Raquel Torres

Raquel Torres (born either Paula Marie Osterman or Wilhelmina von Osterman; November 11, 1908 – August 10, 1987) was a Mexican-born American film actress. Her sister was actress Renee Torres.

Early life Torres was born in Hermosillo to a German emigrant father and a Mexican mother. Her mother died while Raquel was very young and the family moved to the United States, where she spent most of her time. She also became the first person to have her voice recorded as part of "a new system in the selection of motion picture talent".

The next year she was third-billed behind Lili Damita and Ernest Torrence in The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929), the first film version of the classic Thornton Wilder novel, which was a part-talkie. This Oscar winner (for Art Direction) was an early disaster movie that bonded a group of strangers who see their lives flash before their eyes while trapped on a collapsing bridge. Torres' other 1929 film was The Desert Rider (1929), a standard western in which she provided spicy diversion opposite cowboy star Tim McCoy.

Torres continued the tropical island pace with The Sea Bat (1930) and Aloha (1931) playing various island girls and biracial beauty types. Also in 1931, she had a vaudeville act in New York. On Broadway, she played Teresa in Adam Had Two Sons (1932).

In her last year of filming, she played a sexy foil to the raucous comedy teams of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey in So This Is Africa (1933) and the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup (1933). It was Torres to whom Groucho delivered his classic line: "I could dance with you until the cows came home. On second thought, I'd rather dance with the cows until you came home."

Torres abruptly retired following her marriage to businessman Stephen Ames in 1935. Her husband later produced postwar "B" films but she never returned to the film industry even with her husband's connections.

Romance and marriages

In 1934, Torres met the New York stockbroker Stephen Ames at a Hollywood party.

Death On August 10, 1987, Torres died from a heart attack in Malibu, California. She was 78 years old.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes 1928 White Shadows in the South Seas Fayaway 1929 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Pepita Released as both silent and part-talkie, part-talkie version is lost The Desert Rider Dolores Alvarado 1930 Under a Texas Moon Raquella The Sea Bat Nina Estrellados Elvira Rosas The March of Time Herself Unreleased1931 Aloha Ilanu 1933 So This Is Africa Tarzana The Woman I Stole Teresita Duck Soup Vera Marcal Red Wagon Sheba Prince / Starlina 1936 Go West, Young Man Rico's Girlfriend in 'Drifting Lady' Uncredited