Super Sara: The Fabulous Fantasy of the Manchegan Diva Who Reached Hollywood’s Heights and Fell into the Depths of Trash Television

When Sara Montiel passed away in April 2013, at her home in Madrid at the age of 85, the actress had long been the subject of mockery on Spanish tabloid television programs that emerged in the 1990s, where she was generally disrespected for her physical decline. She participated in the circus because, like many divas, she needed the audience and the camera to breathe. Furthermore, and not without reason, she trusted in her stage presence and her capacity for self-parody. Watching those programs today evokes a mixture of shame and vertigo. Do other countries treat their great stars this way? Why is an older woman who refuses to give up her eroticism so offensive? Was Sara, like today’s Madonna, a victim of ageism? Was she pathetic, or were those who mocked her for wearing transparent clothing or dressing as she pleased?

The three-episode documentary Super Sara, written and directed by Valeria Vegas and premiered on HBO Max, is more than a reckoning against the media mistreatment—and the emptiness of the film industry—that the diva faced in her later years. Vegas achieves a nuanced approach that aims to and succeeds in dismantling the final caricature of a woman ahead of her time, who suffered under the whip of a prudish society for refusing to renounce her sexual freedom, and who, trapped in her eternal diva persona, became an inexhaustible inspiration for the LGTBI+ community.

Her incredible imagination for dressing and makeup—which has recently been showcased in an exhibition about her wardrobe at the Film Academy—included wearing colorful and decorated nails when no one in Spain did, and showcasing the most extreme makeups with glitter or countless adornments in her hair. All of this made her a reference for transformation, and as noted by journalist and DJ Crawford, one of the voices of the series, “the first LGTBI icon of Spain. The first.”

Super Sara traverses the life of a pioneering Spaniard in Hollywood through never-before-seen family archives and well-articulated talking heads. Without bowing down, but with contagious admiration, the series achieves a deep and moving portrait in which the inner beauty of a woman who, beneath her layers of kitsch delirium, was truly unique emerges. Perhaps the only critique of the series lies in some omissions and the superficiality of its jarring sets, more reminiscent of the pink flamingos than the contradictions of the Manchego bling-bling.

Maria Antonia Alejandra Vicenta Elpidia Isidora Abad Fernández (Campo de Criptana, 1928-Madrid, 2013) was a stunning beauty and an actress who knew how to divert attention from her limitations as a performer with a captivating personality. Her extreme close-ups are a part of Spanish cinema history, even though, for at least two generations, only the caricature of the diva’s caricature remained. She was aware of it. “Antonia, you have to stop,” her inner voice would tell her, while Saritísima replied: “But if I stop, I’ll be as bored as an oyster.”

Sara Montiel worked from the age of 13. She came from a family of humble farmers, who moved to Orihuela due to her father’s health issues. There, during a Holy Week, a manager from the Cifesa production company saw her sing a saeta, and thanks to her talent and beauty, the girl began her artistic career studying in Valencia. After several competitions and scholarships, she settled in Madrid. Ladislao Vajda gave her first opportunity in I Want You for Myself (1944). That same year, already under the name Sara Montiel, she acted alongside Fernando Fernán Gómez in her second film, Started at Wedding (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1944). The most important work of this early period came with Madness of Love (1948), the biopic of Juana la Loca by Juan de Orduña, with Aurora Bautista as the Queen of Castile and Aragon and Sara as her maid of honor, Aldara. At that moment, the actress made a crucial decision in her career: to go to Mexico.

Against the bleak backdrop of Francoism, Sara Montiel discovered in Mexico the world, nightlife, and life itself. The success she found in that industry—with titles like Red Fury, Women’s Prison, She, Lucifer and I and, especially, Cinnamon Skin—led her to Hollywood in 1953. During those years, her tumultuous relationship with a communist party leader was coupled with her relationships (platonic or not) with Miguel Mihura, León Felipe, or Severo Ochoa. All were significant men in her life, and all were much older than her. She was married four times when, at least in Spain, no one was marrying four times. Those who treated her best and understood her were her first husband, Anthony Mann, one of the great masters of the western genre and a member of Hollywood’s elite, and her third husband: the Mallorcan businessman Pepe Tous, the love of her life and the man who best understood her craving for the stage. The second chapter of Super Sara is almost entirely focused on this phase of her life in Mallorca, undoubtedly the most fulfilling and happy.

It was her role in Veracruz (1954), the western by Robert Aldrich featuring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, that has endured the most in the collective imagination of her Hollywood years, although she also worked for Samuel Fuller in Yuma (1957), alongside Rod Steiger and Charles Bronson, and a year earlier in the musical Serenade (Two Passions and a Love), with Mario Lanza, Joan Fontaine, and Vincent Price.

The director was Anthony Mann, and they fell in love there. He was 57 and she was 29. The anecdote of the fried eggs “with streaks” for a hungover Marlon Brando, or Barbra Streisand’s voice singing People in the living room of her Beverly Hills home, are part of the legend of this pioneering Spaniard in Hollywood. Sara Montiel’s charm in recounting these anecdotes and her ability to embellish them only magnify the character and diminish those who mocked her. “What does it matter if it was true or not? Sara was fantasy!” asserts Alaska in the documentary.

The actress claimed that the reason she did not continue with her American adventure was that she did not want another role as a “Sioux Indian”; in short, she preferred to be the head of a mouse than the tail of a lion. The surprising success of The Last Cuplé (Juan de Orduña, 1957), both in Spain and abroad, determined her return to Spanish cinema. A year later, she premiered The Violetera (Luis César Amadori, 1958), which became another popular phenomenon and made her the biggest national star. This was followed by years of brilliance with films alongside Rafael Gil, Tulio Demicheli, Mario Camus, or Juan Antonio Bardem.

Between films, records, and variety shows, Sara Montiel transformed into Saritísima, the exaggerated version of herself that she refined and expanded throughout her life. The premature death of Pepe Tous in 1992, when they had already adopted two children and were in the peak of family life, was devastating for the actress. From the endless parties at her Mallorcan home, from her life at sea without the mask of Sara Montiel, always naked and joyful, her natural beauty and authenticity stand out. The diva who turned her artifice before the camera into a dream was even more imposing when she was just Antonia. One of the most emotional moments of the series is when Loles León remembers the letter she wrote to the actress when Pepe Tous died, and she reads that very sad and beautiful letter.

Sara Montiel, who learned to smoke cigars with Hemingway and made tobacco an extension of her freedom, recounted that the day she heard her parents talk about masters and lords, she promised herself to live without owners: “I vowed to have no master, to be a free bird, and I have fulfilled it.” A precursor of the Instagram filter, as remembered regarding the famous stocking in front of the camera to conceal her wrinkles, Sara Montiel enjoyed some recognition before her death, although according to the series, most of it was outside Spain.

She was the star of the Marvelous advertisement for the 2002 MTV Europe Music Awards, and also collaborated with Fangoria in the music video Absolutely, in 2009. The absence of the tribute made by Pedro Almodóvar in 2004 in such a fundamental film as Bad Education is striking. “Spain, which buries very well, did not bury Sara well,” recalls Bibiana Fernández. “A country that neither respects nor bids farewell to its great artists seems to me a country of hicks and very uncultured,” adds Loles León. Sara Montiel was undoubtedly a misunderstood fantasy, but in the face of adversity, she always found her infallible recipe: “Feeling sad? Just saritize yourself and have a great time.”