M
aria Cristina Estrella Marcela Jurado de Garcia was born on January sixteenth, 1924 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Known to western fans by the much shorter name of Katy Jurado. She began her career as a Mexican film, stage, and television actress in Mexico in 1943 in the film No Maturas. Her family was against her chosen profession. She married Victor Velazquez in 1943 at sixteen to escape her family’s control. They had two children together, Victor Hugo and Sandra. They divorced in 1946. In 1951, Budd Boettcher and John Wayne saw her at a bullfight in Mexico, and Boettcher brought her to Hollywood for a small part in his film. The Bullfighter and the Lady, with Robert Stack, Gilbert Roland, Joy Page and Virginia Page. During the filming, Katy spoke her lines phonetically, since she didn’t speak or understand English. In 1952, director Stanley Cramer cast her
as saloon owner Helen Ramirez in the classic western High Noon. The movie starred Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Lloyd Bridges, and Lon Chaney, Jr. Katy learned to speak English for the role. She took lessons for two hours a day for two months, before filming began. This film earned her a Golden Globe for best-supporting actress. The first Latin American actress to win this award. Joseph Kane directed Katy in San Antone in 1953, she played Mistania Figueroa. The film starred Rod Cameron, Arleen Whelan, Forrest Tucker, Bob Steele, and Harry Carey, Jr. Carl Miller (Cameron), a Texas cowboy led a cattle drive into French-held Mexico to exchange the herd for fifty prisoners being held by former Confederate officer Brian Culver (Tucker), who once double-crossed him. She also made Arrowhead that same year, directed by Charles Marquis Warren. The film starred Charlton Heston as Indian Scout Ed Bannon. It
