Chelo Alonso was the woman for whom twelve and a half year old me would have gladly gone gay! No actress since has oozed with such primitive animal magnificence and power. Her dark eyes smoldered with a seductive slant that was both exotic and erotic. However, unlike most actresses today, there was nothing vulgar about Chelo.
The summer of 1963 was a usual hot, sticky, often stormy one. My then best friend Dayle and I spent much time in a cool, darkened theatre. Wednesday nights we went to see the latest movies out of Hollywood. But we especially loved Saturday matinees.
These were the European (usually Italian) movie spectacles with a cast of thousands. Dubbed in English, sometimes lips moved after a character had finished talking. Or an actor spoke via a closed mouth. I recall a pirate movie in which an outdoor scene was obviously filmed on a stage setting. One did not need 20 20 vision to notice the stars were really lights strung together by wires. A big artificial-yellow moon hung in one corner. My father called them cheesy. But that was part of the fun!
The first time I saw Chelo Alonso up on the screen I was transfixed. Her perfect figure was tightly clad in peekaboo leather as she strutted about in boots, whip in hand. Long before Xena Warrior Princess was Tonja Queen of the Tartars! There was a mystique to her. Sandra Dee never interested me. I wanted to be Chelo Alonso!
I assumed she was either an Italian actress, or a Spaniard with perhaps Moroccan blood. Only recently did I learn she was actually Cuban and Mexican. Hailed as the Cuban H-Bomb, Chelo had been an exotic dancer at the Folies Bergere in Paris. You had better believe she was noticed! In one film she upstaged the star, statuesque Swedish beauty Anita Ekberg of La Dolce Vita fame.
Chelo Alonso was far grander than her films. Hollywood should have been paying attention. Gorgeous and talented, she deserved super stardom!!! Chelo Alonso even replaced Debra Paget as my favorite actress. Whom up until then I thought was the most beautiful woman ever to grace the planet.
Dayle was impressed by her, too, but not to my extent. Chelo always played a woman in control, at least in the movies I saw. This was an entire decade before the woman's liberation movement. In 1963 most women still aspired to be a secretary who would marry the boss. Chelo was the antithesis of that! Whether heroine or villain, (She played both with equal elan.) her characters wielded power. To a backward pre-teen with none, this was highly appealing.
My friendship with Dayle did not survive the summer. (Mainly due to conflict between our parents.) It ended around the latter part of July. But my girl-crush on Chelo endured. Alone, I continued attending Saturday matinees to enjoy her movies.
Unfortunately, summer drew to a close. In September I began school in a different city. Soon everything would change dramatically. Out-of-the-blue life took a drastic turn. It would be the first of many times the ground would drop from under me. An unpleasant new reality ensued, a long dark period that would stretch on for decades. My Saturday movie habit ended. It would not resume until my fifties.
For awhile, Chelo Alonso movies started turning up on TV. Sadly though, I haven't seen one in decades, not even on the retro stations. Chelo Alonso deserves her own film festival! She is someone never to be forgotten!
Her influence remains an integral part of me. Late in my fifties I purchased a pair of black high-heeled gladiator boots. And I thought of Chelo Alonso. Thumbs up to you, Chelo, where ever you are!
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