MEXICO: Incident at the Capri

Sallow-cheeked Agustin Lara is the most artful fashioner of the libido-loaded lyrics of Mexico's popular songs. He is also Mexico's most prolific popular composer. Since his first success with Mujer (1927), a song dedicated to all women, Lara has averaged 15 songs a year, most of them hits.

Lara has his own explanation for the way his love lyrics catch on. "In all my compositions," he says, "there is always a certain woman synthesized." Many of the women who have inspired his lyrics are unknown, but movie actress María Félix, second of his three wives, is the inspiration of some of his most popular.

Lara met María in 1945, when he attended a studio party for the then unknown young actress who had just gotten rave notices for her first big picture. María Félix invited Lara to a party next night at her apartment. She apologized for not having a piano, and asked him to bring a guitarist along. Instead, Lara sent a baby grand with the note: "To the incomparable María Félix from her admirer, Agustin Lara." They were married soon after. Every Mexican knows how Lara's famous María Bonita was composed during an enraptured trip to Acapulco with María. But neither such tributes nor three mink coats kept her from divorcing him in 1947 for incompatibility.

Friends say Lara, though he is now married to a 19-year-old chorus girl named Clara Martínez, still worships María. Last week, while he was playing and singing at Mexico City's Capri nightclub, Diego and Frida Rivera entered with María Félix, were ushered to a ringside table. Lara stopped the song he was singing, switched to Palabras de Mujer.

Though I may not want it

And you may not want it

God will have it so.

To eternity my love will follow you . . .

You will find me in your kisses,

In the water and the sun . . .

The Capri audience was thrilled. Lara was still playing to a woman synthesized.