Beauty Queen, Actress. An early participant in the Miss Universe Pageant, she is remembered as a longtime star of the Mexican big and small screens. Born Ana Bertha Lepe Jiminez, she had show business ambitions from a young age and made her 1952 silver screen bow in “La justicia del lobo”; that same year she was named Miss Mexico, then in 1953 got a big career boost when she was 3rd runner-up in the second Miss Universe contest. Ana launched a busy career that was to continue, with breaks, for five decades; she starred as Miss Mexico in the 1954 comedy “Looks That Kill” then in 1955 traveled to Cuba to make “Una gallega en La Habana”. In 1960 she had hits with “El tesoro de chucho el Roto” and “La Nave de los Monstruos” (“Ship of Monsters”) but on May 29th of that year barely dodged scandal when her father, for reasons and under circumstances that were never fully explained, killed her boyfriend, actor Agustin de Anda. Blacklisted for a year, she resumed a busy performing schedule, appearing in dozens of movies, some with such forgettable titles as “Neutron Traps the Invisible Killers” (1965). Afflicted by problems with depression and the bottle from the 1970s on, she earned her final cinematic credit with the 1978 “El Patrullero777” but was still to be a regular on a number of television soaps including “Pacto de Amor”, “Muchachita”, “Sentmientos ajenos”, and “Angela”. Ana was last seen in the 2001 Christmas miniseries “Navidad sin fin”, suffered a severe health decline after 2006, and died of complications from surgery to repair an abdominal hernia. At her demise a number of her performances were preserved on DVD. Some sources give her birth year as 1934. (bio by: Bob Hufford)