She most certainly wasn’t your typical Laurel and Hardy leading lady, but Diosa Costello was about as close as we came to having one in their 1945 feature film The Bullfighters. She even had a rousing musical number called Bim Bam Bum, which although some may claim it has no place in a Laurel and Hardy film, I quite enjoy. Even as of this writing, Diosa Costello is one of a very, very few number of L&H co-stars who are still living. Unfortunately, in the intervening years, we have lost track of her.
My one and only meeting with her came during the Sons of the Desert Convention in Las Vegas on July 14, 1992. As a song-and-dance performer, she had made her living peforming in Vegas and has lived there for many years. My friend Bob Satterfield had located her many years earlier and paid her a visit. Through him I had already obtained a signed photo.
We met outside the film room where she had spoken to the fans who had just watched The Bullfighters. I brought along the color lobby card reproduction that had hung on my bedroom wall for a half-dozen years or so. I also had another copy of the photo above that I had her sign for Ashleigh.
What I remember the most was that she made a big fuss over me and the fact that I had a daughter. In her heavy Latin American accent, she kept saying, “YOUU have a dawwter??” In one of those less-than-brilliant moves, I managed to not take a photo of her or with her. In fact, I have yet to see even one photo of her that was taken at the convention.
Below, however, is a photo that Bob took of her several years earlier when he first visited her in Las Vegas. This was pretty much the way she looked during our encounter. After recently finding out that she is in fact still living, I’m going to hope that one day I can meet up with her again and rectify my stupidity of 1992.
Cariño, by the way, is a Spanish word for love or affection.
Celebrities of the 1992 Las Vegas Sons of the Desert convention will continue…
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