May 292025
 

Irene Bohus (sometimes Irene de Bohus), was born in New York in 1913, and died at the age of 72 on 27 March 1985 in a Mexico City hospital. Her parents, both born in Hungary, were Paul Bohus (1886-1966) and Irene Jelfy, who lived in Mexico City at the time of his death.

Irene Bohus’ link to Lake Chapala is via a work included in her solo exhibition at the Galeria Arte Contemporáneo (Amberes 12, Mexico City) in December 1953. At the exhibition, Bohus showed 26 oil paintings, including a self portrait and a portrait of Diego Rivera, and 8 brush drawings, one of which was titled Chapala.

While it remains unclear precisely when she was in Chapala, or whether she ever painted any other works based on her time there, Bohus is an important figure in Mexican art, not only on account of her own career, but also because of her close, even intimate, relations with both Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

Irene Buhos sketching image of Helen Crlenkovich for San Francisco mural. 1940.

Irene Bohus sketching image of diver Helen Crlenkovich for San Francisco mural. 1940. (WPA photo).

Irene Bohus apparently studied art with private tutors in Berlin, Paris and Budapest. Examples of her paintings are in the permanent collections of some major museums.

Hayden Herrera, in his biography of Frida Kahlo, explains that Bohus was an assistant of Diego Rivera in Mexico City and shared his studio when Diego and Frida divorced. In May 1940, alerted by American actress Paulette Goddard (another of Rivera’s paramours at the time), Bohus helped Rivera avoid police when they came to question him about the first (unsuccessful) attempt on Trotsky’s life. Bohus drove him to safety as Rivera hid under a pile of canvasses in the car. Not long afterwards, Bohus and Rivera shared a house at 49 Calhoun Terrace on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, where Rivera was working on Pan American Unity, the mural he created in 1940 for the 1939-1940 San Francisco World’s Fair, also known as the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island.

Rivera had planned to include a portrait of Bohus in this mural, but she left him, apparently at the insistence of her mother, before it was complete, and so Rivera painted Emmy Lou Packard, another of his assistants, instead. It was widely rumored at the time (1940) that Irene was pregnant with Rivera’s child.

By the time the mural was finished, Diego and Frida had remarried. But Bohus and Frida had become close friends, and testament to the strength of their friendship, Bohus’ name remained on Frida’s bedroom wall up to the time of Frida’s death in 1954. Frida also had a copy of Village in the Sun, the Ajijic-based book by ‘Dane Chandos,’ in her personal library.

Irene Buhos. 1940. Portrait of Modesta.

Irene Bohus. 1940. Portrait of Modesta.

Several of Bohus’ own paintings from her time in San Francisco are in U.S. museum collections. Portrait of Modesta (charcoal and colored chalks, 1939) is in the de Young Museum/Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and three works from 1940, including Mexican Boy, are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Bohus left San Francisco early in 1941 and eloped to Maryland with Orlando Weber Jr., ‘a society ornithologist’ and the son of a wealthy executive of a 500-million-dollar chemical corporation, whom she had first met a couple of years earlier. They married in Elkton, Maryland, in March 1941, and honeymooned in Mexico City. Later that year, Weber went birding in Chiapas and Bohus was given a major part in El barbero prodigioso, a comedic drama directed by Fernando Soler, released in 1942. Bohus’ first short-lived marriage ended in scandal and divorce. The acrimonious court proceedings included claims that Bohus had affairs with Diego Rivera; Guatemalan diplomat Luis Aguilar de León; a married Mexican Army officer, Lt. Cenfuejo; and German-born movie actor and director Fernando Wagner. For her part, Bohus wanted an annulment and brought a $250,000 lawsuit against her parents-in-law for ‘fraud and conspiracy.’

