Ramón Novarro

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Ramón Novarro, 1922
Ramón Novarro, photographed by Carl van Vechten , 1934

Ramón Novarro ; actually Ramón Gil Samaniego (born February 6, 1899 in Durango , Mexico , † murdered on October 30, 1968 in Los Angeles , California ) was a Mexican - American actor and occasional director . Towards the end of the silent film era and in the early days of talkies, he was one of the most popular stars in Hollywood.

Life

Career

Ramón Novarro was born the oldest of 14 children to a dentist and was a great cousin of the actress Dolores del Río . In his youth he studied music and took singing lessons. He and his family fled the Mexican Revolution to Los Angeles in 1916 , where he initially made his way as a ballet dancer, piano teacher and singing waiter in the theater and entertainment industry. From 1917 he worked as an extra in various films and sometimes appeared with his sister, including in Rudolph Valentino's famous tango scene from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse . He met the writer Mary O'Hara , through whom he met the director Rex Ingram . Ingram then brokered a contract with Metro Pictures Corporation for Novarro . The studio initially wanted the stage name Ramón Navarro, but the secretary made a typo and it became Ramón Novarro.

In 1922 he achieved his breakthrough with The Prisoner of Zenda based on the novel of the same name and directed by Rex Ingram in an essential supporting role at the side of Alice Terry . With the Ingram-Terry couple, Novarro shot a number of other films that cemented his early fame as an attractive actor in romantic cloak and epee films, such as Scaramouche . Novarro was particularly popular with female moviegoers; for his film The Arab , a vaguely concealed remake of The Sheikh , he was touted as the "new Valentino". For most of 1925 he was busy shooting the never-ending filming of Ben Hur , in which he played the lead role. The film turned out to be the biggest box-office hit since The Birth of a Nation , turning Novarro into a star who earned over $ 6,000 a week. Some romantic comedies and elaborately produced melodramas followed, so Lovers? from 1927, again with Alice Terry under the direction of Rex Ingram, and Ernst Lubitsch's silent film adaptation of the operetta Alt-Heidelberg at the side of Norma Shearer .

His career came under threat in the late 1920s with the advent of talkies because of its strong Mexican accent. The studio took the time to find a suitable vehicle for Novarro, as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), under the prudent policy of Louis B. Mayer, was only cautiously opening to the new technology. The studio eventually chose the South Seas romance The Pagan , which was mostly filmed as a silent film, but in which Novarro sang a song and played most of the time shirtless and in a sarong . The press was impressed by his singing voice and predicted a great sound film career for him. For a while the actor made a name for himself in musicals such as In Gay Madrid , but unlike Greta Garbo , with whom he directed Mata Hari in 1931 , Novarro was unable to benefit significantly from the new medium of talkies. Since the Great Depression, romantic lovers like him or John Gilbert were gradually less popular. In 1930 Novarro was the director responsible for the Spanish and French versions of Call of the Flesh , in which he also played the leading role. His fee was $ 25,000 each. Further plans to work as a director came to nothing. After a series of flops and bad roles, including being the Chinese lover of Helen Hayes in The Son-Daughter and the urbane seducer in the Arthur Schnitzler film adaptation of Daybreak , the studio ended the contract in 1934, the occasion was the artistic and financial failure of Laughing Boy with Novarro as an unhappily in love member of the indigenous population.

Later life and murder

As a strict Catholic, Novarro suffered from his homosexuality, which he hid from the public. He was also a chronic alcoholic . The star caused a number of car accidents while distressed in the 1930s, which led to negative headlines. The big role offers did not materialize in the episode, but he was still occasionally seen in supporting roles or guest appearances in film and television. He was successful again in 1942 as the main actor in the historical drama La Virgen que forjó una patria . It was his only appearance in a film in his native Mexico. Among other things, he then played a police officer in The Red Loop next to Robert Mitchum in 1949 or a villain in the western The Lady and the Killer next to Sophia Loren in 1960 . He mainly earned his living as a real estate agent and remained wealthy until his death. In 1960 Novarro received an honorary Golden Globe . A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame commemorates Ramón Novarro.

In October 1968, the now 69-year-old Ramón Novarro, who often hired male prostitutes from an agency, received a call from the 22- and 17-year-old brothers Paul and Tom Ferguson, who offered him their services. Novarro invited her to his villa. The two held him and asked for $ 5,000, which was allegedly hidden in the house. Since Novarro never had large sums of money in the house, they only found $ 20. The brothers hit him so hard with various objects that he choked on his own blood as a result. The murder caused quite a stir in the United States. The brothers were sentenced to life imprisonment after a trial in which they accused each other. Because of their young age, Paul and Tom Ferguson were released early in the 1970s, but were later re-imprisoned for other offenses.

Filmography (selection)

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Soares, Beyond Paradise. The Life of Ramón Novarro , 2010, pp. 162-164.
  2. ↑ Los Angeles Times: "A star is killed: Hollywood's deadly secret"
  3. ↑ Novarro murder case at Find A Death ( memento of the original from December 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.findadeath.com
  4. ↑ Los Angeles Times: "A star is killed: Hollywood's deadly secret"
  5. ↑ Novarro murder case at Find A Death ( memento of the original from December 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.findadeath.com
personal data
SURNAME Novarro, Ramon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ramon Gil Samaniego
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican-American silent film actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Durango , Mexico
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1968
Place of death Los Angeles , USA