Columba Domínguez, a towering figure of Mexican cinema who worked with director Luis Buñuel and won a lifetime achievement award from the country’s top film body last year, has died on Wednesday at the age of 85. The cause of death has not been announced.
Born in Guaymas, Sonora, in 1929, she appeared in more than 60 movie and TV shows in a career which stretched back to the 1940s and was considered one of the best known faces of Mexico’s wartime and post-war golden age of cinema.
Domínguez was discovered by the Mexican film director Emilio Fernández, who cast her in La perla (1945) and Río Escondido (Hidden River, 1948), albeit in small roles. She became his wife and muse, going on to take the lead in the 1949 Cannes film festival hit Pueblerina. Later, Dominguez worked with famed Spanish director Luis Buñuel, taking the lead on the drama El río y la muerte (The River and Death, 1954). Another of her well known roles was in Maclovia (1948).
The announcement of Domínguez’s death was made by her nephew Giuliano Molina on Twitter. Molina posted a photograph of his aunt and uncle enjoying a drink with Marilyn Monroe.
The Mexican Academy of Film , which handed Domínguez a lifetime achievement award last year, said in a statement on Twitter that the nation had lost one of its great icons.