Bohus’ second marriage, to Mario José Sebastian, was more successful. She continued to paint, and occasionally exhibit, and undertook family portraits for several prominent Mexico City families until well into the 1970s. And her influence lives on. Among other lasting achievements, Bohus was an inspiration to Marta Wiley, a talented and ambitious young art prodigy in Mexico City, who has built an extraordinarily varied and successful career as a renaissance thinker, performer and artist.

  • Artists with links to both the 1939-40 San Francisco World’s Fair and Lake Chapala.
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My 2022 book Lake Chapala: A Postcard History uses reproductions of more than 150 vintage postcards to tell the incredible story of how Lake Chapala became an international tourist and retirement center.

Sources

  • Hayden Herrera. 1983. Frida: A biography of Frida Kahlo. Harper and Row.
  • Justino Fernandez. 1954. “Catálogo de las Exposiciones de Arte en 1953.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Mexico.
  • Daily News (New York, New York), 15 May 1942, 228.

Comments, corrections and additional material are welcome, whether via the comments feature or email.

Jul 112019
 

Lake Chapala – the lake itself – played an important bit part in the filming of the 1965 movie In Harm’s Way. The movie, an epic Panavision war film, was John Wayne’s last black-and-white film. The movie’s cast, besides John Wayne, included Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Henry Fonda, Stanley Holloway and Larry Hagman, among many others.

The screenplay by Wendell Mayes and based on the 1962 novel Harm’s Way, by James Bassett, looks at the lives of several US Navy officers in Hawaii, and their wives and lovers, during the first year of U.S. involvement in the second world war.

In October 1964, the movie’s producer-director, Otto Preminger, and several members of the film crew visited Lake Chapala to film some special effects. They stayed at what was then the Holiday Inn in Chula Vista. A brief note about their stay, in the Guadalajara Reporter, claimed that the crew was “filming explosions in the lake for the movie” and that the explosions were of compressed air only and would reportedly would not harm local wildlife.

Among the youthful audience watching the crew filming of In Harm’s Way were the children of Marcella Crump, a keen amateur photographer. Dennis recently wrote about his memories of watching the filming in a catchily-titled piece, “The Time the U.S. Navy Came to Lake Chapala” published in El Ojo del Lago. He recalled “when a US Navy battleship, destroyer, and submarine appeared on Lake Chapala to engage in battles against the Japanese.” The vessels were “perfect scaled down Navy vessels… complete with their big guns firing heavy projectiles, destroyer firing its guns… and the submarine cruising in stealth mode.”

In Harm's Way: boats on Lake Chapala. Photo: Pagina Que Sí Se lee, 2021.

In Harm’s Way: boats on Lake Chapala. Photo: Pagina Que Sí Se lee, 2021.

As Dennis explains, Lake Chapala was the perfect setting for small models to be filmed in a variety of wave heights. They could appear to be on the calmest of waters or fighting against the fierce waves of Pacific storms.

His brother, Raymond, remembers how about six replicas of PT (patrol torpedo) boats, each about 8 feet long and remote controlled, were “hand crafted right there on the beach under the umbrellas.” He vividly recalls the small explosions generated during the filming to simulate bombs hitting the water.

Sources:

  • Dennis Crump. 2019. “The Time the U.S. Navy Came to Lake Chapala.”. El Ojo del Lago, May 2019, 30.
  • Raymond Crump, personal communication.
  • Guadalajara Reporter, 22 October 1964

Comments, corrections or additional material related to any of the writers and artists featured in our series of mini-bios are welcomed. Please use the comments feature at the bottom of individual posts, or email us.

May 302019
 

La invasión de los vampiros (1963) is a Mexican film in which a doctor and his assistant hunt down a vampire named Count Frankenhausen, who is terrorizing the local populace. Written and directed by Miguel Morayta, it starred Erna Martha Bauman, Rafael del Río and Tito Junco. The film was released two years later in an English version as The Invasion of the Vampires.

Kudos to historian and author Richard Grabman for suggesting to me that, “A good part of La invasión de los vampiros (1963) was filmed in Ajijic.” He added that the movie is “something of a classic in its genre, especially for its creepy atmosphere.” Unfortunately, he’s unsure where he picked up these interesting snippets of movie trivia.

