Altia Michel
| Altia Michel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Altia Herrera Michel 1931 Mexico City, Distrito Federal |
| Died | 1994 Mexico City |
| Other names | Althia Mitchel |
| Spouse(s) | Gualberto Castro |
| Children | Altia Castro Michel |
| Website | http://AltiaMichel.com AlthiaMichel.com |
Altia Herrera Michel (1931-1994) was a Mexican singer, dancer and film actress, who never took a movie role unless it was written specifically for her, where she used her own name, or an alternative spelling Althia Michel.
She was born in Mexico City. Due to her physical beauty and height—5 foot 8 inches, she was cast in movies as a sex symbol and quickly became "type-cast" as a femme fatale.
She began her career singing in nightclubs and theaters, where she performed many times with Russian – Mexican controversial violinist Elias Breeskin who had been released from a thirteen-year incarceration at the prison Las Islas Maria located on a group of islands off the coast of Nayarit, where he had shared a cell with Ramón Mercader, the Spanish born communist who had worked as a Soviet agent in 1940 to assassinate Leon Trotsky. The ever passionate Breeskin, had been married before, and from his marriages he fathered six children. Of his offspring, Olga Breeskin followed her father’s footsteps into music. Altia was discovered through her nightclub and theater performances and signed to a movie contract in 1952. Her first movie role was in “El Fronterizo,” a comedy western.
Of the ten movies that she appeared in, several have become cult classics; most notably the 1967 film entitled “The Empire of Dracula.” An adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel the screen play written by Luis Enrique Vergara, starring Eric de Castillo as Baron Draculstein, the part of Diana portrayed by Ethel Carrillo, and Altia Michel played Atilia Michel, a beautiful vampire who tried to lure Luis Brener, performed by César del Campo, into the Dracula’s castle with the intent to feed on his blood.
In 1958, she participated in one of the first Mexican movies filmed in color entitled “Música de siempre.” The A.N.D.A.(Asociación Nacional de Actores, the Mexican Actors’ Union) financed the film in order to give jobs to hundreds of actors, actresses, musicians, stagehands, grips, soundmen, writers and more who became unemployed from Mexico City Regent Ernesto P. Uruchurtu’s siege on the entertainment industry. Although there were many famous entertainers in the movie such as Edith Piaf, Agustin Lara, Alejandro Algara, Libertad Lamarque, Toña la Negra, comedians Manuel Valdes his brother German Valdes, and nine-year-old Angelica Maria, but Altia Michel stole the show when she played the part of an announcer of a commercial that sold egg-based hair shampoo. She wore a tight sweater and short-shorts that had a flirty little ruffle attached to the back part of the shorts. In four inch black high-heeled shoes, no one could take their eyes from her Betty Grable legs and her Marilyn Monroe figure as she walked across the stage.
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