Sabu

She couldn’t act, couldn’t sing and danced like a wardrobe but for a while Maria Montez was quite the thing. Cobra Woman is probably the best example of a string of successful movies she made in the 1940s, often with the likeable, four-square Jon Hall as her romantic co-lead, all of them exotic, bright, colourful affairs, pantomime without the comedy. Montez, real name Maria Africa Antonia Gracia Vidal de Santo Silas, was born in the Dominican Republic to Spanish parents and while her star was high played the dusky princess, queen or slave girl in films like Gypsy Wildcat, Sudan, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, White Captive and Arabian Nights. Here she’s … Read more