on 12 November 2016 in Los Angeles of heart disease, just one day after her daughter Susan Kohner's 80th birthday.

Awards 2001: Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas (Mexican Academy of Arts and Sciences), Lifetime Achievement Award at the XLIII Ceremonia de Entrega del Arielrecibió el Ariel de Oro

Filmography Features

Television