(Redirected from
Ricardo Montalban)
Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán Merino (born November 25, 1920 in Mexico City) is a suave United States-based Mexican television, theatre and film actor.
Early Life
His elder brother, Carlos Montalbán, was instrumental in bringing Ricardo to the United States. Also an actor, Carlos is best-known for portraying El Exigente (The Demanding One), a coffee export agent, in a series of television commericial for Savarin Coffee in the 1960s and 1970s.
When Montalbán first arrived in Los Angeles, California, he had no knowledge of the English language, and was initially rejected from Fairfax High School in West Hollywood, California.
He attended Belmont High School in downtown Los Angeles and studied English intensely for hours each day after school. Four months later, Montalbán was accepted to the "more academically challenging" Fairfax High School and carried on the development of his language skills.
It was at Fairfax High that Montalbán was first discovered by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives while he was playing the lead role in the school play, Tovarich.
Career Rise
Montalbán's first major role was the 1949 film Border Incident, with George Murphy. During the 1950s and 1960s he was one of the few working Hispanic actors. Many of his early roles were in Westerns in which he played character parts, usually as an Indian or the Latin lover. In 1950, he was cast against type, playing a Barnstable Cape Cod cop in the film noir Mystery Street.
International Fame
In 1975, he was chosen as the television spokesman for the new Chrysler Cordoba. The car was successful and heavily advertised—his mellifluous delivery of a line praising its "rich Corinthian leather" upholstery became famous and was much parodied.
One of his most well-known roles was that of Mr. Roarke in the television series Fantasy Island, from 1978 to 1984. For a time the series was one of the most popular on television. His character and his sidekick, Tattoo (played by Herve Villechaize), were pop icons. He played an entirely different role by appearing as Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which he reprised from a 1967 episode of Star Trek called Space Seed.
Aside from Fantasy Island, Montalbán is probably best remembered for his portrayals of Khan in Star Trek television and film works. He has appeared in many diverse films including The Naked Gun and two films from the Planet of the Apes series.
He also appeared in the second Spy Kids film in 2002, and the third one in 2003, as the kids' grandfather. Over the course of his long career, he has played roles or guest starred in dozens of television series.
In several interviews and public speeches, Montalbán has described "the five stages of the actor", which are as follows:
- The first stage is, Who is Ricardo Montalbán?.
- The second stage is, Get me Ricardo Montalbán.
- The third stage is, Get me a Ricardo Montalbán type.
- The fourth stage is, Get me a young Ricardo Montalbán.
- The fifth stage is, Who is Ricardo Montalbán?
From 1993 - 1994, Montalbán was confined to a wheelchair and lives in constant pain. Reports differ as to the exact cause, as one source says it is the result of nine and a half hours of spinal surgery to repair an injury he received making Across the Wide Missouri in 1951. Another says he was left immobilized by partial paralysis after three operations for a congenital condition affecting his spine.
He married Georgiana Young (née Georgiana Belzer), youngest half-sister of the late film stars Polly Ann Young, Sally Blane, and the more famous Loretta Young. Loretta died at the Montalbáns' home in Santa Monica, California in 2000 after a bout with cancer. He and his wife married in 1944, and they have 4 children. They are devout Christ-centered Catholics.
Ricardo Montalbán has retained his Mexican citizenship, and is a permanent resident of the United States only.
Filmography
Ricardo Montalbán as Khan Noonian Singh in the 1967
Star Trek episode
Space Seed.
- Verdugo de Sevilla, El (Twig of Seville) (1942)
- Razón de la culpa, La (Reason of The Fault) (1943)
- Santa (1943)
- Cinco fueron escogidos (Five Were Chosen) (1943)
- Fuga, La (The Flight) (1944)
- Cadetes de la naval (Navy Cadets) (1945)
- Nosotros (We) (1945)
- Hora de la verdad, La (The Hour Of Truth) (1945)
- Casa de la zorra, La (The House Of The Vixen) (1945)
- Pepita Jiménez (1946)
- Fantasía ranchera (1947)
- Fiesta (1947)
- On an Island with You (1948)
- The Kissing Bandit (1948)
- Neptune's Daughter (1949)
- Border Incident (1949)
- Battleground (1949)
- Mystery Street (1950)
- Right Cross (1950)
- Two Weeks with Love (1950)
- Mark of the Renegade (1951)
- Across the Wide Missouri (1951)
- My Man and I (1952)
- Sombrero (1953)
- Latin Lovers (1953)
- The Saracen Blade (1954)
- Sombra verde (1954)
- A Life in the Balance (1955)
- Cortigiana di Babilonia (1955)
- Amanti del deserto, Gli (1956)
- Three for Jamie Dawn (1956)
- Operation Cicero (1956)
- Sayonara (1957)
- Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960)
- Rashomon (1960)
- Hamlet, Prinz von Dänemark (1961)
- Gordon, il pirata nero (1961)
- Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962)
- The Reluctant Saint (1962)
- Love Is a Ball (1963)
- Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
- Buenas noches, año nuevo (1964)
- The Money Trap (1965)
- The Singing Nun (1966)
- Madame X (1966)
- Alice Through the Looking Glass (1966)
- Code Name: Heraclitus (1967)
- The Longest Hundred Miles (1967)
- Sol Madrid (1968)
- Blue (1968)
- Sweet Charity (1969)
- The Pigeon (1969)
- The Desperate Mission (1969)
- Black Water Gold (1970)
- The Aquarians (1970)
- Sarge (1971)
- Spina dorsale del diavolo, La (1971)
- Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
- The Face of Fear (1971)
- Fireball Forward (1972)
- Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
- The Train Robbers (1973)
- Wonder Woman (1974)
- The Mark of Zorro (1974)
- Columbo: A Matter of Honor (1976)
- McNaughton's Daughter (1976)
- Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
- Joe Panther (1976)
- Fantasy Island (1977)
- Mission to Glory: A True Story (1977)
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