An Evening With Sara Montiel 

Program: Fumando espero; La bien pagá; Bésame mucho; La violetera Sara Montiel voice Beatriz Helguera piano - Reception to follow: 7:00–8:30 p.m.
"A fabulously beautiful and gifted movie star.  An internationally famous concert entertainer and an enormously successful recording personality. This is Sarita Montiel." Billboard Magazine, 1964
There is no denying the cultural and artistic achievements of Sara Montiel during her extensive career. She is an icon, diva and mythical figure of Spanish cinema and pop culture since the 1950s. After crossing cultural and geographical barriers during the Spanish Civil War, and becoming the first Spanish actress to work in Hollywood for Warner Brothers, she returned to Spain and revitalized the Spanish film industry in the middle of Franco’s dictatorship, solidifying her presence as an acclaimed actress and singer in both Europe and Latin America. Sara’s leadership and fame at this stage of Spanish cinema, along with her sensuality and artistic power, make her one of Spain’s few living legends.
Montiel started in movies at 16 in her native Spain where she filmed her first international success playing an Islamic princess in the 1948 film Locura de Amor, released in the US as The Mad Queen. Later she conquered Mexico, starring in a dozen films in less than five years. Hollywood came calling afterwards, and she was introduced to United States moviegoers in the film Vera Cruz (1954) co-starring with Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, and directed by Robert Aldrich. She was offered the standard seven-year contract at Columbia Pictures, which she quickly refused, afraid of Hollywood's typecasting policies for Hispanics. Instead she free-lanced at Warner Bros. with Mario Lanza and Joan Fontaine in Serenade (1956), directed by Anthony Mann, and at RKO in Samuel Fuller's Run of the Arrow (1957), opposite Rod Steiger and Charles Bronson.
The unexpected success of El Ultimo Cuple (1957) turned her into an overnight sensation both as an actor and a singer. From then on she combined filming highly successful vehicles, recording songs in five languages and performing live all over the world. Among the films that kept her immensely popular during the 1960s and early 1970s were La Violetera (1958), Carmen, la de Ronda (1959), Mi Ultimo Tango (1960), Pecado de Amor (1961), La Bella Lola (a 1962 version of Camille), Casablanca, Nid d'espions(1963), Samba (1964), La Femme Perdue (1966), Tuset Street (1967), Esa Mujer (1969), Varietes (1971) and others. By then she had become a legend to her millions of fans but became dissatisfied with the movie industry when producers started offering her roles in soft core porno films. In 1974 Montiel announced her retirement from movies but continued performing live, recording and starring on her own variety television shows in Spain. Currently she remains one of the highest paid celebrities in Spain's TV talk and reality shows.
In 2000, Montiel published her autobiography Memories: To Live Is A Pleasure, an instant best seller with ten editions to date. A sequel Sara and Sex, followed in 2003. In these books Montiel revealed other relationships in her past including one-night stands with writer Ernest Hemingway as well as actor James Dean. She also claimed a long term affair in the 1940s with playwright Miguel Mihura and mentioned that science wizard Severo Ochoa, a Nobel Prize winner, was the true love of her life.