'The Queen of Technicolor' by Tom Zimmerman
Maria Montez’s short, unlikely movie career is the subject of a new biography, Tom Zimmerman’s The Queen of Technicolor. Arriving in New York in 1939 from the Dominican Republic, Montez could neither sing nor dance, and her accent was so impenetrable that she once joked, “Even I cannot understand what I’m saying.” Even so, she was beautiful and caught the eye of all beholders, beginning with Broadway agent Louis Shurr, who acted as a talent scout for Hollywood, and continuing through her seven years at Universal.
Montez became the star of what Zimmerman calls “Neverland” movies. With their exotic settings, Siren of Atlantis and Arabian Nights provided audiences with escape to other continents and centuries without regard for reality. Costume designers had free rein to clothe Montez in outrageous, revealing garb. Those movies were wildly popular during World War II as America soldiered through rationing, mounting casualties and uncertain outcomes. “The country was hungry for diversion and movies provided it,” Zimmerman writes.
As the author shows, Montez’s was no ordinary immigrant story. She came from wealth and connections and inherited a fortune from her doting father. She was an imperious child who devoured movie magazines and vowed to become a cover girl. Montez’s Hollywood stardom was a triumph of her will to succeed as well as the providence of good timing. With European movie markets shutting down as the Nazis advanced, Hollywood made good on its losses by selling pictures in Latin America, even if that meant building cinemas in some places. However, they had obstacles to overcome, including the resentment of many Latins for the way they were depicted by Hollywood.
With a personality that refused surrender, Montez somehow put a new spin on Latinas in Hollywood and even found a lead role in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” whose goal, increasingly, was to keep Latin America out of pro-Nazi hands. Montez became “one of the primary national symbols” of FDR’s bid to win friends south of the border. “Much to the joy of Latin fans, she took seriously her role as an ambassador of good will, never used her accent as a comic thing and, unlike any other Latin actress of the time, always played a queen, princess, or someone from the upper class.”
It didn’t last. Montez’s aristocratic entitlement rankled Universal executives who “grew sick of arguing with her over the direction of her career and the parts she was offered.” She also had the audacity to sue the studio. Dropped by Universal after the war, Montez’s career continued in European B movies, but she “simply did not have the acting ability to overcome the poor scripts.” She died young and suddenly in 1951. Montez had no second act in the U.S. during her lifetime, but her movies were embraced in the ‘60s as kitsch and became an inspiration for queer cinema. The Queen of Technicolor provides a thorough and engaging account.
The Queen of Technicolor: Maria Montez in Hollywood is published by University Press of Kentucky.