The movie is, indeed, regarded as one of the finest horror films to emerge from Mexico and, after watching it, I have to agree that it’s entirely possible that parts of the movie were shot at Lake Chapala, though I have yet to find any supporting documentary evidence for this.

So, dear reader, if you can tell me any more about the connection between La invasión de los vampiros and Lake Chapala, please get in touch!

Comments, corrections or additional material related to any of the writers and artists featured in our series of mini-bios are welcomed. Please use the comments feature at the bottom of individual posts, or email us.

Mar 282019
 

Ven a cantar conmigo was filmed in Jalisco two years after the making of Verano en Guadalajara (1965). Both movies are musical romances that incorporate lots of tourist-alluring footage of markets, ancient buildings and cultural events in Guadalajara and at Lake Chapala. The two movies also share the same lead actor – Robert Conrad – but this is where the similarities end.

The storyline of Ven a cantar conmigo is much stronger than the uni-dimensional plot of its predecessor. The central romantic plot line in Ven a cantar conmigo is more nuanced and complex, giving viewers a much more satisfying experience. A splash of adventure in the middle of this film serves as a counterpoint to too much romantic gushiness. The central romance does not unfold without some melodrama towards the end.

Ven a cantar conmigo was produced by Miguel Zacarías and written and directed by Alfredo Zacarías. The company behind the movie was Producciones Zacarías S.A. The cinematography was by Raúl Martínez Solares. The film was first released in Mexico on 19 October 1967.

The three major stars in this movie are Robert Conrad, playing an American artist named Bob Seaman, Alicia Bonet playing Aurora, the nurse he falls in love with, and the talented young singer “Evita” (Eva Luisa Aguirre Muñíz), who was eleven years old at the time and plays the role of a precocious orphan, living at the Hospicio Cabañas, who is a show-stopping, not-to-be-ignored matchmaker. This was the Guadalajara-born youngster’s first movie. She subsequently enjoyed a stellar, though short-lived, career as a singer, actress and T.V. presenter before retiring from show business in her early twenties.

Given that the opening credits thank the Jalisco state governor, Francisco Medina Ascencio, for his support, it is not surprising that many of Guadalajara’s most important tourist attractions form the backdrop to scenes in the story. The photographs of the Hospicio Cabañas (now Instituto Cultural Cabañas) and its murals (explained by Evita to a visiting group of tourists) are among the highlights.

As a young, charismatic minx, Evita steals the early scenes of the movie. She is quite determined to find a suitable beau for her friend Aurora, a young nurse who grew up in the orphanage and works in a local hospital.

Evita and Aurora are shopping in the San Juan market for fruit and vegetables when they bump into a handsome American artist. A misunderstanding leads Aurora to believe that Bob is poor and hungry. In reality he drives a sports car, is staying at a top hotel and is clearly wealthy. He visited the market to purchase single vegetables to compose a still life. When he returns to his hotel to paint, he can’t help drawing a portrait of Aurora instead.

Minor misunderstandings continue as he seeks to get to know more about Aurora and to ask her on a date. The process includes, in true Tapatío fashion, Bob hiring mariachis to serenade her at dawn.

Before long, accompanied by Evita and one of Bob’s friends, they are all on their way to Lake Chapala for the afternoon. The short section of the movie shot at Chapala shows the beach, the Beer Garden restaurant, the main church and nearby Braniff mansion. The proceedings are enlivened by buying balloons and a game of hopscotch.

There are many worse ways to spend your time than watching Ven a cantar conmigo!

The entire 87-minute movie is available via Youtube, as is a clip of the short section showing Lake Chapala. Enjoy!

Comments, corrections or additional material related to any of the writers and artists featured in our series of mini-bios are welcomed. Please use the comments feature at the bottom of individual posts, or email us.