Mexican actress Isela Vega died today at age 81 of cancer. She had a provocative, prolific, and multi-faceted professional career acting in around one hundred films—from popular sex comedies to art house dramas—and working with numerous directors including Arturo Ripstein, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Leduc, Roberto Gavaldón, Luis Estrada, and Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, among others. She was awarded Mexico’s Ariel Award five times, and acted opposite countless Mexican and international prestigious actors including Glenn Ford, Mario Moreno ‘Cantinflas,’ Boris Karloff, Julio Alemán, Kris Kristofferson, Raúl Julia, and Pedro Armendáriz.
Born on November 5, 1939 in Hermosillo Sonora, she was named princess of the local carnival in 1957, and started her professional career in modeling. Her film debut was in the 1960 film Verano violento by Alfonso Corona Blake, starring Pedro Armendáriz. In 1966, she participated in the American film Rage directed by Gilberto Gazcón and starring Glenn Ford and Stella Stevens, and in 1968 she starred opposite Mexican popular comedian ‘Cantinflas’ in Por mis pistolas.
By the late sixties, Vega’s career gained popularity and she became as a renowned sex symbol. She also acted opposite Mexican comedian Mauricio Garcés in the sex comedies Don Juan 67 (Carlos Velo, 1967), The Bed / La cama (Emilio Gómez Muriel, 1968), and El matrimonio es como el demonio (René Cardona Jr., 1969). She also stirred controversy appearing nude in some films, and subsequently photographed nude for the July 1974 issue of Playboy.
In 1971 she received her first Ariel Award nomination for Best Actress for her role as Verónica in the 1971 drama Las reglas del juego by Mauricio Walerstein. One of her most widely known role is that of Elita in Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), for which she nabbed her second Ariel Award nomination for Best Actress. She also wrote the song, "Bennie's Song", which appears in the film.
In 1977, she played the starring role of Matea Gutiérrez in Arturo Ripstein’s The Black Widow / La viuda negra, for which Vega received her third Ariel Award nomination for Best Actress, and first win. Few years later, she worked with director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo in the 1983 drama Looks Can Be Deceiving / Las apariencias engañan.
In addition to her work as an actress, Vega produced, wrote, and directed the 1986 film Las amantes del señor de la noche / Lovers of the Lord of the Night, which she starred along with Irma Serrano and Emilio Fernández.
After sporadic roles in film and television during the nineties, Vega had a potent comeback in Luis Estrada’s 1999 controversial political satire Herod’s Law / La ley de Herodes, in which she played the role of Doña Lupe, the owner of a brothel in a small Mexican town, winning the Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actress.
During the first two decades of the new century, Vega worked in several films including Pink Punch / Puños rosas (Beto Gómez, 2004), El cobrador: In God We Trust (Paul Leduc, 2006), Meet the Head of Juan Pérez / Conozca la cabeza de Juan Pérez (Emilio Portes, 2008), Tear This Heart Out / Arráncame la vida (Roberto Sneider, 2008), Saving Private Perez / Salvando al Soldado Pérez (Beto Gómez, 2011), and Dora and the Lost City of Gold (James Bobin, 2019). Her last performance in film was in the 2020 comedy Cindy la Regia by Catalina Aguilar Mastretta, and Santiago Limón.
Vega won the Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actress twice again, for Fuera del cielo (Javier Patrón, 2006), and for The Hours With You / Las horas contigo (Aguilar Mastretta, 2014), and was nominated in the same category for Anwar Safa’s El Jeremías a year later. In 2015, the Guadalajara Film Festival presented her with the Silver Mayahuel Award, and in 2017, she was presented with a lifetime achievement Golden Ariel. She is survived by the daughter Shaula and her son Arturo.
