Acting Career
Montiel started in movies at 16 in her native Spain where she filmed her first international success playing an Islamic princess in the 1948 film Locura de Amor, released in the US as The Mad Queen. Later she conquered Mexico, starring in a dozen films in less than five years. Hollywood came calling afterwards, and she was introduced to United States moviegoers in the film Vera Cruz (1954) co-starring with Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, and directed by Robert Aldrich. She was offered the standard seven-year contract at Columbia Pictures, which she quickly refused, afraid of Hollywood's typecasting policies for Hispanics. Instead she free-lanced at Warner Bros. with Mario Lanza and Joan Fontaine in Serenade (1956), directed by Anthony Mann, and at RKO in Samuel Fuller's Run of the Arrow (1957), opposite Rod Steiger and Charles Bronson.
The unexpected success of El Ultimo Cuple (1957) turned her into an overnight sensation both as an actor and a singer. From then on she combined filming highly successful vehicles, recording songs in five languages and performing live all over the world. Among the films that kept her immensely popular during the 1960s and early 1970s were La Violetera (1958), Carmen, la de Ronda (1959), Mi Ultimo Tango (1960), Pecado de Amor (1961), La Bella Lola (a 1962 version of Camille), Casablanca, Nid d'espions(1963), Samba (1964), La Femme Perdue (1966), Tuset Street (1967), Esa Mujer (1969), Varietes (1971) and others. By then she had become a legend to her millions of fans but became dissatisfied with the movie industry when producers started offering her roles in soft core porno films. In 1974 Montiel announced her retirement from movies but continued performing live, recording and starring on her own variety television shows in Spain. Currently she remains one of the highest paid celebrities in Spain's TV talk and reality shows.
In November 2009, Alaska from the pop group Fangoria invited Montiel to record a track sharing vocals with her for the re-release of the band's album Absolutamente. They recorded the title track "Absolutamente" as a duet and when the single was released it became an instant Top 10 hit. The music video for the song was also highly successful when released in early 2010. Sara has no retirement plans and in May 2011, after almost 40 years without making a movie, she accepted to appear in a feature film directed by Óscar Parra de Carrizosa. The film title is Abrázame and it was shot on location in Montiel's birth place in La Mancha. According to the star, in this film she dares to do "a parody of her old screen image, just for fun."
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