Ricardo Montalbán

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Ricardo Montalbán (1977)

Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino (born November 25, 1920 in Mexico City , † January 14, 2009 in Los Angeles , California ) was a Mexican film actor who starred in over 170 film and television productions between 1942 and 2009.

Life

Expressions of mourning for Montalbán's star on the Walk of Fame (2009)

Montalbán grew up in Mexico and the USA . He initially played minor roles in theater productions and appeared in a feature film for the first time in 1942 . In Hollywood he was committed to the “Latin Lover” at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . Attempts to get other roles mostly failed. In the late 1940s he starred in several Esther Williams films ; so in Mexican Nights and On an Island with You , both directed by Richard Thorpe , and in Neptune's Daughter by Edward Buzzell .

Directed by John Sturges , Montalbán played in the 1950 police film Die Tote in den Dünen and in the boxer melodrama The Lonely Champion . In 1951 he had his most important role to date in Colorado . Montalbán starred in the archaic Western a jealous young Blackfoot - Indians , the white Trapper Clark Gable chases, who married the beautiful chief's daughter. Eventually he got the lead role in My Man and I, the Mexican farm worker becoming an American citizen who works for a racist couple. His opponent was Shelley Winters . In many of his films of the 1950s, he embodied the cliché image of the hot-blooded Latin American lover, often with singing and dance scenes in his films. Among his numerous films, John Ford's 1964 Indian epic Cheyenne deserves special mention, alongside John Wayne in 1973 in Dirty Gold .

He had one of his most famous cinema roles as Kirk's counterpart Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . The film took up a plot from the Star Trek episode The Sleeping Tiger (Space Seed) , in which he had played Khan in 1966. In the science fiction films Escape from the Planet of the Apes and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes , he took on the supporting role of the circus owner Armando. In 1988 he played a villain role as criminal businessman Vincent Ludwig in the action comedy Die Nackte Kanone (1988). He also became known to a younger audience for his role as grandfather in the Spy Kids films Spy Kids 2 - The Return of Super Spies (2002) and Mission 3D (2003).

He continued his stage career on Broadway , which began in the 1950s, in the 1970s with the title role in Don Juan in Hell .

Between 1977 and 1984 he played the leading role in the successful television series Fantasy Island, the mysterious millionaire Mr. Roarke , who fulfills other people's wishes on his luxurious estate. He also had one of the leading roles in the series The Empire - The Colbys , the less successful offshoot of the Denver clan . In 1978 he was for his performance in the TV series Was Won II How the West with the Emmy Award excellent. He has made guest appearances in many series, for example as the modern bullfighter in the Columbo episode Blood Red Dust . Montalbán was also present to the American television audience through his numerous television commercials for the Chrysler car company , in which he praised the equipment of the cars with an erotic-sounding Spanish accent. Montalbán worked as an actor until shortly before his death, so from 2002 he lent his voice to the character Señor Senior Sr. in the animated series Kim Possible .

Montalbán was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard . In 1980 his autobiography was published: A Life in Two Worlds . Ricardo Montalbán was married to his colleague Georgina Belzer (1924-2007) from 1944 until her death in 2007 and had four children with her. He died in Los Angeles in January 2009 at the age of 88. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in the Californian city of Culver City .

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Ricardo Montalbán: Reflections: A Life in Two Worlds. Doubleday & Company 1980, ISBN 0-00-948039-0

Web links

Commons : Ricardo Montalbán  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ricardo Montalban | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos. Retrieved September 6, 2019 (American English).
  2. ^ Ricardo Montalban | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos. Retrieved September 6, 2019 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME Montalbán, Ricardo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montalbán y Merino, Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican film actor
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Mexico city
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 2009
Place of death Los Angeles , California