Spanish actress Sara Montiel dies aged 85

ONE of Spain’s most important film actresses and the first to have crossed the Atlantic to also become a Hollywood star, Sara Montiel, has died. She was 85.

She passed out at her home in Madrid today according to her biographer, Peter Villora.

She was an acknowledged beauty and had starred in more than 50 films, many of which were musicals.

Born to a farmer and a beautician as Maria Antonia Abad Fernandez in the central Spanish village of Campo de Criptana in La Mancha in 1928, Montiel was known for her great natural beauty and sultry, almost husky singing voice.

 She starred in more than 14 films between 1950 and 1954.

She rose to international fame after starring alongside Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster in the 1954 western ‘Vera Cruz’.

Montiel was married four times in her life, including to the late Spanish industrial magnate Pepe Tous, with whom she adopted two children, Thais and Zeus. Tous died in 1992.