The name Dolores somehow conjures up an image of exotica. Look up the name's meaning and we find this, "A savvy, highly intelligent and sexy woman. She has many friends and is a devoted mate. She is nurturing and very confident. Rooms light up when she enters them. She is flirtatious and always makes people feel good about themselves. She gives 100 percent in all she does and has a great sense of humor. She is loved and wanted by many. She also rules the dance floor." Frank Sinatra even sang a song about her.
The lady sitting in the Austin 7 is Delores Del Río, the Mexican actress of film, television and stage. A Hollywood star in the 1920's and 1930's and one of the most important female figures of the Golden Age of mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s.
We think she certainly lived up to the description above but are intrigued by the choice of car (click) for this publicity shot. Experts will no doubt date the Austin 7 accurately, but let's say C 1924 Sports model, similar to this other charming example.) The locally fitted front headlamps suggest the car was used a lot, and so do the well-worn front tyres and dented rear wing. The registration plates are from California - but was the car driven to Mexico? We think so because the smart stooge trying to lift the tail looks Mexican.
Delores was born in 1905 and started her career in silent films but you may have seen her in the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio starring Fred Astaire (see pic) and Ginger Rogers. (See the fantastic wing-walking sequence here.) Read more of her fascinating life here, including how she married at 16 to a 34 year old and spent a two year honeymoon in Europe! Is that when she was caught by the Seven fever?
(text Robin Batchelor, picture from archive)