María Félix
With Salma Hayek's ABC hit Ugly Betty poised to win a Golden Globe or two, and a host of Mexican directors including Children of Men's Alfonso Cuarón and Babel's Alejandro González Iñárritu in the spotlight, it's only fitting that the country's first female movie star, María Félix, is back on the pop culture radar. The actress's femme fatale locks, assertive brows, dark eyes, and tiny waist made her a national treasure from the forties on. They would seem to have had Hollywood written all over them, too. But despite making over 45 films (one with Luis Buñuel), "La Doña," as she was called after her 1943 role in Doña Bárbara, never became as famous north of the border. Blame it on her refusal to learn English.

An unrepentant diva, Félix had a penchant for collecting husbands (four, officially) and lovers (Diego Rivera, for one) that was only surpassed by her love of jewelry. The pièce de résistance of a collection Cartier released in her honor last year is an emerald-and-diamond-encrusted gold necklace modeled after one particularly famous commission. She is reported to have stalked into the Paris boutique with a baby crocodile in tow and asked the stunned jewelers to replicate the reptile in gems, stipulating, no less, that the piece be done to scale. Now, her flamboyant style and beauty—Egypt's King Farouk allegedly promised her Nefertiti's crown for one night together—have inspired a new book, María Félix La Doña, out next month from Assouline.
—Sarah Cristobal (STYLE.com)