Queer Places:
Insurgentes Centro 59, Cuauhtémoc, 06470 Ciudad de México, CDMX
Finca de Catipoato, Catipoato, Niño Jesús, 14080 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico
Enrique Álvarez Félix (5 April 1934 – 24 May 1996) was a Mexican actor, known for his roles in telenovelas and in films, such as The Monastery of the Vultures and The House of the Pelican.[2][3]
Indicative of the relative freedom with which well-heeled homosexuals led
their lives in Mexico City are the cases of the children of multimillionaire
entrepreneurs and celebrities chronicled in society pages. Alberto "Beto" Maus
y Santander, heir to a tobacco and real estate fortune, grew up in a
progressive and cosmopolitan home. After his father’s death left him a
substantial inheritance, Beto left the family home to install himself in a
modern high-rise bachelor’s apartment on Insurgentes Avenue.
Salvador Novo’s readers followed
his move, his interest in interior design and learned of his talented cooking
and entertaining. Beto’s elegant eighth-floor apartment was two floors above
that of his close friend and classmate Enrique Álvarez Félix, sole son of
famed actress María Félix. ‘Quique’
to his friends, Álvarez Félix lived in a comfortable flat. It was ‘modern’,
Novo noted, ‘but without the odd furniture that young people prefer’. Green
velvet coverings on the sofas and chairs matched the green carpet and
contrasted with the straw-coloured wallpaper. Many antiques, on loan from his
mother’s Hacienda de Catipoato, softened the modern lines of the apartment’s
finishings. Álvarez Félix frequently entertained at home with the help of his
mother and her trusted confidante, the gay designer
Armando Valdés Peza. Newspaper columns enumerated his guests,
surreptitiously recording the unspoken intimacy of homosexual couples named
among married heterosexual couples, as occurred in 1959, when Novo noted in
his column that television producer Ernesto Alonso
arrived with Angel Fernandez Vinas. Decades later, it was revealed that Alonso
and Fernandez were lifelong companions, and had adopted two children whom they
raised as their own, in an effort to construct an image of normalcy that would
keep viewers of his television programmes from being scandalised by his
homosexuality.
Enrique Álvarez Félix was the only son of Mexican actress María Félix and her first husband, Enrique Álvarez Alatorre. When his parents divorced in 1938, his mother lived for a time at home with her own parents until 1939, when she traveled with Enrique to Mexico City. Soon after, her ex-husband took Álvarez Félix.[4]
When his mother married Jorge Negrete he became the stepbrother of Diana Negrete.
Álvarez Félix never married, and, according to Mexican novelist and essayist Carlos Fuentes, he was sexually frustrated, and had an Oedipus complex.[5]
Álvarez's last acting role was "Leonardo" in Marisol (1996). The title character, Leonardo's niece, was played by Erika Buenfil; Leonardo's wife, Ámparo, was played by Claudia Islas.[9] He died two days after the episode in which his character, Leonardo, was killed off.[10]
Enrique Álvarez Félix died from a heart attack in the early morning of Friday,
May 24, 1996, aged 62.[6]
My published books:
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- The Transnational Homophile Movement and the
Development of Domesticity in Mexico City’s Homosexual Community, 1930–70,
by Vıctor M. Macıas-Gonzalez