Final Drama for Diva Maria Felix Unfolds in Mexico

When Maria Felix died in April on her 88th birthday, she left a legacy of 50 screen portrayals of beautiful, tempestuous women that made her for decades the reigning goddess of Spanish-language cinema.

The Mexican film star also left a will that cut all surviving relatives out of her fortune, raised a brother’s suspicions about the cause of her death and led to her being cast, in a final captivating performance Thursday, in the role of an exhumed corpse.

As riot police kept camera crews and curious fans at bay, authorities closed Mexico City’s elite French Cemetery and dug up Felix’s remains for an autopsy to determine whether the actress might have been poisoned. Results were promised in about a week.

The story led television newscasts, bringing the scene live and in color to millions of viewers, punctuated by black-and-white film clips of the raven-haired bombshell in her prime. Black plastic sheets hid her body from TV cameras in helicopters overhead.

Mexicans are not squeamish about the dead. They picnic on the graves of their loved ones each November on the Day of the Dead and decorate their homes with grinning skeleton figures that mock death. But Thursday’s exhumation drew so much attention that Mexico City Atty. Gen. Bernardo Batiz, who supervised it, felt obliged to warn reporters and fans against making the event “a grotesque spectacle.”

“It’s a tragicomic soap opera. Call it ‘The Diva Beyond the Grave,’ ” said Homero Aridjis, the renowned Mexican poet who grew up enchanted by the movie queen immortalized in song as Maria la Bonita (Maria the beautiful). “Maria the beautiful has become Maria the macabre.”

Felix, a fiercely independent woman who was married four times, dominated the headlines here when she died in her sleep of a reported heart attack.

A doctor’s certificate attributed her death to natural causes. President Vicente Fox eulogized the actress as her body lay in state at Mexico City’s Palace of Fine Arts before burial under a marble slab that reads, “Here sleeps the most beautiful woman in the world.”

But that was not her last scene.

Two months later, her will became public. Her estate was left to three men: Luis Martinez de Anda, her 27-year-old personal assistant; Antoine Tzapoff, her French former lover; and Javier Tellez, who was the personal secretary of her only child, the late actor Enrique Alvarez Felix.

Benjamin Felix, her brother, challenged the will in court, claiming that the film star was manipulated “through violence or medication.” He filed a separate civil complaint asking authorities to dig up his sister’s coffin to determine whether she was poisoned or given drugs to hasten her death.

Neither complaint named a suspected villain, but Benjamin Felix cast suspicion on two of his sister’s friends: restaurateur Estela Moctezuma and Ernesto Alonso, an 85-year-old actor known here as Mr. Soap Opera. The brother accused them of blocking an autopsy immediately following Felix’s death and preventing relatives from seeing her body.

It was Alonso who sent Martinez de Anda to work for the actress 12 years ago. The young man inherited most of the estate, including homes in Mexico City and Cuernavaca, Mexico, worth several million dollars. (The French lover got her silver Rolls-Royce and collection of Diego Rivera paintings.)

Alonso held a news conference this week to deny that he concealed the body and to proclaim, “I have nothing to hide.”

The actress’ assistant deserved the inheritance, Alonso said, “because Maria loved him like a son, and it was he who kept her company.... It was Maria’s decision not to leave anything to her relatives. She knows why she did it. I don’t.”

People at the cemetery and callers to radio talk shows took sides Thursday, with most against the exhumation.

“If I were the brother, I would be upset about the will,” said Jorge Garcia, 55, who crafted the stone for the tomb Felix now shares with her son and parents. “But the dead should be left to rest in peace. I don’t think there was anything wrong or hidden in her death. But this is happening so they can clear up any doubt. Look, it can happen regardless of who you are.”