Miroslava Stern

Miroslava Šternová (née Stanclová; 26 February 1926 – 9 March 1955), known professionally as Miroslava Stern, was a Czechoslovak-Mexican actress.

Born in interwar Prague as Miroslava Stanclová, her father died and she was adopted by a Jewish doctor, the psychoanalyst Dr. Oskar Leo Stern (1900–1972) who married her mother, Miroslava (née Becka; 1898–1945), and became known as Miroslava Šternová. Dr Stern and his wife had a son, Ivo (1931–2011), the actress's half-brother. The family was, at one point, interned in a concentration camp after they fled their native Czechoslovakia in 1939. They sought refuge in various Scandinavian countries before emigrating to Mexico in 1941. Her mother died of cancer four years later.

After winning a national beauty contest, Miroslava began to study acting. She worked steadily in films produced in Mexico, from 1946 to 1955, as well as three Hollywood films during that period. She filmed Ensayo de un crimen (The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz) in 1955, directed by Luis Buñuel. On 9 March of that same year, soon after filming ended (the film was released in May), Miroslava died by suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, her body found lying outstretched over her bed. According to Miroslava's friends, she had a portrait of bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín in one hand, and they stated that her suicide was due to unrequited love for Dominguín, who had recently married Italian actress Lucia Bosè. Others, such as actress Katy Jurado, claimed that the picture that Miroslava had between her hands was of Mexican comedian Cantinflas and that her unrequited love was for Cantinflas, but her artistic manager Fanny Schatz exchanged the photo for that of the Dominguín. Jurado based this claiming she was the first to find the body; another source states that her body was found by actress Ninón Sevilla. Despite a lack of evidence to support it, a rumor persisted that she actually died in a plane crash when traveling with Mexican businessman Jorge Pasquel, and her body was moved to her bedroom and made to look like a suicide.

In his 1983 autobiography, Mon dernier soupir (My Last Breath), Buñuel called Miroslava's cremation following her suicide ironic, as in a scene in Ensayo de un crimen, her last film, the protagonist cremates a wax reproduction of her character. Her life is the subject of a short story by Guadalupe Loaeza, which was adapted by Alejandro Pelayo for his 1992 Mexican film called Miroslava, starring Arielle Dombasle.[10]