Ricardo Montalban, motion picture, television, and stage actor, has died:
Within the entertainment industry, Montalban was widely respected for his efforts to create opportunities for Latinos, although he and others believed that his activism hurt his career. In 1970, he founded the nonprofit Nosotros Foundation to improve the image and increase employment of Latinos in Hollywood.
“He paved the way for being outspoken about the images and roles that Latinos were playing in movies,” said Luis Reyes, co-author of “Hispanics in Hollywood” (2000).
On Wednesday, actor Edward James Olmos called Montalban “one of the true giants of arts and culture.”
The LA Times obit, linked above, is a good one. If you want more about Montalban’s life and career, go there.
I’ve got one observation to make about Ricardo Montalban that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s there were a handful of actors who began to break down the conventional Hollywood stereotypes. Sidney Poitier was such a figure for blacks. In The Blackboard Jungle, one of his earlier films, he played a teenager who was black rather than a black teenager. He continued that in later films so in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? he was a doctor who was black rather than a black doctor and in In the Heat of the Night he played a police detective who was black rather than a black police detective. Without that distinction none of those picture would have had the impact they did.
James Shigeta played a similar role among Asian actors, particularly early in his career, playing straight parts, men who happened to be Japanese-Americans.
And Ricardo Montalban, particularly early in his career, played several roles of this sort. For example, in Battleground he was a soldier who was Hispanic and in the little-known gem Mystery Street he played a police detective who was Hispanic. Both of these but particularly the latter were straight parts. Certainly, he had roles a-plenty in which the ethnic stereotypes were laid on pretty thick—that was the nature of the Hollywood of 60 years ago. But he began the knock on the door.
His two most memorable roles for me were in Fantasy Island and the second Star Trek movie (Wrath of Khan). He had a certain kind of sophistication that is rare these days. I’ll have to check out the earlier work that you mentioned in your post.
The other picture I’d intended to mention in the body of the post was Right Cross, a boxing picture. Also check out his early musicals. He was an incredibly handsome man.
I loved “Battleground” and found his performance in it sterling. Of course, it was one of those melting-pot platoon, one-of-each, U.S. World War II pics that have been so ridiculed and lampooned ever since. They didn’t reflect harsh reality. But by presenting that fantasy America in realistic settings, they helped create the reality, or push it closer to truth.
He was a proud man, proud of his heritage, and he helped change Hollywood for the better. It’s a shame he didn’t make more movies. “Fantasy Island” is what it is, but he could do much better. God rest him.