Emilio Fernandez

Emilio 'El Indio' Fernandez is not only the most famous figure in the history of the Mexican film industry, he was for many decades a national symbol. Fernandez's legendary on-and-off screen persona incarnates a type of Mexican "machismo" that grew out of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17: the temperamental, at times violent, man committed to the defense of cultural nationalism--those ideals and values perceived as authentically "Mexican". Fernandez was born to an Indian mother in the Mexican state of Coahuila. As a young man he participated in the revolutionary struggles, and after the defeat