Ricardo Cortez

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Ricardo Cortez (born September 19, 1899 in New York as Jacob Krantz , † April 28, 1977 ibid) was an American actor of the silent film and sound film era. He was the brother of the cameraman Stanley Cortez .

Live and act

Ricardo Cortez was born Jacob Krantz in New York, as confirmed by a letter from the City of New York in 2000. In his youth he worked in a variety of jobs, selling newspapers and serving as an office delivery boy on Wall Street . After several years in the theater, he made the leap to Hollywood in the early 1920s , where he got a contract with Paramount Pictures . There Krantz adopted the stage name Ricardo Cortez. The studio built him up as a replacement for Rudolph Valentino and mostly used him in cheaply produced dozen items. One of his most famous films is the appearance alongside Greta Garbo in her US debut Floods of Passion . With the advent of the talkie , Cortez moved to Warner Brothers and was seen in 1931 as Sam Spade in the first film adaptation of the novel The Maltese Falcon alongside Bebe Daniels .

His roles already decreased in importance in the following years and mostly Cortez, who appeared almost exclusively as a gangster or dodgy fellow on the screen, was shot shortly after the start. He was partner of Kay Francis four times and found a violent death in each of the films. While his acting career proved increasingly unsuccessful, he made a total of seven B-films as a director in 1939 and 1940 . Shortly after 1950, Cortez largely withdrew from the film business and worked as a stockbroker . In the following decade he appeared only sporadically as an actor, most recently in 1960 in an episode of the western series Bonanza .

Ricardo Cortez was briefly married to the silent film star Alma Rubens .

Filmography (selection)

As an actor (selection)

As a director

  • 1939: Inside Story
  • 1939: Chasing Danger
  • 1939: The Escape
  • 1939: Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence
  • 1940: City of Chance
  • 1940: Free, Blonde and 21
  • 1940: Girl in 313

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mention of a corresponding letter from the Department of Health, City of New York, October 8, 2000. In: Rudolf Ulrich (Ed.): Austrians in Hollywood. New edition, Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-901932-29-1 , p. 597

Web links

Commons : Ricardo Cortez  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Cortez, Ricardo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krantz, Jacob (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York , United States
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1977
Place of death New York City , New York , United States